This now almost-entirely-forgotten flick won an Oscar in 1940 for Best Story (a category discontinued in the early 50s). And boy is there a lot of story here: prison break romp in Act One, high society romance in Act Two, war journalist drama in Act Three, and finally a climactic call-to-arms for the US to join the war in Europe.
Mitchell Leisen has been getting a lot of flowers courtesy of the Criterion Channel, and his don’t-take-this-THAT-seriously tone works for the first half and falls so completely flat at the end. Hitchcock did something quite similar to much greater effect that same year in Foreign Correspondent.