Strategic Air Command
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VHS Movie Reviews of Strategic Air Command
Movie Review: SPECTACULAR! GREATEST AIR THRILLER!
Summary: 5 Stars
STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND is the greatest air thriller of alltime! A PICTURE WITH A FORCE SECOND TO NONE!!!! A powerful, stirring music score by VICTOR YOUNG accompaines this classic! The story of air superiority in the western world, and the prepardness of the Strategic Air Command, gives new meaning to the majestic skies above! Starring with my favorite plane of alltime, the grand Convair B-36 Peacemakers, and the graceful Boeing B-47 Stratojets that take to the skies in an effort to keep peace in the world! This was the only motion picture ever filmed with grand B-36s!!!! Especially exciting was the low executed flyover of a B-36, at Al Lang Field, Tampa, Florida at the opening scenes of STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND! Then came the spectacular majestic aerial scenery of the B-36 (#5734), as it flew from Carswell AFB, Fort Worth, Texas (the home of the B-36s) to Alaska and back. The aerial scenes took my breath away! The music played for this sequence was SKY SYMPHONY, which really opened your eyes, not only to this powerful Convair B-36 Peacemaker in flight, but the role that Strategic Air Command played in global security 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! The story was inspired by the Ted Williams recall to the marines!JAMES STEWART plays former Col. Roert Dutch Holland, a third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals who at the height of his career (signing a $70,000 a year contract), is suddenly recalled back to active duty with the U.S. Air Force and assigned to the Strategic Air Command for 21 months of active duty. His job is to help SAC to be combat ready, in peacetime activity, before war comes again! His wife JUNE ALLYSON (Sally Holland) doesn't fare much as a air force wife, but she yet to find out that she also pregnant. Under the command of FRANK LOVEJOY (General Ennis H. Hawkes), Dutch tries to get the feel of SAC, meeting a former B-29 crew member HARRY MORGAN (Sgt. Bible), a former friend for WWII BRUCE BENNETT (General Rusty Castle) and other officers JAMES MILLIGAN Gen. Espy), and BARRY SULLIVAN (as copilot Rocky Sanford). He even teams up with an disguntled navigator ALEX NICOL (Ike Nolan), as part of a B-36 pickup training crew. Fate deals a bad hand when the B-36 they're flying to Greenland for cold weather tests, crashlands on the frozen tundra completely breaking apart. (The B-36 had a very damaging engine fire!) The special-effects of the B-36 crashlanding were memorable, much like the crashlandings of the spaceship JUPITER 2 in the TV series LOST IN SPACE! The crashlanding results in Dutch experiencing a serious shoulder injury, which unfortunately he neglects through the rest of the film! An injury that will be his undoing! Rescued along with Ike, Dutch not only has to face his commanding general Hawkes, but also returns home to Carswell AFB, to see that his wife Sally has given birth to a baby girl. He now recieves a new assignment to fly B-47 Stratojets at Mc Dill AFB, Tampa, Florida. The sequence of the B-47 using RATO is aweinspiring!
When the call comes to fly an oversea flight to Japan, Dutch recieves word that a player named Brewster, broke his leg, and an opening is needed to be filled. Dutch reluctant of being part of SAC at the start, now believes that being there is more important than finishing his baseball career, and immediately signs up with the USAF and the Strategic Air Command permanently! When he breaks the news to Sally she becomes very tearful and upset, and races over to catch Dutch before he takes with 45 other B-47s. She angrily berates Gen. Hawkes, while Gen Castle is there. She soon regrets her behavior! Dutch continues to fly, but has to land his B-47 at Kadena AFB, in Okinawa, due to inclement weather. Ther is a breataking sequence of the midair refueling of the B-47 from Boeing KC-97 tanker!!!! While attempting to land at Kadena AFB, his neglected shoulder injury acts up paralizing his right side, and forcing an emergency landing in pouring rain. This was the 2nd special effects of STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND, and it too was great to watch! Dutch is fnally discharged at Offutt AFB (the headquarters of SAC), in Omaha, Nebraska by Gen Hawkes, and enters the waiting arms of his wife Sally who has come to see him. They makes their apoplgies, and embrace as a flight of B-47s fly overhead, thus ending the film. Two other music selections are noted: the majestic THE AIR FORCE TAKES COMMAND, played durung the opening credits; and the tender memorable love song THE WORLD IS MINE played with great feeling during the bedroom sequence as Dutch leaves Sally to fly to Greenland! All the music I love and especially love to hear THE WORLD IS MINE. STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND takes off to a new realm of high flying adventure and drama. There will never be a film like it ever! It's one will treasure always! A piece of americana and heritage to cherish forever!!!!
