Review of Strategic Air Command (1955) by Tg D — 26 May 2013

As a child, this was one of the favorite movies of my brothers and I. After all it had e3 of our favorite things in it: baseball, Air Force planes, and parachuting. Plus as a precocious youngster I had a crush on June Allyson.

But I diverge. Judging this as a film basically misses the point. This is a sincere story made to engender empathy and support from a public still weary of war 10 years after the end of WWII for this hard to understand cold war.

For essentially a piece of propaganda packaged into a mainstream movie, it is somewhat surprising to see the anti-war message that is repeated several times. The selling point from the military's point of view (how to defend massive expenditures in a time of peace) was that a massive deterrent would be the very best way to prevent WWIII.

In 1955 that was a worthy point of view, that lasted until the US and Soviets reached the point of "Mutually Assured Destruction." But in the meantime, if the Soviets had any plans to start a war (more likely in Western Europe than in our country), one would have to say the strategy of the Strategic Air Command's mission worked.

So what we really have here is a tiny melodrama between two great stars with onscreen chemistry, the points mentioned above, and numerous luscious scenes of grand planes (many will be too young to have ever seen the enormous and stately B-36, in many ways the most magnificent plane ever flown) floating through the skies amidst grand cloud formations lit with beautiful colors.

Plus, the score is quite lovely (particularly "The World is Mine") and quite effective in its accompaniment of the film. If you view it in the context of the times and its purpose, I believe you will find it to be a very worthy film to see, and a good lesson for this new generation born after the cold war ended.