Strategic Air Command

Strategic Air Command is a 1955 American military aviation film starring James Stewart and June Allyson, directed by Anthony Mann, and released by Paramount Pictures. It was the first of four Hollywood films that depicted the role of the Strategic Air Command in the Cold War era. Strategic Air Command was the second film released in Paramount's new widescreen format, VistaVision, in color by Technicolor and Perspecta pseudo-stereo sound. It would also be Stewart and Mann's eighth and final collaboration and the last of three films that paired Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson, the others being The Stratton Story and The Glenn Miller Story. Plot In 1951, Robert "Dutch" Holland (James Stewart) is a professional baseball player with the St. Louis Cardinals. A B-29 bomber pilot during World War II, he retains a commission as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force Reserve, but is on inactive, non-drilling status. During spring training at Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, he is recalled to active duty for 21 months. He reports to his posting at Carswell Air Force Base, a bomber base in Fort Worth, Texas, to qualify in the Convair B-36. He arrives in a civilian business suit, for which he is rebuked by General Hawkes (Frank Lovejoy), the commander of SAC, and replies that his uniforms are "the wrong color" (implying he has been inactive at least since the Air Force replaced the brown United States Army Air Forces uniform with a distinctive blue service dress uniform, which had occurred three years earlier in 1949). The General's character is clearly patterned after the real SAC commander of the time, General Curtis LeMay. Dutch is given a staff job with the bombardment wing at Carswell that involves a lot of flying. He soon has a B-36 crew of his own, selecting a former World War II colleague as his flight engineer, and becomes enamored with both flying and the role of SAC in deterring war. He is joined by his wife, Sally (June Allyson), who had not bargained on being an Air Force wife, and who struggles with his repeated absences and the dangers of flying. On any given night, Dutch might find his aircraft on airborne alert far from the continental United States, in secret, only telling his wife when he returns days later. Even so, Sally tells Dutch that she is happy as long as they can be together, no matter what he decides to do with his life.