Movie Review: Historically Accurate; watch it for the aircraft
Summary: 4 Stars
For many of us, the cold war now seems impossibly far away. However, for those of us whose fathers were in the military during the peak of the war, the concern was always that we could be attacked at any time by the Soviet Union.Our first line of defense, before our missiles became more accurate, was huge bombers. When these huge aircraft flew, their power and size seemed awe-inspiring. Looking back at this movie, the B-36 now seems ungainly and incredibly complex. The B-47 seems less ungainly, but technology has clearly superceded both these aircraft.
This movie comes across as a recruiting film for the Air Force, and to a certain extent a patriotic film justifying our strategic air forces. The plot is relatively simple, and trying to spice it up with a sub-story regarding Jimmy Stewart's career as a baseball player and his relationship with his wife becomes a distraction. The focus of this movie is flying big bombers.
What gloriously complex aircraft these were. The scenes showing the takeoff of the B-36 were incredible. For airplane enthusiasts, the portion of the film focusing on the reading of the checklist is unusual (because for most people it would seem boring) and unique. Watching how the plane is powered up is nearly worth the exercise of watching the film.
Later we get to watch as the B-47 is transitioned into the active military. We watch as the B-47 is flown in poor weather conditions, and watch the fatigue and boredom set in as the crews flew incredibly lengthy missions.
Some of the most interesting and now somewhat anachronistic parts of the movies are those portions dealing with the functioning of Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases. These bases were very highly protected, and exercises were continuously run to assure that saboteurs or an enemy invading force would be repelled by base security forces. During their period of duty, crews were either in the air or standing by on alert, ready to jump in their plane and be airborne in less than 15 minutes. I remember well an exercise called a "total recall" where every member of the base is called to duty to be prepared for a possible enemy attack.
While the parts of the movie dealing with Jimmy Stewart the baseball player and husband are relative distractions, they do point out the sacrifice that many people made to be in the military at that time. Military aircraft were huge and complex, and tended to break down a lot. The missions were incredibly long, and the flight systems relatively crude, requiring fatiguing concentration. For all the hardship of flying, the pay was low, and often the working conditions including the noise and cold (military aircraft are generally not well-insulated - note how the flight crew is dressed; it was cold up there) were uncomfortable to say the least.
This movie is a rarity that is close to being a historical artifact. While some of the operational details are simplified, in general the scenes depicted are relatively accurate. Further, the scenes with the aircraft are rare and detailed. Forget the plot of this movie; it's about the airplanes, Jimmy Stewart's love of flying and a time that was not so far away.
Movie Review: THE WAY WE WERE
Summary: 5 Stars
I know this film very well and it brings back memories of being a Royal Canadian Air Force Brat with my Dad and Mom on exchange at Craig (ALA) & McChord (Wash) Airbases in the early sixties. Although the film is set at about 1955, it captures the era perfectly. A rather interesting time when we had all to play for; there was still real value in giving more of yourself to your country and having a serios sense of duty. Way before poltical correctness and quotas and such; the movie is a nostalgic look at a very real threat to our way of life at the time. Thank goodness we had those WW2 guys still around flying through the 50s and 60s.The shots of the B36 ("6 Turning and 4 Burning")and B47 (the immediate precurser to the B52)are excellent. Two vary rare aircraft and we are lucky to still have them captured on film in all their majesty. Truly startling and proud images.
If you want a bit of nostalgia - Go out and buy the film.
All the best to all the 'VooDoo One O' Wonders' who served in 416 (AW) Fighter Squadron RCAF/CAF. Per Ardua Ad Astra!
PMK
Movie Review: Two Giants
Summary: 5 Stars
I am waiting until this is released on DVD, it will be real feast for the eyes.This was a fascinating time of revolutionary aircraft design, and the beginning of the cold war. To see the B-36, one of the largest aircraft flown, in all its glory, the very accurate sets, not to mention Jimmy Stewart in his prime, is a ture pleasure. Stewart had flown bombers over Europe in world war two, so he know how to portray a pilot.
Two giants, one of the air and one of the screen.
Movie Review: Based on a true story
Summary: 3 Stars
It would be crazy to say anyone enjoyed the Second World War but James Stewart found his work as a bomber pilot and wing executive far more rewarding than anything he had done in Hollywood. He seriously considered remaining in the Air Force, and to some extent regretted for the rest of his life his decision to go back to acting.This film is a dramatization of his dilema. In this picture he's a baseball player called up by the Air Force reserve, who becomes so captivated with the work that he decides to remain in the service, until an injury forces him out. It's basically the story of a man who falls in love with a job, and then has it taken away from him. It's probably as close as the public ever got to a glimpse of the real man.There is one huge flaw to the project. June Alyson has a thankless role as a whiny housewife who mopes around the base waiting for her husband Stewart to bomb on back from Alaska or wherever. Edit this out and you have a film of real period and dramatic interest.