Wendall Corey plays an experienced combat pilot but is unfamiliar with the new B-29. His instructor is played by Forrest Tucker, who is still experiencing guilt over a failed raid in the European theater he tried to cover up. Tucker's low-volume delivery during his opening scenes is so underplayed that he seems to be under a sedative. There are short, thankless appearances by Walter Brennan as a Major in the Army Air Force. Both pilots are vying for the affection of Vera Ralston as a nurse. One will instantly wonder why she is even in this picture, so far from home. Perhaps she followed her first love, Tucker, from Europe. Her own version of English seems out of place in Kansas or the islands of the Pacific Ocean. As the old adage goes, "It's not what, but who you know." The former Czech ice-skating star had just become the bride of Herbert J. Yates, founder and President of Republic Pictures. He used her in many film flops, with her amateurish acting helping sink all but two.
Also on hand for a high, anemic vocal delivery is William Witney as General Curtis E. LeMay, who was also not an actor. In this regard, Witney seems to have captured his monotone delivery. Thanks to a tobacco pipe, he somewhat looked the part. Still not as convincing as the B-29. More familiar second-string faces are on hand. Of note are Harry Carey, Jr., Wally Cassell, Richard Erdman, and Ruth Donnelly, who have extended screen time. Phil Harris is on tap to pour on his lady charms and perform a musical ditty following an abrupt edit on the airfield base. The latter brings the film's credibility down faster than an unopened parachute. This is likely the only WW2 story that includes uncredited roles for two Lone Ranger stars, Jay Silverheels and John Hart, the one-season masked ranger.
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As expected from a low-budget production, parts of the film use repeated combat stock footage. An obvious case of "willy-nilly" editing was when P-51 Mustangs suddenly became ancient P-39 Airacobras. The Japanese "Zeros" appear to be portrayed by aircraft models with non-retracting landing gear, yet they were not German Stukas.
The Superfortress was under-powered, and the first filmed take-off somewhat indicates this, as one crewmember thinks they will not get airborne by the end of the runway. Two B-29s (Silverplates) had to be lightened, the engines tweaked for more power, and the bomb bay modified to house the atomic bomb that ended the war with Japan. There are a lot of 1944 superlatives of the plane thrown about in the screenplay. The accolades would soon triple four years later for the enormous and over-powered Convair B-36. A multi-ship flyby of the planes is used at the very end of this film, signaling the future of strategic bombing. Though the B-29 made the B-17 seem small, the Superfortress was literally dwarfed by the Convair giant. When this film was released, the B-29 was being phased out of front-line service, yet it played a role in the Korean War's night bombing campaign.
The film is scripted to open at Smoky Hill Army Airfield, near Salina, Kansas, an actual training base for the B-29. However, there were at least four airfields where the actual 1951 filming took place. One airfield of significance was Roswell Army Air Field (Walker AFB by 1948). The 509th Composite Group, pictured in stock footage, relocated to Roswell after pulling out of Tinian Island. Walker soon became the largest base of seven to house and service the B-36.
Notes: The music score for this film is by Victor Young, who splices in pieces of the official Air Force song by Robert Crawford. Young would be much more committed to providing a dynamic score to "Strategic Air Command" (1955), the only Hollywood film to feature the Convair B-36. Accurate for a 1953 assessment.
Also with a consistently powerful music score is “Above and Beyond” (1952), a first-rate film about the B-29. It is an accurate story of aircraft commander Col. Paul Tibbets, the 509th Bomb Squadron, and the "Enola Gay" that dropped the first atomic bomb.
