A Gathering of Eagles (1963)

Interesting facts

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A Gathering of Eagles is a 1963 SuperScope Eastmancolor film directed by Delbert Mann about the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War and the pressures of command. The plot is patterned after the World War II film Twelve O'Clock High (1949), which producer-screenwriter Sy Bartlett also wrote, with elements mirroring Above and Beyond (1952) and Toward the Unknown (1956), written by his collaborator, Beirne Lay Jr..

Production

General Curtis LeMay, USAF (former head of the Strategic Air Command and serving at the time as Chief of Staff of the Air Force), used his influence to allow producer Sy Bartlett and director Delbert Mann unprecedented access to various SAC facilities in the belief that the film would remind Americans that the Air Force had powerful weapons under tight control.

Filming took place at Beale Air Force Base, California featuring the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and Lockheed T-33 aircraft, Martin Marietta Titan I missile sites and personnel of the 456th Strategic Aerospace Wing. The military housing shown in several scenes is still used today as base housing at Beale for senior commanders of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing.

It was originally announced that John Gavin would support Rock Hudson.

Tom Lehrer wrote one original song for this film, "The SAC Song". Rod Taylor, as Hollis Farr, performs this song at a party for officers and their wives.

As Bartlett and Mann were filming at SAC headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, they noticed that SAC personnel were unusually tense. They would later learn that SAC had recently learned of Nikita Khrushchev's plan to introduce nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles into Cuba.

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