Based on Jaroslav Hašek's 1921–1923 satiric novel The Good Soldier Švejk, the musical focuses on a naive and idealistic young man who, despite his pacifist views, leaves his sweetheart Minny Belle Tompkins to fight in Europe in World War I.

Johnny then manages to bring the skirmish to a temporary halt by incapacitating a meeting of the generals with laughing gas, but once they recover they promptly reinstate the war, resulting in hundreds of thousands of fatalities.

He returns home to discover Minny Belle has married a capitalist, and he settles down as a toymaker who will create anything except tin soldiers, his personal gesture of peace in an increasingly warlike society.

[4] The cast included Russell Collins as Johnny and Phoebe Brand as Minny Belle, with Luther Adler, Morris Carnovsky, Lee J. Cobb, Curt Conway, John Garfield, Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, and Sandy Meisner in supporting roles.

Other roles were played by Martin Milman, Clive Mantle, Tina Marian, Michael McNally, Keith Osborne, Geraldine Wright, Patrick Bailey, David Summer and Andrew Yeats.

A November 1996 recording (Erato 0630-17870-2) offers Donald Wilkinson as Johnny, Ellen Santaniello as Minny Belle, and Paul Guttry as the Mad Psychiatrist; Joel Cohen conducts.