The McConnell Story

I started watching this movie without knowing anything about the characters. I fell in love with it almost immediately! In fact, I watched it a second time with my husband. The story line is easy to follow and is faithful to Joe's real life story. The fight scenes when he's serving in the Korean War were well done, in my opinion. This movie made in 1955 only a year after his death was faithful to their lives together.

Joseph J. McConnell, Jr. was America's first triple jet ace in what was the first war fought with jets by both sides. Since World War I, one became an ace as a pilot when one had confirmed downings of five of the enemy. Mr. McConnell had nineteen to his credit when he was taken out of combat in Korea and given a stateside assignment.

The McConnell Story is about his life and Alan Ladd does a good job in portraying the man as he meets and marries the woman of his dreams and struggles to become a pilot in the military. The woman of his dreams in this case is June Allyson who played more devoted wives and girls next door than anyone else in Hollywood in her time. Usually Allyson worked with either James Stewart or Van Johnson as her leading men over at MGM. She and Ladd had a good chemistry here.

The chemistry may have been partly fueled by rumors of an affair on set. Allyson had a few of them in her day, but this was the only time it was ever rumored about Ladd according to his biographer Beverly Linet. Ladd worked hard to keep a wholesome image before the public and that might have been the reason he and Allyson never worked together again.

And The McConnell Story is one wholesome picture. If it weren't for the Army/Air Force scenes you might think you were watching Ward and June Cleaver. But that's how America likes its heroes and Hollywood was obeying the box office.

It should also be remembered that Korea was also the first war of the newly formed United States Air Force. Whereas most country's had a separate air service during World War I or set them up shortly thereafter, America waited until 1947 when the Army Air Corps was separated and became a separate service. The Defense Department in both the Truman and Eisenhower eras wanted to popularize the new service and encouraged Hollywood to make pictures to do so.

The McConnell Story is nice entertainment. It's one of Alan Ladd's best post Paramount films.

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).

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.

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