Owen Hughes’s review published on Letterboxd:
Although it improved on a second viewing, I wasn't very impressed with Frank Borzage's romantic war drama to begin with anyway so it's hardly shot up from, say, a 3/10 to a 9/10. It's got a bit more to it than your average melodramatic war drama from the era, with some really nice shadow effects that haunt the place, but the story is like a slide show of the best bits of the book (which I've shamefully never read). It's just one clip after another with a very loose strand connecting it all.
That said, it is quite racy for an American film from the early 30's. It's often implied the two main characters, a lieutenant (Gary Cooper) and a nurse (Helen Hayes), are bonking away like rabbits and have been quite promiscuous in the past, although it's very rarely explicit. The moments of light relief dotted throughout are at best tame and ineffective, at worst borderline racist. The ending is suitably dark and pessimistic, but doesn't really have any punch to it as the set up is weak.
I imagine stretched out to 120 minutes (or longer) made today with a bit more care for building the relationship, it could be a great film. You would lose that post-war atmosphere though, I guess. Still, like I said, I enjoyed it a bit more this time but it's still not fantastic.