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Since 20th Century Fox found some success with a TV version of its 1970 military black comedy film "MASH", Paramount tried to find similar success with a TV version of its own 1970 military black comedy film, "Catch 22".

Richard Dreyfuss stars as Captain Yossarian, a bombardier who has completed his required number of missions and is on his way home. His plane stops for refueling on Pianosa (the base in the movie) where he learns all about the (possibly mythical) "catch-22" and engages in the usual standard issue military sitcom hi-jinks.

As with the TV version of "MASH," most of the characters from the film appear (although unlike TV "MASH," no actors from the film version of "Catch-22" appear). Also, like TV "MASH," the R-rated movie hi-jinks are considerably toned down for broadcast TV (in the movie, for example, Captain "Aarfy" Aardvark commits murder to cover up a rape. Suffice to say, nothing like this happens in this show). It's mostly harmless, early 70's sitcom stuff.

Dreyfuss is quite good as Yossarian. It's always fascinating to watch future award winning movie stars act in shows like this, because it shows a certain Hollywood meritocracy at work: Dreyfuss just seems to be acting on a whole other level than everyone else in the show (you can see the same phenomenon when you watch an episode of the Steve McQueen western "Wanted Dead of Alive").

Now, the movie version of "Catch-22" isn't all that good. It's certainly not as good as "MASH". This pilot isn't that great either, but quite frankly, it's about on a par with the "MASH" pilot (which was only OK), although I think the "MASH" cast is a lot better overall. But after watching this, you can see why ABC passed.

It took three tries, but they finally got it right. Not good, mind you (The Love Boat could never be "good."). But taken on its own terms, this pilot hits the right notes.

Kopell, Grandy and Lange were all wisely held over from The Love Boat II, while Gavin MacLeod and Lauren Tewes are piped aboard as the third captain and cruise director. As cruise director Julie McCoy, Tewes provides the same level of acting ability as Diane Stilwell from The Love Boat II (that is, they're both good actors), but she has real chemistry with the rest of the cast, something Stilwell couldn't manage. MacLeod nails the captain role. Ted Hamilton (captain number one) is too stiff, while Quinn Redeker (captain number two) is too serious and dramatic. MacLeod is the only one of the three who seems to understand that he's in a situation comedy. So while the basic outlines of the role are the same (tough ex-naval officer), MacLeod brings some real warmth to the part, along with an always present twinkle in his eye. He makes all the difference.

As for the rest of it, pretty much the same in tone and structure as the second pilot, but ABC didn't put as much money into this one so it's only 90 minutes long (including commercials) and has no real cruise location footage, just a few shots on the deck of the (docked) Queen Mary and a few on and around the (docked) Pacific Princess.

Zack and Cody Martin (Dylan and Cole Sprouse) are twins who live in a suite on the 23rd floor of the swanky Tipton Hotel in Boston, where their divorced mom Carey (Kim Rhodes) works as the lounge singer.

The first season, is by far the best of the series. I'm not saying it's great by any means, just the most watchable. Most of the stories revolve around the twins using the hotel as their personal playground, much to the annoyance of the hotel's manager, Mr. Moseby (Phill Lewis). This leads to a lot of really broad, physical comedy, the sheer volume of which overcomes some of this show's very serious shortcomings (such as the rather poor acting of the Sprouse twins. Let's face it: they're just don't have any real acting talent).

Aside from the lead actors, the rest of the cast, including Ashley Tisdale and Brenda Song (as spoiled heiress London Tipton) are game. Token adults Lewis and Rhodes are fine, although Rhodes is generally relegated to straight man duty for now (she would become a much wackier character by the third season, but by then, the show is not really worth watching).

Jobless former schoolmaster Bernard Hedges takes a job as an escort (no hanky-panky, just go on a platonic date, collect ten pounds and a free meal in a post restaurant) in order to make ends meet, causing a bit of strain in his relationship with his wife Penny.

Unfortunately, this was the last appearance for John Alderton as Bernard Hedges, and it's not a very satisfying wrap-up for the character. It's an odd episode in several ways. None of the "gang" appears. Bernard and Penny get a visit from their old friend Henry (who gives them the escort service contact). Henry is clearly written as a recurring character with whom the audience is already familiar (Bernard mentions that he and Penny have known him for a long time), but he's never been seen before, either in this series or in "Please, Sir," so his scene is kind of awkward.

