'The McConnell Story' movie review

(C) Warner Home Video

The McConnell Story (1955) 
  
Originally titled Tiger in the Sky, The McConnell Story is a standard issue biopic about U.S. Air Force Capt. Joseph C. McConnell, Jr. (Alan Ladd), the top American ace of the Korean War (with 16 credited kills of Soviet-made MiG-15s) and of the entire jet era (as of this writing). 

Written by Sam Rolfe (The Naked Spur) and Ted Sherdeman (Them!), The McConnell Story also starred June Allyson as Capt. McConnell’s wife Pearl “Butch” Brown and character actor James Whitmore as Col. Ty “Dad” Wyman, a former enlisted man who is Mac’s friend and Korean War commanding officer. 

Directed by Gordon Douglas (Robin and the Seven Hoods, Them!) The McConnell Story is a typical pro-Air Force movie of the 1950s.  Made in part to enhance the new service branch’s public reputation after it was split off from the Army in 1947, Tiger in the Sky began production while Mac was a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base but had to change its title (and ending) when McConnell’s F-86H Sabre fatally crashed in the summer of 1954. 

The film follows Mac’s career from his disastrous attempt to study medicine (he doesn’t cut it as a medical student) to his military career, first in the Army Air Forces as a somewhat undisciplined air trainee, then (to his bitter disappointment) as a navigator on a Consolidated B-24 Liberator. 

Like most young officers who joined the Army to fly, Mac longs to fly solo in a fighter plane. Even after resigning himself to accept his navigator’s assignment on the lumbering B-24s, he still hopes to achieve his goal even if it means remaining in the military after World War II. 

As part of the brand-new U.S. Air Force, Mac finally earns his wings in early 1948, but is initially rebuffed when he asks for a combat assignment in Korea when war breaks out there in 1950.  “You’re too old for jets,” Mac – then 28 years old – is told.  

But McConnell persists and eventually gets his wish: he is assigned to fly F-86 Sabres with the 51st Fighter Wing in the late summer of 1952.  Though a gifted “man with the stick” and blessed with keen eyesight, Mac doesn’t get any “MiG Kills” until early 1953. 

Within a few months, McConnell shows the Air Force that even though he might be “too old” he still has a fighter pilot’s “right stuff.”  He tangles with pilots from Communist China, North Korea and even an ace from the Soviet Union. He also survives a mission in which he has to eject over the Yellow Sea after his F-86 “Beauteous Butch” is badly damaged by enemy flak. 

In addition to highlighting Mac’s wartime exploits as an aviator, The McConnell Story also devotes screen time to his relationship with his wife Pearl, also known as “Butch.” 

My Take: The McConnell Story is one of those fair-to-middling war movie/love story hybrids which used to air almost regularly on independent TV stations during the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Produced by Warner Bros. in 1954 and released in the fall of 1955, the movie boasts good performances from the two leads and a nifty Max Steiner score.  However, its early Cold War “three cheers for the Air Force” vibe and a squadron’s worth of technical mistakes make The McConnell Story somewhat less impressive than The Hunters, a 1956 drama about jet fighter pilots who fly and fight over Korea. 

Rolfe and Sherdeman manage to come up with a compelling, almost Horatio Alger-type story about an All-American man who achieves his goals in the face of great odds. Mac’s trajectory from medical school “zero” to true-blue Air Force hero makes for good drama, even if to modern audiences it might seem hokey. 

The writers and director Douglas also focus on the relationship between Alan Ladd’s Mac and June Allyson’s Butch.  Because this is, after all, a movie made in the 1950s, it has a wholesome, Walt Disney/Leave It to Beaver sensibility.  Indeed, if you take Mac and Butch’s characters out of their wartime setting and plop into Leave It to Beaver, they would probably be considered siblings to Ward and June Cleaver.  However, if you pay close attention to their scenes together, you’ll note that there is a real spark between Ladd and Allyson; though both were married (he to actress Sue Carol, she to actor/director Dick Powell), the two had an affair while filming The McConnell Story. 
  
The film works well as a character drama, but serious aviation buffs and people familiar with the military aspects of the movie will find many flaws in Tiger in the Sky/The McConnell Story.  

Some mistakes, perhaps, were unavoidable; in one World War II-set scene we see Mac deplaning from what should be an Army C-47.  The transport plane, which is a military version of the DC-3 airliner, actually bears post-1947 markings, including the stenciled words U.S. Air Force. 

Other errors are more serious. When the movie delves into Mac’s stint as a navigator on England-based bombers, he is shown as flying aboard B-17 Flying Fortresses. Perhaps the producers had no choice in the matter since flyable B-24s were not easily available in 1954 at a time when there were a few B-17 planes still serving the Air Force in non-combat support roles.  Still, for viewers who look for accuracy in war movies, this is a jarring goof, especially for those familiar with Capt. McConnnell’s life story. 

The aerial combat scenes are decent but not impressive. The choreography is uninspired, and once again a few telling mistakes creep in.  For instance, the F-84 Thunderstreaks posing as MiGs bear only one red star on the left wing; real MiGs had red stars on both wings.


All in all, The McConnell Story is a watchable movie from Alan Ladd's twilight years in Hollywood.  It's not a great film about Korean War fighter pilots (the Robert Mitchum-Robert Wagner vehicle The Hunters beats it by a dozen miles), but it's not dreadful either.

(c) 2012, 2016 by Alex Diaz-Granados. All Rights Reserved.