A Gathering of Eagles

Infobox Film
name = A Gathering of Eagles

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caption = Promotional poster for "A Gathering of Eagles"
director = Delbert Mann
producer = Sy Bartlett
writer = Sy Bartlett
Robert Pirosh
starring = Rock Hudson
Rod Taylor
Mary Peach
Barry Sullivan
music = Jerry Goldsmith
Tom Lehrer
cinematography =
editing =
distributor = Universal International Pictures
released = January, 1963 (USA)
runtime = 116 min.
language = English
budget =
amg_id = 1:19301
imdb_id = 0057090|

"A Gathering of Eagles" is a 1963 movie about the Cold War and the pressures of command. The plot is patterned after the film "Twelve O'Clock High", which producer-screenwriter Sy Bartlett also wrote, with elements also mirroring "Above and Beyond", a film written by his collaborator, Beirne Lay, Jr..

Rock Hudson plays a United States Air Force Colonel, Jim Caldwell, who has just been re-assigned as a B-52 wing commander. He must shape up his men to pass a grueling readiness inspection that the previous commander had failed, and for which he had been relieved of his command. Caldwell is also recently married, and as a tough commanding officer doing whatever he has to do to shape up his command, his wife sees a side to him that she hadn't seen before.

The film also stars Rod Taylor, Mary Peach, Barry Sullivan, Kevin McCarthy, Henry Silva, Robert Lansing, Leif Erickson, and Richard Anderson.

Tag Line: "The Red Phone: His Mistress...Her Rival."

Plot

The Inspector General of the Strategic Air Command (Major General "Happy Jack" Kirby, played by Kevin McCarthy) lands at the fictional Carmody Air Force Base near San Francisco, California (a role actually filled by the real life Beale AFB), home of the 904th Strategic Aerospace Wing. Accompanied by a thirty-man inspection team, he demands that the Air Police take him directly to the command post and there announces an Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI). As the inspection continues, General Kirby receives a score report from a member of his team. With this in hand, he calls the commanding general of SAC at his Omaha headquarters and soberly informs him, "It doesn't look too good so far."

The general agrees and, without further ado, summons to his office his new aide, Colonel Jim Caldwell (Rock Hudson) USAF, who at the time is conducting a tour of visiting dignitaries through the central alert room of SAC Headquarters. Colonel Caldwell reports to his boss's office, and General Hewitt (Leif Erickson) coolly informs him that the wing commander at Carmody "didn't have what it takes" and must be replaced. Hewitt offers the job to Caldwell, who enthusiastically accepts. To Caldwell, this is a highly enviable career move, one made more auspicious when he discovers that his good friend and Korean War buddy, Colonel Hollis Farr (Rod Taylor), is the wing vice-commander. Barely able to conceal his excitement, he telephones his English wife Victoria (Mary Peach) to tell her the news.

Soon after he arrives, noting a number of problems in the wing that indicate a low state of training, he institutes measures that Col Farr immediately questions--restoring a seven-day alert cycle that isolates flight crews from their families, freezing all promotion recommendations, and making it clear that no member of the 904th may consider his job secure. This includes the Base Commander, Colonel Bill Fowler (Barry Sullivan), who, as Caldwell soon learns, drinks heavily. Eventually, Caldwell forces Fowler to retire early, and tells him straight-out that his drinking is the cause. He also alienates a maintenance officer by telling him that he must learn to delegate authority and when that officer applies for a transfer, Caldwell refuses to act on it. Farr protests that Caldwell is "going out on a limb," to which Caldwell replies with a biting rhetorical question, "What's wrong with that?"

Caldwell's harsh policies soon alienate even Victoria, who has befriended Fowler's wife. Eventually, morale at the upper echelons goes from bad to worse. First, Bill Fowler shoots himself, under circumstances that could be accidental but probably are not. Then, after Farr gives leave to a squadron commander whose unit is not in good shape, Caldwell asks the air-division general to replace him. He says, "I inherited the most popular vice-commander in SAC but one who will not assume responsibility!" He then sharply contradicts Farr's rosy approval of the wing's performance during a post-mission critique of B-52G and KC-135A aircraft commanders and their crews as a prelude to informing Farr that he is fired. This almost causes the final breach between Caldwell and his wife, especially since gossip has had Farr and Victoria drifting into an affair a rumor to which Caldwell lends no credence, but one that Victoria has heard, leading her to think that she is in some way responsible for Farr's impending dismissal.

Soon after, while Caldwell visits Fowler in a San Francisco hospital to snap him out of his depression, he receives a call from the operations chief saying that "an unidentified KC-135" is "on final approach, no emergency declared." Suspecting another ORI, Caldwell orders the officer to notify the battle staff at once. Caldwell cannot return to base fast enough, however, and Farr must assume command in his absence. In this capacity, Farr makes a key decision: to launch a B-52 which cannot produce full power on one of its engines, a violation of peacetime flight safety regulations, because "We're simulating wartime conditions."

After another B-52 must abort its mission, General Kirby's "score" of that mission will make the difference between passing and failing. Kirby confronts Farr about the decision, and Caldwell immediately defends it, stating he would have made the same call. But Kirby surprises both by saying that he, too, would have done the same, and that he will "not" score the mission as an abort. Tellingly, he actually smiles at Caldwell as he says this. Caldwell congratulates Farr in a manner strongly suggesting he will retain Farr as his vice-commander, saying that Farr has finally learned "how...it feels out on that limb" and "might actually get to like it out there". Victoria, for her part, realizes the value of Caldwell's policies especially when General Kirby wants to see "her" about the base's Family Support Program.