In fact, the whole episode us kind of off-kilter: It gives every appearance of being an unused script for another series, or perhaps a pilot for a Bernard Hedges series.

Hijinks abound aboard a ten-day Mexican cruise aboard the "Pacific Princess."

The second of the three "Love Boat" pilots. While it's not quite on target, it's a big step up from the first pilot for a couple of reasons.

First, the entire regular cast has been replaced, and overall the new crew exhibits considerably more charm and chemistry than the previous actors could muster. This is especially true with Bernie Kopell, Fred Grandy and Ted Lange, replacing Dick Van Patten, Sandy Helberg and Theodore Wilson as Doc, Gopher and Isaac, respectively. Somewhat less effective are Quinn Redecker the captain and Diane Stilwell as Sandy Summers, the cruise director. Redecker plays the captain very straight and very seriously, as though he were in a drama. Stilwell is a perfectly fine actress, and a distinct improvement over Terri O'Mara from the first pilot, but she just doesn't seem to click with the rest of the cast.

Secondly, the production itself is a lot smoother. I don't know if it's the addition of Aaron Spelling as producer, or a new director or what, but none of the dodgy editing, poor staging and bad acting that ruined the first pilot are evident here.

The stories themselves follow the same basic pattern as before (and thereafter), and the guest stars, including Craig Stevens, Hope Lange, Robert Reed and Marcia Strassman are all fine. But one thing I do miss (and I imagine Spelling is responsible for this) is the mildly ribald tone of the previous pilot. Starting with this movie, and continuing on through the third pilot ("The New Love Boat") and the series, things become more romantic and family-friendly. No more cracks from the cruise director about how she'll "do it" in the purser's lounge and no more jokes about reminding the ship's printer to put the "s" in "horse racing."

Still, though, a not bad pilot.

Fish-out-of-the-water sitcom about rural Texas teen Jessie (Debby Ryan) who moves to Manhattan to take a job as an au pair.

Another one from It's a Laugh Prodcutions, which also supplied The Disney Channel with both Zack and Cody shows. Now, "The Suite Life on Deck" was not was exactly appointment television, but it looks like an Alan Ayckbourn comedy compared to "Jessie." Ryan was perfectly fine as backup to the Sprouse twins, but lacks the charisma necessary to carry a show. The direction lacks sharpness, the writing is rote and the cast shows little comic timing. With a few episodes under its belt, "Jessie" will find its sea legs, but no matter how you slice it, this show doesn't have a lot going for it. I doubt this is ever going to be more than a mildly pleasant time waster.

TV Movie featuring several stories about passengers on a Mexican cruise.

This is the first of the three "Love Boat" pilots and is pretty much a disaster on every level.

The biggest problem here is the casting. Quite frankly the regular cast is just terrible. They have no chemistry as a group and of the bunch, only Dick Van Patten (the doctor) and Theodore Wilson (Isaac the bartender) turn in what I would consider decent performances. Ted Hamilton is a total stiff as the captain. And Terri O'Mara, playing the cruise director, has a perfectly pleasant screen presence, but her acting leaves a bit to be desired (although, my understanding is that ABC saw "The Love Boat" as a star-making vehicle for her and specifically requested her casting).

The production seems to have had some significant problems: Director Alan Myerson appears to have been fired mid-production, since he is credited as co-director along with Richard Kinon in a couple of the stories while Kinon receives sole credit on the rest. And there's a fairly prominent end credit for separately written and directed (by Kinon) "Special Material."

The one thing I did kind of like, though, is the overall tone of the movie. Unlike the other pilots and the series, this movie is (by 1976 TV movie standards) fairly risqué. O'Mara's cruise director tells Doc that she's bored with being all goody-goody and may just "do it in the purser's lounge" to shake things up a little. You'd never hear Julie McCoy say that.

Still, despite everything, ABC liked the format enough to green light another TV movie/pilot the following year.

I was pretty young in those days, but I definitely remember this series. It's a decent, mildly amusing, middle-of-the-road sitcom, about on the level of "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster" (which was made by the same producers and which bears more than a passing resemblance to this series). Bob Denver and Herb Edelman play (respetively) lifelong best friends Rufus and Bert. Bert and his level-headed wife (played by Joyce Van Patten) own a diner (the imaginatively named "Bert's Place") somewhere in downtown Los Angeles. Rufus runs a one-man taxi service (complete with a custom taxi designed by George "Batmobie" Barris), although it's hard to tell how he makes a living, since he seems to spend almost all of his time hanging out at Bert's Place. The two of them have typical 1960's sitcom misadventures, usually involving get rich quick schemes. Denver and Edelman have decent chemistry, and the stories, while repetitive, are OK, but the ratings must have been pretty soft right from the start, since halfway through the first season, since former "Gilligan's Island" co-stars Alan Hale and Jim Backus were added to the cast in recurring roles. The first season was shot on film in front of a studio audience.

