The McConnell Story

It's WWII. Army private Joseph "Mac" McConnell, Jr. (Alan Ladd) goes AWOL to learn to fly and escapes from the MPs. He gets a ride from teenager Bob Brown and falls for Bob's sister Pearl (June Allyson) whom he calls Butch. He becomes a gunner in a bomber. Next he becomes a jet test pilot. During the Korean war, he becomes a flying ace.

It's a silly start to a serious biopic of a war hero. It can't be the truth although maybe it is. The light tone is just accentuating the blandness of the story. It's old fashion and lacking in drama. I don't mind the romantic pairing but a little massaging could generate a better meet-cute. Why can't she be the one who picks him up after the parachute? Are they strictly keeping to the real history? I doubt it. The war fighting in the first hour is not the best but it's still better than the ground level story. At least, it has some real flying footage and that saves this relatively flat war biopic. After the first hour, the fighting becomes some nice jet dogfights. It's great to see these old jets up close and in combat. It's really the only truly compelling aspect of this film.

Even for a 1950s "wave the flag" movie, this film's plot is just, well, very bad. It is cliche ridden and inaccurate. The real Capt. Joe McConnell, Korea's highest scoring ace, got all his 16 air to air victories in just the last six months of the Korean War, and was shot down once himself. This could have made for an exciting docudrama. Instead, the director chose to do something less than a high school drama presentation showing June Allison flittering around with her screechy dialogue and Alan Ladd wearing his G-suit too low on his waist. (Never mind the inaccuracies like showing Ladd in a B-17 in WW 2, when McConnell was a B-24 nav).

The "aerial combat sequences" were laughable, especially the F-86s waltzing to AFN radio.

A much better period piece is "The Hunters" with Robert Mitchum.

Not a GREAT film, but certainly watchable. You could easily swap June Allyson's "stalwart wife" performance here with her roles in STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND and THE GLENN MILLER STORY. Alan Ladd was an excellent choice for the title role as you can see at this site: www.acepilots.com/korea_mcconnell.html. Sadly, the ending of the film had to be re-written when Captain McConnell was killed during a test flight of an F86 at Edwards AFB in May of 1954 while the film was still in production. Of Note: McConnell was indeed shot down himself, but he managed to not only nurse his plane to where he could eject and be rescued at sea ("I barely got wet"), he also shot down the Mig (piloted by a Russian "Ace") that had gotten him! He last three kills came on his final day of combat missions whereupon his commanding General ordered his top ACE home.

I read up on the real Captain McConnell and after watching the movie, I wanna read some more. No, it isn't because he was such an interesting guy, but it's because I found the entire first portion of the film ridiculous and impossible to believe. No soldier could have been THIS bad without spending significant time in Leavenworth, the way he meets his wife is stupid and it all seemed like one cliché after another strung together to make an eye-rolling film! It's sad, as Joseph McConnell was a true war hero...and this part of the film makes him seem like a horse's butt! What follows is his career as a bomber navigator on B-24s*, his entry into pilot's school after the war and his becoming the world's most successful jet pilot ace during the Korean War.

Apart from seeming unreal, most of the rest of the film is pretty much by the numbers...not terrible but also not all that involving or good. It's interesting that they chose June Allyson to play the wife, as she would soon go on to playing a VERY similar role in the air film "Strategic Air Command". Otherwise, a film that just should have been better...much better.

*The film used some very grainy stock footage. The worst of it was McConnell's B-24 bomber....in the film it was a B-17...a very, very different looking plane. It wouldn't taken much effort to use the right footage...just a desire to at least get SOME of the film right! Fortunately, the Korean War sequences were better with the use of actual Soviet MiG-15 footage as well as American F-84s doubling as the MiGs (since none were available to the film crew, this was about as close looking as they'd be able get to the enemy planes).

So boring that, about twenty minutes in, I kinda wished it had turned into the Mitch McConnell story.