If the movie moguls don't wake up pretty soon, this tale, which might more aptly be called the story of Gary Cooper, is going to have an unhappy ending.

Most of action in "The Story of Dr. Wassell" takes place on the Jap besieged island of Java early in 1942. Use of the flashback technique to bring out the history of Dr. Wassell's life serves only to confuse the spectator. In between shots of battles on Java appear sequences showing the deuter's earlier experiences as a minor Louts Pasteur in China.

The weak and threadbare plot revolves around Dr. Wassell's love for an American nurse played by Laraine Day. During one of the frequent flashbacks, one learns that he has run out on the beautiful nurse just as he was bout to propose to her, because of a telegram telling him that another researcher has already found the answer to his quest. It is not until the end of the movie, when Dr. Cooper, or Wassell, has led a band of wounded men through air raids, battles and stormy seas to safety in Australia, that he is reunited with his bride-to-be.

The picture's chief fault is that the Hollywooden heads, in attempting to produce a "best-seller," have turned a simple, true story into a lurid piece of sensationalism. Instead of the inspiring epic recited by President Roosevelt in his famous 1942 radio address, one sees a movie distinguished by its attempts to turn Dr. Wassell into a Lou Gehrig or a Sergeant York.