Background/Production

General Curtis LeMay USAF (former head of the Strategic Air Command and serving at the time as Air Force Chief of Staff) used his considerable influence to allow Producer Sy Bartlett and Director Delbert Mann unprecedented access to various SAC facilities, in the belief that this film would play a vital role in reminding Americans that the Air Force did indeed have its weapons of mass destruction under tight control in sharp contrast to the impressions that the movies Dr. Strangelove and Fail-Safe (both based on novels written prior to 1963 whose premise was that accidental nuclear war caused by SAC was not only possible but likely) would give. Mann, who had won an Academy Award for his first film ("Marty"), was eager to demonstrate that he could direct serious material, and not merely light-hearted comedies which had not been as nearly well-received. The film was made at Beale Air Force Base, California, using the facilities, aircraft, and personnel of the 456th Strategic Aerospace Wing.

Tom Lehrer wrote one original song for this film, called "The SAC Song." Rod Taylor, as Hollis Farr, performs this song at a party for officers and their wives. Most of Lehrer's work is satirical, and the lyrics and music for this song are quite typical of Lehrer.

As Sy Bartlett and Delbert Mann were filming at SAC Headquarters in Omaha, they noticed that SAC personnel were unusually tense. They would later learn, when President John F. Kennedy would make this fact public, that SAC had recently learned of Nikita Khrushchev's plan to introduce ballistic missiles into Cuba. [Robert Osborne, personal commentary given at the broadcast of this film on Turner Classic Movies on August 11, 2006]

Cast

*Rock Hudson as Colonel James Caldwell, Commander, 904th Strategic Aerospace Wing
*Rod Taylor as Colonel Hollis Farr, vice-commander 904th SAW
*Mary Peach as Victoria Caldwell, Caldwell's wife
*Barry Sullivan as Colonel William Fowler, base commander of Carmody Air Force Base
*Kevin McCarthy as Major General J. T. "Happy Jack" Kirby, SAC Inspector General
*Nelson Leigh as Major General John Aymes, commanding general, Air Division
*Henry Silva as Colonel Joe "Smokin' Joe" Garcia, Director of Maintenance, 904th SAW
*Leora Dana as Evelyn Fowler, Col Fowler's wife
*Robert Lansing as Senior Master Sergeant Banning, B-52 line chief
*Richard Le Pore as Sergeant Kemler, boom operator on KC-135 tanker crew "Ramrod 67"
*Ray Montgomery as Captain Linke, aircraft commander of B-52G bomber crew "Ranger 21"
*Richard Anderson as Colonel Ralph Josten, Director of Operations, 904th SW
*Leif Erickson as General Hewitt, Commanding General, Strategic Air Command
*Louise Fletcher as Mrs. Kemler, Sergeant Kemler's wife

Allusions to actual history

This film depicts the operations of a typical Aerospace Wing (nuclear bombers and ICBMs) of the Strategic Air Command during the early 1960s. One anonymous commentator at IMDb stated that he was a member of the wing where filming took place (see above), and vouched for the authenticity of Air Force procedures depicted in this film.

Four commentators have left entries at the Turner Classic Movies database entry. Each one claims to have been in SAC during the period of history depicted in this film--and one man states that he was not only stationed at Beale AFB (see below), but also flew the T-33 "chase plane" and worked with Rod Taylor (who, as Col Farr, is depicted as flying the plane when Col. Caldwell has to break off air refueling because of a broken fuel line). These men criticize the film for the following errors:

*Air Force senior NCOs (holding the rank of Master Sergeant or higher rank) would not actually hold tools. Evidently that's a job for junior NCOs (Technical Sergeant, Staff Sergeant) and airmen. (See United States Air Force enlisted rank insignia for details.)
*The Titan I missile silos would not be within plain sight of the end of the runway, as shown in the film, but would probably be 45 miles distant.
*Firefighters would not spray CO2 or any other aerosol on the overheated brakes of a B-52 that had to land without flaps. Doing so would cause an explosion.

A portrait of President John F. Kennedy hangs in Colonel Caldwell's office as part of a photographic depiction of the chain of command, providing an obvious time frame reference.

The number of the 904th, and the name of its base, are both fictitious. The actual base used in filming, Beale AFB, is located north of Sacramento, a significant distance from San Francisco.

The term "Operational Readiness Inspection" was actual terminology in the 1960s applied to exercises evaluating the combat readiness of units to carry out their nuclear mission. One of the TCM Database commentators vouches specifically for the ORI as depicted, and also for the Minimal Interval Take-Off sequence (in which Cols. Caldwell and Farr witness B-52's taking off fifteen seconds apart on average).

Reception

This film received relatively weak critical reviews and did poorly at the box office. After more than forty years, opinions vary widely as to the causes of the poor reception. The period in which this film was released is notable for the release, one or two years later, of a number of films that were decidedly unsympathetic to the US military (Dr. Strangelove, Fail-Safe, etc.). These films appeared to much greater critical acclaim and box-office reception.

This film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Effects in 1963

References

External links

*amg title|id=1:19301|title=A Gathering of Eagles
*imdb title|id=0057090|title=A Gathering of Eagles
*tcmdb title|id=76028|title=A Gathering of Eagles