Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

PodBill Just what I expected

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

dobielovers I'm a pilot and I absolutely love that a large part of the movie is spent showing these beautiful old airplanes in action. The two aircraft shown in this movie both had fairly short careers by modern standards, and unlike the B-52 they are largely forgotten. These aircraft exist only in museums today and this movie is one of the few places where we can see what they were like in the air.Jimmy Stewart did a great job in this movie. Of course, he didn't need to act much since he was an Air Force bomber pilot in WWII, and just like the character he portrayed, he joined the Army Air Force reserve following the war. Stewart continued to serve in the reserve until he retired as a General in the 1960's.It is amazing to me that Jimmy Stewart was able to juggle a career as one of the top actors in Hollywood while also maintaining this very important commitment.Jimmy Stewart is one of my favorite actors but I especially enjoy watching him in this movie knowing about his personal commitment in real life.To people not interested in history or aviation this movie might be a lot less interesting but I suspect it will always be popular with a certain segment of movie viewers.

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).

BigBobFoonman James Stewart flew more than 26 combat missions in WWII as the commander of a B-24. The infamous Ploesti oil field raids were the most dangerous of the war, and he flew a B-24 50ft off the deck on several runs.This was a great man, and a fine, fine actor. His commitment to the U.S. Air Force SAC command resonated in this film. His courage in WWII and the courage and sacrifice of that entire WWII generation has been forgotten in what is left of America---the remaining oldsters of that generation, and their baby-boomer offspring who did not sandblast their brains with pot and booze back in the 60s and 70s being the only group that would enjoy this film and remember what it was all like back then. The rest of the "citizens' of this country register nothing when WWI or II is talked about. They do not even remember the Cold War and the hammer of nukes we all lived under, and still are threatened by.The massive 10-engined (6 props, 4 jets) B-36 was the iconic cornerstone of 50s bomber tech. A magnificent leviathan that could fly for days at very high altitudes, and carry massive amounts of dumb bombs, or, in one aircraft, enough H-bombs to end the world. Google the B-36 and gaze upon an almost surrealistic machine that broke plates, glasses and windows when it flew over with a basso profundo propeller sound unlike anything ever heard before or since.I remember my father pointing them out, very high in the sky, white contrails feathering back for miles behind them....and that roar.....distant and discordant...you could hear a B-36 fly over even at 40,000 feet."Strategic Air Command" was an extended showpiece for that airplane, and a beautiful piece of music, "Symphony of Flight" carries the film into the in-flight scenes that make the movie so transcending of an admittedly formulaic human drama. It is an amazing historical piece that actually shows the transition from props to full jets that the Air Force went through in the 50s. At the end, there is pristine footage of the B-47, the first U.S. jet bomber, and Stewart has an adventure with that.The cockpit shots of the B-36 and B-47 probably drove Russian spies to a frenzy, but for an aviation buff they were the stuff of dreams.The crash landing of Stewart's B-36 was done in miniature format, and actually was a weak point of the film. The model was too small to make the crash look realistic---Howard and Theodore Lydecker could have knocked that scene out of the park.....the bad weather landing of the B-47 at the end of the film was also done in miniature, and looked better, reminding me of how much fun special effects must have been in the pre-CGI days.For an intimate look at a huge Cold warrior, and some beautiful music, plus a look at June Allyson's legs that could make the whole movie for you, I highly recommend "Strategic Air Command"

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.