The ratings ultimately justified renewal, but the second and final season brought wholesale changes to the show. Hale, Backus, the taxi and the studio audience disappeared as Bert and Rufus became business partners and moved the diner to a beach front location. The stories became much more silly and slapstick, and the series lost whatever charm it had. 17 episodes into the second season, it was canceled.

This is the final series in Bob Denver's CBS sitcom hat trick (the others being "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" and Gilligan's Island" ). Denver held an ownership interest in the show through his production company, and was an uncredited executive producer. The story is that Denver felt shafted by the producers of "Gilligan's Island" (imagine that), so he negotiated a very lucrative back-end deal for this series. He would have made a Thurston Howell-sized pile of money from the reruns, but, unfortunately for Denver, after the series was canceled, it was never syndicated. So much for the pile of money.

Denver, who had been a fixture on CBS prime time sitcoms for ten straight years, never had another prime time network series, although in 1975 he appeared on a CBS Saturday morning live action sitcom, "Far Out Space Nuts." A couple of things worth noting: Jerry Fielding's outstanding title tune, which is far more musically interesting than most TV theme tunes, and Reza Badiyi's charming opening credits sequence. Fielding also wrote the catch theme music for "Hogan's Heroes" and Badiyi will always be remembered for the title sequence for the original version of "Hawaii Five-O," the best title sequence in the history of American television, bar none.

This is one bad show. How bad? It makes Zack and Cody look like Ibsen. No, really, it's that bad.

The setup is typical sitcom. Carly (ineptly played by Miranda Cosgrove) lives in Seattle with her guardian, her older brother. Carly and her best friend Sam (Jennette McCurdy) along with their pal Freddie (Nathan Kress) produce an absurdly popular web show, iCarly. Hilarity ensues.

Nothing here makes any sense, even for a TV show. Carly's brother is an artist, but in true TV fashion, lives in a very expensive looking loft apartment that in real life would cost millions of dollars. Of course, Carly could be paying for it, since iCarly is so successful that Carly herself has lost count of all the money she's making (e.g. six-figure product endorsement deals). Which is strange, since the show itself is nothing more than lame skits and mugging, and not really worth watching at all.

Now that I think about it, the whole show is nothing but lame skits and mugging. The writing and production are bottom of the barrel, even for a basic cable sitcom. None of the acting is top notch, but you can't expect master class level performing in a Nick sitcom. Still, I am amazed that Miranda Cosgrove is as big a deal as she is, considering this show is her claim to fame. She may very well be the worst lead actor in any TV series on any network right now. She has no charisma, no acting range no sense of movement. Every single other actor is far better than her, so I can imagine how good they all must feel at the news, just out, that Cosgrove has signed a "mid seven figures" deal for one more season of this drek.

Last episode filmed by Dick York is a patchwork mess, but it's nobody's fault, really. York was only able to film one scene before he collapsed, was carted away in an ambulance and left the show for good, so the producers had to come up with a whole new episode based on the couple of minutes of film in which York appeared. Thus, what was supposed to be a brief gag involving Samantha's father Maurice temporarily turning Darrin into a mule (because he's stubborn) takes over the entire episode: That way Darrin could be played by the mule and they wouldn't need York at all. They almost pulled it off, too. Elizabeth Montgomery is so good that she's actually able to recreate the chemistry she had with York with the mule. You can really buy the idea that this animal is the man she loves. Unfortunately, due to the loss of York, the actual plot of the episode, which involves Maurice giving Darrin some of his powers is lost, as is a subplot involving Samantha's special announcement (which would have been that she was pregnant).

York himself looked pretty rough throughout this season - when he was well enough to appear - but he looks particularly bad here; thin, pale and in obvious distress. In fact, he hardly moves, spending nearly his entire scene standing in one spot.

Dick Sargent replaced York the following season, but he didn't have the same on screen chemistry with Montgomery that York did and the show's ratings took an immediate hit and never recovered.

