A Gathering of Eagles (1963)

Copyright 13 July 1963 by Universal Pictures. New York opening at the Palace and others: 10 July 1963. U.S. release: 21 June 1963. Australian release: 13 March 1964. U.K. release through Rank: 8 September 1963. 116 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A new air force base commander whips his men into shape, no matter what the cost. Locations at Beale Air Force Base (near Sacramento, California), at SAC headquarters at Offut Air Force Base (near Omaha, Nebraska) and in San Francisco. Dedicated to the airmen of the 456th Wing.COMMENT: A familiar story, which many another service yarn has handled with far greater power and authority. True, the average viewer doesn't really expect to have his interest quickened at ground level in this sort of propaganda, yet panacea; but even in the air, "A Gathering of Eagles" amounts to little more than a flock of sparrows. The players — with the solitary exceptions of the ever-reliable Kevin McCarthy and (in a regrettably less important part) Robert Lansing — are likewise woefully inadequate. True, Rod Taylor gives his clichéd role a game try, but is ultimately defeated by at least three particularly weak and unconvincing turns of the plot. The two principals are ridiculous. In addition to their jointly uninspired acting, Rock Hudson suffers from odd lighting which at times presents him as an eager-beaver pretty boy, at others as a jowly, surly, middle-aged crab; whilst Miss Peach is burdened with costumes that so emphasize her bust-line that on many occasions she seems perilously close to over-balancing. Delbert Mann's scrupulously dull direction is no help whatever.

I've been waiting since the late 1980s to finally get to see this movie all the way through. Seriously! So, I finally broke down and bought a DVD of it on Amazon.This review MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS so beware!Overall, an OK flick. Pretty good B-52 and KC-135 shots. And, from what I've ever been told, the non-flying scenes were pretty representative of the "walking on eggshells" all the time environment of SAC during the LeMay days (early 1960s Cold War days).It certainly wasn't hard to despise the harda** Caldwell was rapidly becoming turning the Wing around. It wasn't hard to sympathize with the underlings who were pouring themselves into their jobs only to get chastized by Caldwell for doing it.I thought it was hilarious that the guy with 6 stripes in the command post was supposedly going thru his first ORI. From what I'm given to understand ORIs were a part of life at every level in SAC, so there's no way an Operations Master Sergeant would've never gone thru one before that level of rank. But, that's Hollywood for ya.

I was stationed at Beale AFB near Marysville/Yuba City, Ca in the 1980's and there is an excellent local book about the history of the area, including Beale. When the movie was made and before the SR-71 came along there was a SAC Bomb Wing there, as there was at Travis AFB. At least some of Gathering of Eagles, including the scene of an Officers' Wives Club meeting and scenes inside the wing commander's quarters were shot on Beale. The base received some payment from the makers in the form of a swimming pool built near the Alert Facility (it was later filled in when the bomb wing left Beale and security was tightened due to the SR-71).

This movie nailed the way it was in the peacetime Air Force, especially in the old Strategic Air Command. It shows the "duty first" attitude that helped our country win the Cold War, and drives home the tremendous stress all of us were under during those hard years. Since retiring, I learned to stop trying to explain to civilians what my service was like. Now I just tell them to see this movie, it's that realistic. On the downside, some of the acting is stiff and two dimensional. In the same way John Wayne's Green Berets was criticized for being propaganda, this movie also showed all the characters as too good to be true. There were a few human problems for the Rock's new wing commander character to fix, such as the soft colonel played by Rod Taylor, the maintenance colonel who was "too dedicated" to delegate, and his own civilian wife who lacked his commitment to the mission. Get past all that, view this movie more as a documentary to learn what it was like to live on a SAC base during the Cold War.