It was directed by Mark Robson, and stars Douglas Dick, Jeff Corey, Lloyd Bridges, Frank Lovejoy, James Edwards, and Steve Brodie.

Undergoing psychoanalysis by an Army psychiatrist (Corey), paralyzed Black war veteran Private Peter Moss (Edwards) begins to walk again only when he confronts his fear of forever being an "outsider".

The patrol is led by a young major (Dick), and includes Moss's lifelong friend Finch (Bridges), whose death leaves him racked with guilt; bigot Corporal T.J. (Brodie); and the sturdy but troubled Sergeant Mingo (Lovejoy).

Arthur Laurents spent World War II with the Army Pictorial Service based at the film studio in Astoria, Queens, and rose to the rank of sergeant.

After his discharge, he wrote a play called Home of the Brave in nine consecutive nights that was inspired by a photograph of GIs in a South Pacific jungle.

[6] The majority of the film was made on indoor sets, jungle scenes in Baldwin Village, Los Angeles and the climax that took place on Malibu beach with a former navy PT boat.

The New York Herald Tribune reported that a man named Herbert Tweedy imitated the sound of twelve different birds native to the South Pacific for the film.

[8] Director Robson, who had begun his directing career with several Val Lewton RKO horror films, brings a frightening feeling to the claustrophobic jungle set, with Dimitri Tiomkin providing an eerie choral rendition of Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child performed by the Jester Hairston choir as the patrol escapes their Japanese pursuers.