In a contemporary review for
The New York Times, critic
Bosley Crowther panned the film, including Kramer's directing and Mitchum's acting: "The delineator of this exegesis is a stolid young medical man whose personality and fierce determination should make a feature-length study in themselves. And the fact that Mr. Kramer has not managed to force a clear understanding of his man is quite as much a shortcoming of the picture as is the flat performance of Robert Mitchum in the role. ... With so much dissecting in his picture—and so much of it being good—it is too bad that Mr. Kramer couldn't have done a little on his characters."
The Philadelphia Inquirer, citing the huge sales of the source novel, thought the film had "perhaps the largest ready-made audience since
Gone With the Wind", though "Whether this audience will be satisfied with the compressed, considerably altered version Kramer has given them remains to be seen….a disturbing lack of courage in the script which treads timidly in dealing with the seamier side of medicine…badly miscast in its two key roles…. Mitchum is, bluntly, a shattering disappointment…. Expressionless, ill at ease, Mitchum moves stolidly through a series of episodes which should certainly have revealed him as more than a robot. Equally at sea is Olivia de Havilland, bleached and with a Swedish accent that comes and goes….she even, following her husband's infidelity, orders Luke from the house, a thing Thompson's devoted doormat of a woman would never have dreamed of doing…. far better than the stars are Charles Bickford…and Broderick Crawford…. Lon Chaney is grotesque as Luke's alcoholic father; Gloria Grahame a conventional movie siren…and Myron McCormick far too pleasant as the unethical, incompetent head of Greenville's mismanaged hospital." The
Citizen-News praised the film's authenticity: "There is a fine ring of authenticity to every scene involving the story's medical aspects, and the fast 'shock' clip showing the beating heart of a patient takes you, scalpel in hand, into the surgical center of the hospital." However, the paper's review was critical of the acting and casting: "... Bickford's acting was the one bright spot in a set of standard performances. ... [T]he principal roles were miscast, with the exception of Bickford and Miss Grahame." The
Los Angeles Times described the film's premiere at the Stanley-Warner
Beverly Hills Theatre as "... truly festive ... with an especially large street crowd, and a mood of celebration that was all prevailing." The newspaper's critic Edwin Schallert praised the film, calling it "... one of the strongest dramatic pictures exhibited to the public thus far this year." ==Release==