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!!!!