Issue-oriented episode dealing with commercial real estate development. When this episode was filmed, Waikiki in particular was in the midst of a hotel boom. This was an big issue for some locals, since traditional Hawaiian culture didn't recognize private property rights. Since this is "Hawaii Five-O" and not "Meet the Press," the story kicks off with the state land commissioner being blown to bits. Ultimately, the trail leads Five-O to a disgruntled native Hawaiian (played by Simon Oakland), upset over losing his native lands to commercial interests.

Oakland, is of course no native Hawaiian, but he does a pretty good job conveying the conflict people like his character felt.

During the course of this episode, the Five-O team examines a home movie for clues, giving them their first opportunity to use the Five-O Magic Movie Projector. It can freeze frames (without burning the film) and even zoom in on individual images (with crystal clarity, of course).

In retrospect, one of the more glaring faults of Hawaii Five-O is its continual use of non-Asians in Asian featured parts. Sometimes, it kind of works: Keigh Deigh wasn't Chinese - or Asian at all - but he was sufficiently "exotic" that he could pull off Chinese spy Wo Fat. Most of the time, however, it doesn't, and this episode features perhaps the worst of the lot; Ricardo Montalban as Japanese crime lord Tokura.

Montalban was a very charismatic actor and was always worth watching, but the very idea of the very Mexican Montalban as a former Japanese submarine crewman turned organized crime kingpin is unbelievable to the point of being surreal, and pretty much ruins the episode.

The actual story is pretty interesting, though, particularly the climax, where McGarrett tricks Tokura into confessing by convincing him that he's going to be assassinated by Bushido.

Executive Producer Leonard Freeman wanted the bad guys on Five-O to be as nasty as possible, as a way of providing contrast with the natural beauty of Hawaii. This episode (the first one aired, but not the first one filmed) is a particularly good example of that philosophy.

Kevin McCarthy and Louise Troy play a brother and sister who lure wealthy mainland widows to Hawaii, con them out of their inheritance, then kill them (and dump their bodies offshore inside 55 gallon drums!).

McCarthy has always been good at playing amoral slimeballs and he does his usual nice job here, as does Patricia Smith as the Honolulu cop enlisted by Five-O to reel him in. The regulars do their usual jobs, nothing special, although McGarrett sports a particularly obnoxious "aloha" shirt in one scene.

Red Chinese spy master Wo Fat is systematically eliminating American agents in the Far East, using a sensory deprivation tank hidden in an old freighter. As is often the case in this sort of show, Only One Man Can Stop Him – the head of the Hawaii state police, Steve McGarrett.

This is really more of a spy drama than a cop show. And unlike the resulting series, Jack Lord's McGarrett handles the bulk of the action here, shooting bad guys, making out with hippie Nancy Kwan, infiltrating Wo Fat's hideout and even beating up bad guys after more than eight hours of torture.

Lord, as was often the case, comes across a little stiff, but overall this is a solid TV-movie/pilot, with excellent production values and a good supporting cast including Nancy Kwan, Leslie Nielsen and ubiquitous 60's and 70's character actor Andrew Duggan.

Let's face it: "The Chipmunks" is a pretty thin premise. Once you get past the novelty of squeaky voiced animated rodents, there's really not much there. So this movie's straight-line, A to B to C story is a serious drawback.

Director Betty Thomas doesn't get a whole lot out of the cast (although, to be honest, I don't expect much in the way of high-caliber acting in movies like this), and the whole thing has a bit of a TV-movie feel, but the animation is rather good, and the film moves moves along at a pretty good clip, so even adults won't get too bored.

Certainly, for some reviewers, a film like this, in the final analysis, is perfectly acceptable, since it's "for kids," and thus the only thing that counts is whether it's "entertaining" on some basic level, regardless of its actual quality. That's a pretty common attitude toward kids' films, and one that really sells children short, as if they have no interest in character or story. They do, just like anyone else, albeit on a less sophisticated level than (most) adults. For example, I know that a lot of reviewers hated "Hotel for Dogs" but that film had an engaging story, well-drawn characters and a story that, while ultimately predictable, still held a few twists and turns. It wasn't particularly good, but it was better than this film.

A very effective "B" movie, way better in every possible way than the previous live action "Ben 10." The directing, acting, production design and visual effects are considerably improved this time around, very nice indeed for a low-budget cable film. Clearly, the filmmakers actually tried to make a decent film (take note, Sy-Fy). Sure, the script is pretty much by-the-numbers and contains no surprises, but you can't really expect top-notch screen writing in a picture like this.

