 Releasing it slightly in advance of the film (normal for the era), Lancer Books published a novelization of the screenplay, by Lou Cameron, a ubiquitous, notable and award-winning pulpsmith of the '60s through the '80s, among whose specialties was novels of men at war.Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" wrote that the film "has a kind of slow, tranquilized dignity and a disarming desire to please.The extent to which it succeeds will depend largely on one's susceptibility to the old Sabu syndrome."