john garfield play a marine who be blind by a grenade while fight on guadalcanal and who have to learn to live with his disability . he have all the stereotypical notion about blindness and and be sure he will be a burden to everyone . the hospital staff and his fellow wound marine can not get through to him . neither can his girl back home play by eleanor parker . he stubborn and blind by his own fear and self pity and and prejudice . it a complex role that garfield carry off memorably in a great performance that keep one watching in spite of the ever present syrupy melodrama . the best scene be on guadalcanal and where he in a machine gun nest try to fend off the advance japanese soldier in a hellish look night time battle and and later a dream sequence in the hospital where he see himself walk down a train platform with a white cane and dark glass and and hold out a tin cup and all the while his girlfriend walk backward away from the camera .