If this turns out to be a ratings success, I wouldn't mind seeing live action versions of some of Cartoon Networks other series, such as "The Secret Saturdays."

The third live action Scooby Doo gets demoted to basic cable. And while it's not bad, it's not great, either. It's just kind of...there.

The story is typical prequel stuff, detailing, during the course of a typical Scooby story about ghosts haunting the local high school, the origins of pretty much all the Scooby staples (Scooby Snacks, the Mystery Machine, etc.). We even get the stereotypical unmasking scene ("and it would have worked, except for you meddling kids.").

The acting ranges from fair to pretty good, with 17 year-old Hayley Kiyoko impressing the most as Velma. The tech stuff (photography, effects) were actually rather good for a low-budget film.

Ultimately, though, we've seen all this before, and while the formula is set in granite, it's still an enjoyable formula; it's kind of fun to see a new set of actors do the same shtick and say the same lines that others have said over the last 40 years.

By the way, I'm not sure this is for very little kids. There are a few genuine shocks here and some fart jokes.

Todd Susman plays a young man from a small town who goes to New York City because he (mistakenly) believes that his novel is going to be published.

Cute, low key unsold pilot featuring a winning performance by Susman, with solid support from Jill Clayburgh as his platonic girlfriend and Norman Fell as a publisher. About the only thing I really didn't like was the cloying theme song by Charles Fox. It's almost as bad as that lame Seals and Crofts tune from the first (CBS) season of "The Paper Chase."

Hard to see where this would go in the long run, though, since everything pretty much wraps up by the final fadeout.

Third time around for the Robinsons. This time, John Robinson is a retired space marine colonel/war hero who insists on taking his family wife Maureen,teens David and Judy, ten year-old Will, Will's robot and baby Penny) to another planet to become peaceful farmers and live off the land. After some by-the-book family melodrama (none of them, it seems, want to go on this trip), the Robinsons are on their way. Their mother ship (the "Jupiter") is soon under (unexplained) attack by clichéd aliens. David appears to be killed and the rest of them (along with hot young pilot Don West) are forced flee through a black hole in their landing craft (the "Jupiter 2"), ending up, well, you know...

Overall, typical action pilot. There's a lot of exposition to pack into 40-some minutes, and too much of that time is wasted on setting up the Robinson's dysfunctional dynamics, so it's hard to tell where this is all supposed to lead. It's a fair bet, however, that since it was made for the WB, had this been picked up, we would have seen a lot of Judy and Don.

John Woo's American career had pretty much derailed by 2003 and he was reduced to making this pilot for the WB. Actually he does an OK job, even managing to work in his trademark doves and slow motion.

As for the cast, about the only ones who impress are Ryan Malagrini as Will Robinson and Adrianne Palicki as Judy.

As is usual for unsold pilots these days, there are no credits (other than a crudely animated main title) and several visual effects (e.g. wire removal)were never finished.

As a side note, the sets were bought by the producers of "Battlestar Galactica" and after some modifications, were used as the interiors of the Battlestar Pegasus.

I remember when this show debuted, back in 1975. The first episode is genuinely exciting and spectacular, despite its numb-skull premise. Even today, even on DVD, the production design and visual effects are very imaginative and hold up very well. There's just something about physical models that work better than CGI. It's too bad that the acting, scripts and direction aren't up to the same standard.

Above-the-title stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain are totally miscast -- neither of them are at all believable in their roles, although Landau is a good enough actor that he almost pulls it off. More interesting is that the two, married at the time, have no chemistry whatsoever. Barry Morse (who reportedly hated the show) hams it up entertainingly, and the rest of the British supporting cast is good (in the way British actors typically seem to be), but not all that memorable.

Scripts vary, but mostly take a philosophical approach that's generally light on the action. Most of the philosophizing is pretty sophomoric and even occasionally soporific. Still, it's nice to see a science fiction series that doesn't seem like a space western for a change (not that there's anything wrong with that approach -- that's what the original "Star Trek" was).

The direction by, among others, such British stalwarts as Charles Chrichton and Val Guest is brisk and workmanlike, but rarely memorable.

Best to avoid the dire second season. It's much more cheaply made (the Italian RAI network provided 1/3 of the funding for the first season, then bailed) and considerably less interesting, as new producer Fred ("I killed Star Trek") Frieberger ditches the drama for a lame combination of action and forced, unfunny "comedy."

