The film was a major box-office success for Warner Bros - it became the second highest grossing box-office hit of the year for Warners (afterDesperate Journey (1942)).] Expressing his basic human rights and impulses, the protagonist protests against heavy-handed rules about watching the World Series, and illegally stages both a fishing trip and a drinking party in the ward - leading o his own paralyzing lobotomy.In the film""s preposterous conclusion on his Chinese junk, as the ""general died at dawn,"" his devoted soldiers were ordered o execute the whites and Mr.The time period of the provocative, sophisticated film is set in the early 50s during the height of right-wing McCarthyism - a time of tense political paranoia with the overriding, reactionary fear that Communists (Russian and Chinese) were scheming to take over the US via advanced brainwashing techniques and programmed terrorist raining.