I’m old enough to remember when the Air National Guard still had some F-106s. The other day we watched Super 8, which was set in 1979 and featured the Air Force personnel as the Bad Guys. No planes, but it was interesting to see someone other than the Army or some kind of special forces. It got me thinking about films in general that feature the USAF, and the late-'50s/early-'60s and the days of the ‘Century Fighters’. I grew up near a couple of Naval Air Stations, so I’d see F-4s Phantom IIs and F-14 Tomcats flying around. As a young adult I worked at an Air Force base and saw F-4s, F-15s, F-16s, T-38s, B-1s, and various experimental aircraft. The Navy has Top Gun, and the Air Force has The Right Stuff; but what I’d really like to see is some USAF-themed films that were shot in the time period in which they took place.
There’s Strategic Air Command with Jimmy Stewart. Good film. Any number of films have incidental shots of USAF aircraft. For example, The Thing From Another World has the C-47, War Of The Worlds has a B-49, and other films have clips of F-86s or F-101s scrambling to the chase. But these are incidental. Dr. Strangelove; Or, How I learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb and Fail Safe featured B-52 bombers. Those were great.
What are some ‘Century Fighter’-era movies that take place primarily on Air Force bases and/or focus on USAF personnel?
Additionally, what films feature the USAF Auxiliary, Civil Air Patrol?
Just off the top of my head, how about Failsafe with Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, etc? They were trying to defuse a SAC attack and it would likely have a few shots.
I think the movie version of the Fail-Safe bombers looked more like B-58s. I don’t recall what kind were mentioned in the book. I also don’t recall how many external shots there were of the bombers, other than the stock footage when they were shown taking off.
But, more to the point, another Air Force movie was “Bombers B-52,” featuring a young Natalie Wood.
Argh, I missed your Failsafe mention, apologies! He’s the wiki on the Convair B-58 Hustler.
*"The B-58 has also appeared in the 1964 film Fail-Safe, where stock footage of B-58s was used to represent the fictional “Vindicator” bombers which attacked Moscow. Interestingly, the art used in the original magazine publication of the novel had depicted the “Vindicator” bombers - itself the recycling of the name of a World War II American dive bomber - as almost identical to B-58s but equipped with canards.[44]
In Fail Safe, a 2000 made-for-TV remake starring George Clooney, the fictional Vindicator bomber was again represented by the B-58 Hustler."*
There’s “A Gathering of Eagles” with Rock Hudson. It’s somewhat in the mode of “Twelve O’Clock High” in that it’s more about the leadership than flying.
Pre-century fighter but how about Battle Hymn? Rock Hudson plays a WWII vet who becomes a minister after the war. He is recalled for Korea to take command of a squadron. Based on a true story.
Eta looking it up I see they were flying P-51s. I had forgotten that.
There was a '50s flick with John Wayne and Janet Leigh, in which he was a USAF colonel and she was a Russian defector. She came over in what they said was basically a Soviet version of the T-33 (it wasn’t) and were flying, IIRC, F-94s and F-96s; probably others as well, but it’s been almost 30 years since I saw the movie on late-night, and I don’t remember.
One thing that did stick with me was that the AF officers were wearing weird combinations of brown and blue uniform parts. I’ve always wondered if there was indeed a transitional period in which Army uniforms were still being issued to AF personnel, or if the movie had just been Colorized badly. (I remember seeing such a '40s Sherlock Holmes movie, in which a USAAF officer was wearing the correct period uniform but they had colored it blue instead of brown.)
In Strategic Air Command, I’m pretty sure, Stewart was flying B-47s, at least for part of the movie.
In the book Fail-Safe, the fighters are called “Skyscrappers,” and from the brief description that was given of them sounded a lot like F-104s (e.g., missiles with stubby wings).
The Hunters starring Robert Mitchum. Some terrific footage of F-86 Sabres, including dropping external tanks. Not a bad story either.
The Bridges at Toko-Ri. I believe they’re flying Grumman Panthers. I’ve always thought of this film as the Top Gun of its day. The scene where William Holden has to trap with a crane sitting on the deck is one of my all time favorites. I’ve had a few landings with a pucker factor, but nothing like that!
