Donna Reed’s Role as Nurse Sandy Davyss

Reed had the most expressive eyes and she could use them in such a compelling way without a single line of dialogue. There are several scenes where she uses only her eyes to show fear, sympathy, resolve, etc. I loved how they wrote her character too. Sandy has the scene where she visits the PT squadron officers for a dinner and she fixes her hair and puts on the necklace to remind them of the women they loved at home and what they were fighting for. She knew it would make them feel better and boost their morale. But she was also “in the fight” herself and just as courageous and at risk as the men. I liked how the writer did not let the romance with Wayne’s character come to some happy ending. Their romance barely got off the ground before the fall of Bataan, and the two become separated. At the end of the film Sandy’s fate remains unknown, which must have been very realistic to audiences having endured real life tragedies of the war.