they had the footage they
needed.” Douglas was
QUXZM[[MLJa\PMÅVITÅTU
“It really made the B-36
look good,” he said. “That
was a lot of airplane, and
the movie did a good job
of it.”
For the B-47 Strato jet
sequences, Para mount
made good use of Air
Force aerial refueling
footage. When Dutch
is trying to land in bad
weather at Kadena AFB
on Okinawa, the cam-
era shoots from over
his shoulder to peer
through a windscreen
being swept by a sin-
gle wiper. The cock-
pit mockup is now on
display at the March
Field Air Museum in
Riverside, Calif. The
aircraft exterior and
interior scenes are so
technically detailed that it wouldn’t be suprising
QN\PMÅTU_I[[\]LQMLJa;W^QM\QV\MTTQOMVKM
On the tails of Command came another bomber
epic, Bombers B-52 (1957), which used SAC’s
massive Boeing B-52 Stratofortress as a backdrop
for a battle of wits between a playboy pilot and
a career sergeant. Karl Malden plays Master Sgt.
Chuck Brennan, whose daughter Lois (Natalie
Wood) is being romantically pursued by Colonel
Jim Herlihy (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.). The Air Force is
Brennan’s career and life, but he is also a devoted
husband and father. Herlihy tries to appease
Brennan but is unable to convince the sergeant
that his intentions are honorable. While this is
going on, the new B-52 is coming into service and
the Air Force needs Brennan’s expertise.
)ÅZMIJWIZLIVM_* W^MZIZMUW\MIZMI
forces the crew to bail out. Brennan remains onJWIZL\W\Za\W[I^M\PM[PQXJ]\ÅVITTaR]UX[
TIVLQVONIZNZWUZM[K]M0MZTQPaÅVL[PQUIVL
Brennan no longer protests the budding romance.
Directed by Gordon Douglas, Bombers B-52 was
shot on location at March AFB and Castle AFB
outside Merced, Calif. The Stratofortress was
brand-new at the time, and the USAF was happy
to display its newest hardware. Because the main
character was a dedicated career sergeant, Time
magazine called the movie a “$1.4 million want
ad for Air Force technicians.”
Zimbalist remembered that he was awed by the
P]OMJWUJMZ[IVL\PMUMV_PWÆM_\PMU¹)
XQTW\\WWSUM]XWVIÆQOP\IVL1_I[R][\IUIbML
at the complexity,” he said. “When we were on the
runway he told me I could steer it over to the park-
ing area. I said, ‘I can’t do that!’ But the pilot said,
‘Relax, just steer it like a car. There’s the wheel,
and there’s the brake.’ So I did. The smoothness
was amazing. That enormous machine handled
like a bicycle.” Zimbalist did not receive much
instruction about how to appear experienced at
the controls. “I just sat there and did what they
told me.”
The skies over Korea are the setting for The
Hunters (1958), a raw account of life and death
in the air based on James Salter’s autobiographical
novel. Robert Mitchum is Major “Iceman” Saville,
IKWVÅLMV\NWZUMZ??11ÅOP\MZIKM;I^QTTMQ[
second-in-command of an F-86 Sabre squadron
in Korea under Colonel “Dutch” Imil, played by
Richard Egan. In a complex plot involving extra-
UIZQ\ITIٺIQZ[IVLW^MZMV\P][QI[\QKÅOP\MZXQTW\[
The Hunters unfortunately deviates from Salter’s
classic work. But there are some compelling aerial
combat sequences between the American F-86s
and a top North Korean ace dubbed “Casey
Jones” in a MiG-15. The F-86s were part of an
operational squadron, and most of the aerial
sequences were shot over Arizona, Nevada and
California. The MiG-15s were played by F-84F
Thunderstreaks painted in Communist markings.
In 1983 Philip Kaufman directed The Right
;\]ٺ, based on Tom Wolfe’s bestselling account
WN\PMMIZTaLIa[WNÆQOP\\M[\IVL\PM5MZK]Za
Program. While technically superb, PM:QOP\ٺ]\;
is about as historically accurate as an Abbott &
Costello comedy.
Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) is first seen in
Pancho Barnes’ Happy Bottom Riding Club on the
outskirts of Muroc Army Air Base in the Mojave
Desert. When the current X-1 test pilot, Chalmers
“Slick” Goodlin, demands an exorbitant fee for
JZMISQVO\PM[W]VLJIZZQMZ\PM)ZUaÅVL[Q\[MTN
QVVMMLWNIXQTW\7VMWٻKMZXWQV\[IKZW[[\PM
room: “That guy over there, Yeager. Some kind
WN_IZPMZW;PW\LW_VÅ^M/MZUIV[QVWVMLIaº
In reality Yeager was at the time doing advanced
ÆQOP\\M[\QVONWZ\PM)ZUa)QZ.WZKM[I\?ZQOP\
Field in Ohio, under the aegis of Colonel AlbertTHE ICEMAN COMETH
In The Hunters, very
loosely based on
James Salter’s Korean
War novel, Robert
Mitchum’s North
American F-86F (top)
battles MiG-15s,
portrayed by Republic
F-84F Thunderstreaks.58 AH September 2019