They started off the episode I watched ("The Price is Right") with a fairly interesting retrospective of the real show and it's all-but- canonized host, Bob Barker.

Big mistake. All it did was ensure anyone who watched what followed would see this show for the crap it is, and that Ricki Lake is woefully unsuited to game show hosting (in much the same way that she was woefully unsuited to talk show hosting).

The retrospective was followed by a whole lot of gabbing with/about the celebrities, followed by a dreadful, boring, truncated version of "The Price is Right."

Avoid at all costs.

Director Peter Jackson seems to think that if he spends nearly the entire first hour establishing the characters that the audience will care for them more when they get into great danger later on. Fat chance. Every one of these characters is a walking, talking cliché factory, so spending time with them is no more involving than spending the same amount of time with a bunch of soap opera characters. And since there's no payoff, most of the first hour of this movie is a waste of time.

Once the cast (finally) makes it to Skull Island, the film lets loose a bit and becomes a little more fun. But once again, Jackson seems to feel that he has to spend as much time as he can on every single scene. Much like Paul Thomas Anderson ("Magnolia"), Jackson appears to feel that everything he wants to show you is stuff that needs to be seen, and that's simply not true in this case. The Skull Island scenes subsequent to Ann's capture seems very flabby indeed. The Bronotsaurus chase, in particular, goes on far too long.

Things get somewhat better after Kong gets to New York (although I wonder how they managed to keep him subdued on the weeks-long journey to New York). And for once, Jackson actually spends to little time on a scene - I would have loved the Central Park scenes to have been just a tad longer.

Acting is OK, but none of the leads really seem to nail their part. Watts is strong and energetic, but Black seems to be stuck in a part that calls for more than he can give. Adrien Brody is Adrien Brody wnich is a shame because his part really meant for Matt Damon.

The effects are very good overall, particularly the more subtle work done to flesh out New York City. Some of the CGI is a bit dodgy, particularly when it's used for entire shots, but I could say the same about every film I've scene that had CGI.

At the end of the day, I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. Much better than the Dino DiLaurentiis version.

Just as in the original, the giant cruise ship S.S. Poseidon capsizes and a hardy band of survivors make their way to the hull of the ship and most of them escape.

Unlike the original, this Thanksgiving turkey has "made-for-cable" written all over it (NBC bought it from The Hallmark Channel). From the "seen-better-days" cast, to the by-the-numbers script and direction to the cheap-looking sets and the average CGI effects, this film has little to recommend it.

Bad movies always raise lots of questions. Aside from the obvious question of how a bomb disguised as a keg of beer could wreak enough havoc to capsize a huge ship like the Poseidon:

-- Why, exactly, are the terrorists bombing the Poseidon?

-- How do the feds think that a lone "sea marshal" is going to thwart a terrorist plot on a ship with 3,700 people on board?

-- What is a "sea marshal" anyway?

-- After the ship turns over, how come the ballroom remains dry, when the deck above it is flooded?

-- Why was this movie even made?

I could go on and on.

In short -- lame, but not a (heh) disaster. Unfortunately, it's not quite in the "so bad it's good" category. Just another sub-par TV movie, nothing else.

Six stars for the amazingly cool airborne photography.

Four stars for the trite story and soap opera level acting.

James Stewart improbably plays "Dutch" Holland, a star baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals (at age 47) who is improbably recalled to active duty in the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command (at age 47) because, apparently, everyone in SAC is too young (!).

Holland grumbles at first (he's making $70,000 a year and just bought a big house), but hey, it's only for 21 months, so eventually accepts his duty. Holland's wife (whiney June Allyson) accepts him doing his duty at first, but eventually grumbles and wants out. Eventually, she comes around and in the end(no surprise) Holland decides his country needs him more than Major League Baseball and decides to stay in the Air Force.

Stewart, himself a former WWII bomber pilot and Air Force Reserve Brigadier General, was a staunch conservative and a hawk; he's quite believable as a patriotic guy who ultimately gives up his lucrative baseball career to fly bombers for his country and keep the commies at bay.

Although trite in the extreme, this film does encapsulate many aspects of American life at the height of the Cold War: duty, absolute faith in authority and the knowledge that our superior technology will save us. It's the kind of film that could make you feel guilty for watching it and not running right out to join the Air Force. Since I have to give a rating, it gets six stars, but five of them are strictly for the airborne photography.