The McConnell Story (MOD) "Rko Radio Pictures"

The McConnell Story (MOD) "Rko Radio Pictures"As the alarm wails, Joe McConnell's squad of Sabre pilots are airborne in seconds. The mission: keep enemy planes away from helicopters evacuating wounded infantrymen. The destination: the deadly corridor called MIG Alley. Alan Ladd and June Allyson star as real life jet aviation pioneer Capt. Joseph McConnell Jr. and his devoted wife Butch. And James Whitmore is the commander who first recognizes McConnell's prowess as a "tiger of the sky." In war,

you witness a vaudeville turn from a man who lived it

but rich enough to attract a bevy of suitors

Barry Fitzgerald and Rod Taylor also star

Bronco came complete with his own catchy theme song

plays dual roles as smalltown banker Roger Standish and his grandson (in a filmmaking virtuosity rare for the era

Posing as a deserter

playing perhaps the genre's youngest protagonist

whose distinguished career would include All Quiet on the Western Front and the Dr

plotting father by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River

Bank robbers

etching an indelible portrait of twisted ambition that won her the 1943 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress

Lee's only hope of survival is the aid of another former spy