Strategic Air Command (1955) on Netflix
Approved19551h 52mActionDramaWar
Robert "Dutch" Holland, a third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, holds a lieutenant colonel's commission in the Air Force Reserve. A wartime squadron mate arrives with news of a recall.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.3/104,511 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
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Plot summary
In 1952 Robert "Dutch" Holland plays third base for the St. Louis Cardinals. He flew B-29 bombers in the Pacific during World War II and keeps a lieutenant colonel's commission in the Air Force Reserve. At spring training in St. Petersburg, Florida, a former squadron mate, now Major General "Rusty" Castle, tells him he is needed back in uniform for 21 months, an order that came from above Castle. Holland reports to Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas, to qualify on the B-36, and his wife, Sally, joins him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Strategic Air Command (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- James Stewart was not acting at a distance: he had flown 20 combat missions over Europe, won the Distinguished Flying Cross twice, and was a serving Air Force Reserve colonel qualified on the B-47, although his friend Major A.W. Blizzard Jr. flew much of the B-47 footage.
- Director Anthony Mann admitted the Air Force controlled what he could show and called the human characters paper-mache, so he set out to dramatize the two bombers instead, treating the B-36 and the B-47 as the film's real leads.
- It remains the only motion picture built around the Convair B-36, the largest mass-produced piston-powered aircraft ever made and the first bomber designed to carry the hydrogen bomb, filmed as the type was about to be retired in favour of the jet B-47.
- Stewart's character came from a real airman: Brigadier General Clifford Schoeffler, who crashed on an Arctic B-36 mission and survived, and who was on site at Carswell Air Force Base as a consultant while the film was shot.
- Audiences came out talking about the flying rather than the acting, and the aircraft were arguably the real stars. The film's release was followed by a 25 percent rise in Air Force enlistments.
