Strategic Air Command

Odd propaganda/recruitment film that serves to show how much the military can ruin your life, which, somehow drove up military recruitment. I think a film on Ted Williams' military career would've been more interesting. 21/MAR/2023

What a boring, boring, boring film. Anthony Mann must have been sedated during filming because this is far duller than I thought he could be. I mean, even James Stewart isn't watchable here.

A horrendous premise for a movie ends up being as bad as you'd expect from it, which is shocking from Mann and Stewart and Allyson. It's a war movie that doesn't take place in war time with almost no conflict other than a slight marital spat that you know will work out. My only explanation is the US Air Force must have been hurting for recruitment in post-war time and paid them to make this. Just baffling. It's not that it's actively awful--it's just boring and you wonder why it exists.

This is a really dull film. There seem to be two things going on here. First, it's an early film shot in Paramount's VistaVision format, and there seems to be a lot more focus on getting admittedly quite impressive aerial photography on the screen than on telling a story with compelling characters. It's also a pretty transparent propaganda exercise, extolling the capabilities of the (then) modern US Air Force to take on the Russkies on the world stage.

The way they portrayed the wife made this film hard to enjoy, a brave man, and a whiny wife.

Run of the mill propaganda piece.

Cold War propaganda film. June Allyson's character gets repeatedly walked over in an unsettling reminder of the era that this was made in. The in-flight scenes are well put together and reasonably engaging. I watched it to see the footage of a local landmark, Al Lang Field.

Standard, flag-waving propaganda flick for the U.S.A.; helped from its average nature by the great Stewart/Mann combination. And it's just so damn pretty.