Clark Gable plays Ulysses "Lee" Johnson, a not long ago discharged war surgeon whose self-complacency is shaken by his particular and expert beat encounters, softening his misanthropy and easing a nexus with his estranged wife. The gravity of the procedure is founded in the title of Sidney Kingsley novel on which the film is based, The Homecoming of Ulysses (1944), invoking Homer's historical Greek epic.