The McConnell Story
| The McConnell Story | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Gordon Douglas |
| Produced by | Henry Blanke |
| Written by | Ted Sherdeman Sam Rolfe |
| Based on | a story by Ted Sherdeman |
| Starring |
Alan Ladd June Allyson James Whitmore |
| Music by | Max Steiner |
| Cinematography | John F. Seitz |
| Edited by | Owen Marks |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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Running time
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107 mins |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $3.5 million (US) |
The McConnell Story is a 1955 dramatization of the life and career of U.S. Air Force pilot Joseph C. McConnell (1922–1954), who served as a navigator in World War II before becoming the top American ace during the Korean War. He was killed while serving as a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert of California. The Warner Brothers production, filmed in CinemaScope and Warner Color, starred Alan Ladd as McConnell and June Allyson as his wife. Longtime Warners staff composer Max Steiner wrote the musical score for the film.
The movie was announced in May 1954, with Alan Ladd and June Allyson attached from the beginning. It was Alan Ladd's second consecutive film for Warner Bros following Drum Beat. However unlike that film, it was made for Warner Bros, not Ladd's own production company.
A number of months after the film was announced, McConnell died in a crash. This required the script to be rewritten.
For the Korean air war sequences, eight Republic F-84s of the 614th Fighter-Bomber Squadron donned dark blue paint with red stars to portray MiG-15s doing mock battle for the cameras with F-86 Sabres of the 366th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, both units based at Alexandria AFB, Louisiana. Air Defense Command headquarters notified its pilots in January 1955 that the mock MiGs would be operating over portions of the southwestern United States.
For a sequence depicting the rescue of a downed B-29 Superfortress crew that McConnell was trying to protect, a Sikorsky H-19 of the 48th Air Rescue Squadron, Eglin AFB, Florida, was deployed to Alexandria AFB, Louisiana, for seven days in February 1955. Captain E. R. Thone and Airman First Class Ronald K. Opitz, of the 48th ARS, were the crew for the helicopter, TDY to shoot the rescue sequence.
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