Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Connianatu How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Leofwine_draca Anthony Mann and James Stewart paired up for numerous features in the 1950s, their best work being that in the western genre. STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND is something different, a look at the workings of a bomber command crew during the Cold War. Stewart gives an effortlessly likeable performance as the family man battling with duty at home and at work, while the all-colour production certainly looks nice and aeroplane fans will be delighted by the technology of the era. It's certainly watchable enough for fans of the actor and movies of the era. However, it's all a little too worthy, a little too dull. The drama that evolves is rather predictable in nature and all of the bits with June Allyson merely drag. You can't help but think a WW2-themed movie would have been more satisfying.

vincentlynch-moonoi Do you like a film with a good, solid plot? Well, then look elsewhere. This film is not about plot...at all. This film was designed to highlight the Strategic Air Command.There's a very loose story to hold the film together -- Jimmy Stewart plays a WWII era soldier who has become a baseball, only to be called back into the service to help get the SAC off the ground. His wife -- June Allyson -- has varying feelings about the call-back, but she is generally supportive of her husband. Eventually, an injury sidelines Stewart's character. That's about it.Lest you think there's nothing particularly impressive about this film, the flight sequences -- real flight sequences -- a stunningly photographed. In fact, that may be the best thing about the film! For a film with little plot, it has a very strong cast. Jimmy Stewart does a very nice job as a flier who is none to happy to be called back to service, but then gets wrapped up in the mission. June Allyson is bubbly June Allyson...type casting...although she has one dandy scene telling off a general! Frank Lovejoy is strong as the general; Lovejoy is little remembered, but was quite a good actor in his day. Barry Sullivan is along in a rather bland role. Jay C. Flippen and Harry Morgan -- too fine character actors -- are along and do nicely.Aside from the aerial photography, two things impressed me. First, you get a good look at the inside of some of the planes. Second, Stewart really was a military pilot, so it's interesting to see him in this role.Nevertheless, nothing makes up for a lack of plot, so I give this film a "6". If you have some special reason to watch a film on the topic, then you might enjoy it -- I did, my father was in the Strategic Air Command (albeit as a sergeant in the food service wing, but he was very proud of his service there).

jhkp This is actually one of the few good films made in the 1950s about the cold war. It's not full of unpalatable, heavy-handed anti-Communist propaganda. Instead, it's a believable human story of a man and his wife struggling to understand why it's necessary for him to give up his current way of life (as a major-league baseball player with a new home) to help defend his country in peacetime. James Stewart and June Allyson again prove to be a great screen couple in an involving, well-acted, ultimately moving story that was a huge hit in its day.Sally Holland (Allyson) questions why her husband, Dutch (Stewart), agrees to return to active service when there's no war. Dutch tries to make her understand that "it is a kind of war." This argument occurs to illustrate the need for active vigilance vs. passive indifference in the ongoing Cold War. The whole film seems to exist to illustrate the rightness of Stewart's side of the argument, and to show those in the audience thinking more like Allyson that to refuse to defend against the threat of nuclear war with the Soviets is irresponsible.Yet there's a sort of subversive undercurrent in the film that suggests Allyson has a point. And I think this is why the film remains one of the more subtle Cold War propaganda films. The writing and direction (Anthony Mann) manage to respect the characters rather than the ideology.Meanwhile we have an entertaining story in stunning VistaVision and Technicolor, really superb cinematography (both on the ground and in the skies), and a great score by Victor Young which has several beautiful themes.The supporting cast contains several actors who were stars in their own right: Barry Sullivan, Alex Nicol, Bruce Bennett, Frank Lovejoy (as General Hawks, a Curtis LeMay type), as well as James Millican, Jay C. Flippen, James Bell, Harry Morgan, and Rosemary DeCamp. The fact that many of these very important actors would take what were almost bit parts, in some cases, speaks to the importance of this project. The poignant ending is also extraordinary and unexpected. Dutch Holland, having given up an amazing career that would be the envy of most men in order to serve his country as a pilot, sustains an injury that leaves him unable to fly, as well as unable to return to a career in sports. It's a great irony. Stewart hasn't literally given his life for his country, but he's given up a great deal. It's an example of the unspoken heroism of so many who served. The final scene says it all, as we see the mixture of emotions on Stewart's face as he stands with Allyson watching the planes flying. And then the camera cuts away and the film is over. A very moving moment beautifully acted by the stars. By the way, it's not June Allyson's fault that in this film she had to play a kind of devil's advocate role that forced her to question a lot of her husband's and the Air Force's prerogatives, for the sake of exposition. She does a good job, even though some of what she's asked to do would probably be more easy to accept coming from a younger, more emotionally immature bride. Nonetheless, If you enjoy the chemistry she and Stewart have on the screen, as I do, you'll appreciate their artistry and subtlety in their scenes together. They give an emotional slant to an essentially technical, military story. At the time, both stars were at the top of their careers, being the most popular stars at the box office in 1955. In 2016, Olive Films released a beautiful print on DVD and Blu-ray, in wide screen.

Robert J. Maxwell Interesting story of Dutch Holland (James Stewart) and his wife (June Allyson) and their involvement with the Strategic Air Command of the U.S. Air Force in the post-war years. Holland, an ex bomber pilot, is now a successful third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals and has just signed a contract for seventy thousand bucks. His career is interrupted when the Air Force activates his reserve status and he's hauled back in for 21 months. Holland has a lot of catching up to do but learns to love flying the huge B-36 and then the slim B-47. He's a good officer and reenlists, which perturbs his wife, but a bad shoulder forces him out of the Air Force and, presumably, he goes back to baseball as a coach or manager.The movie is practically a recruitment film for the Strategic Air Command, promoting self sacrifice for the sake of a nation on the brink of war. The incidents we witness are familiar from earlier war movies. All that's missing is the war itself.June Allyson plays June Allyson, the steadfast, common-sense wife, who endorses Stewart's first hitch but balks at the second. Some sit-com humor is gotten out of their adjustment to military life. They move from a prosperous-looking home into a standard typical spare functional monochromatic generic Monopoly Air Force house. The re-introduction to military routine is played for some sarcasm too. Stewart has gone for a medical check up but he's late. "Well, honey, they go over you from head to foot here, and they've only gotten down to my throat." There is the requisite cigar-chomping tough general, modeled after the brave but reckless Curtis LeMay who ran SAC at the time. The tedium of being checked out on various airplanes is omitted. And there is a soaring score by Victor Young that almost adds lift to the wings of those stone-heavy B-36s.Interesting airplanes, B-36s. The largest combat airplane ever produced. As in a training film, the story guides us through the vast interior of this machine, crowing a bit over the 80-foot-long "Holland Tunnel" that connects the fore and aft compartments. The thing was a dinosaur, of course, designed during WWII to deliver bombs from the US to Germany in case Britain fell, slow, ungainly and obsolescent almost from the beginning. The B-47 represented a new paradigm -- twice as fast and with a crew of only three men. And the B-36s replacement, the B-52, has had a service life of half a century. There are also a few proud shots of Globemaster transports, huge things, seen swallowing an 18-wheeler whole from its open maw, like a python swallowing a shoat. It seems impossible.Gorgeous shots of airplanes in flight. (In fact, the photography, by seasoned pro William H. Daniels, is superb.) Seeing this spacious bomber fly from Texas to Alaska and back without refueling generates a desire to be aboard. There's even a built-in coffee station. Maybe glazed donuts with sprinkles.I've seen it twice and enjoyed it both times despite the stereotypical script. The airplanes make the rest of it worthwhile.