James Millican

Thinking that his fighting days are over, Robert "Dutch" Holland (James Stewart) had become a successful third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, only to be recalled into the newly-formed Strategic Air Command. Set in 1955, when the Cold War is rapidly heating up, SAC has been formed to provide the ultimate deterrent to World War III. By building up a powerful force of nuclear-armed bombers and keeping them on a war-ready status at all times, SAC's leader, Gen. Hawkes (Frank Lovejoy) hopes to keep the "enemy" from starting another devastating conflict. Unfortunately, he is forced to recall reserve pilots and crew from their private lives in order to fill his needs. Holland, promoted to Lt. Colonel, grudgingly accepts the assignment, along with some other equally unhappy airmen, many of whom are old acquaintances from bomber missions flown over Tokyo in 1945. Holland's wife Sally (June Allyson) is less than pleased with the turn their life has taken, and isn't happy about her husband being sent out on dangerous missions when there isn't even a war going on. Also, she soon discovers that she's pregnant, and though she tries to support her husband's efforts to do his job, Holland is soon torn between his sense of duty to his men and country, and his responsibilities to his wife and family. Holland flies missions in the massive B-36 "Peacemaker" bomber, a plane that can take off from its base in Texas and fly non-stop to Alaska and back while carrying a crew of a dozen men and more destructive power than a thousand WW-2 bombers. Over the next few months, Holland helps form SAC into a tightly run, well oiled machine, but it means long stretches away from Sally; she's come to dread the sound of the phone ringing, fearing it will be terrible news about Dutch. Holland is flying a cold-weather test mission over Greenland at -40 degrees when his plane's fuel tank seals fail, and the fuel sloshing around in the left wing starts a fire. Nothing they can do will extinguish it, and Holland orders the crew to bail out. Realizing he's too low to bail out himself, he rides the big plane down to a belly landing on the snow, and spends days trapped in the plane's wreck before rescue arrives. Meanwhile, Sally has given birth, and is overjoyed to hear that her husband is alive with only a twisted shoulder for an injury. Returning to duty, Holland is shown the newest addition to SAC's inventory: the futuristic B-47 Stratojet, a sleek, swept-wing jet plane that looks like nothing Dutch has ever seen before. Gen. Hawkes wants Col. Holland to head up the new Stratojet bomber force, but Sally has different plans. Wrangling an opportunity from Dutch's old boss with the Cardinals that she knows he will take, he can finally leave the Air Force behind. Joyfully presenting this to Dutch that night, she is dismayed to see that he has been thinking about his duty to SAC, and has decided to stay. He tries to explain his reasons, his belief that he's doing something far more important than he's ever done, his desire to serve his country and protect his family by staving off war, but Sally is heartbroken, and Dutch must leave on yet another mission. Still bothered by his shoulder injury, Holland leads a massive deployment of the entire wing to Japan, a tremendous undertaking designed leave no doubt in an enemy's mind about what SAC can accomplish. It will also stretch SAC to its limits, and push everyone to the breaking point. Sally tries to speak to her husband one last time before he takes off, but she's too late. Flying non-stop to their base in Japan, Dutch keeps track of all his planes and people, and manages to get everyone there safely, but when it's his turn to land the field is socked in with fog, and Dutch can barely move his right arm. With the help of his co-pilot, he manages a hair-raising blind landing, and collapses from exhaustion. Grounded by his shoulder, Gen. Hawkes is finally forced to release Holland from the Air Force. But before he leaves, he tells Dutch just how much good he has done for SAC. The example he set for his men, staying in even when he had every reason to leave, has done more good for the force than he can imagine. Sally is overjoyed that she's got her husband back at last, and Holland leaves, knowing he has done his duty.

Newcomer Will Lockhart defies the local cattle baron and his sadistic son by working for one of his oldest rivals. Mysterious Will Lockhart delivers supplies to storekeeper Barbara Waggoman at Coronado, an isolated town in Apache country. Before long, he's tangled with Dave Waggoman, vicious son of autocratic rancher Alec and cousin of sweet Barbara. But he sticks around town, his presence a catalyst for changes in people's lives, searching for someone he doesn't know...who's been selling rifles to the Apaches. —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu> Will Lockhart (James Stewart) arrives in the isolated town of Coronado with a delivery of supplies from Laramie. He has actually come to the town to look for information on who sold repeating rifles to a tribe of Apaches, who used them to kill many cavalry soldiers, including Lockhart's brother. The attack took place on the far edges of the sprawling Barb Ranch, owned by Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp). Waggoman is losing his eyesight and is plagued by dreams of his son, Dave (Alex Nicol) being killed by a stranger. Waggoman knows Dave is reckless and immature and relies on foreman Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy) to keep Dave in line. Dave causes trouble when, after a misunderstanding, he kills Lockhart's mules and burns his wagons. Waggoman agrees to compensate Lockhart, but Lockhart stays in town to further investigate the rifle sale. After another altercation between Lockhart and Dave where both men shoot the other in the hand, Lockhart discovers that Dave and Vic are behind the rifle sale. Later on, Vic is forced to kill Dave in self-defense and allows Waggoman to believe that Lockhart killed Dave. But Lockhart is determined to see the truth about everything be revealed. —Patrick Depew

In the 1800s, Larry Delong wanders the West "riding shotgun" as a stagecoach guard, while searching for a ruthless killer, Dan Marady. Delong is so intent on his mission to find and kill Marady that he is lured from his post into a trap by an old-timer bearing Marady's good-luck piece, a Berringer pocket gun. After being captured by Marady's gang and left to die in the hills, Delong frees himself and retrieves his horse and gun, as well as the pocket gun that the old-timer dropped in the scuffle. As it is too late to stop the gang from attacking his stagecoach, Delong tries to warn the citizens in the nearby town of Deep Water that, while the sheriff and his posse are out investigating the stagecoach attack, the gang plans to rob their casino. To his surprise, Delong finds the townspeople, who have been his neighbors and friends, hostile toward him and soon learns that his fellow guard, Bob Purdee, was killed in the attack. Moreover, a young child and his mother riding the coach recognized the old-timer among the attackers as the man who rode off with Delong and from this the townspeople have concluded that Delong is part of the gang. Except for Delong's girl friend, Orissa Flynn, and Doc Winkler, no one believes in his innocence, not even Delong's ten-year-old admirer Johnny, who shoots him with a slingshot. Fearing that he has been sent by Marady to discourage the posse from pursuing them, the townspeople take Delong's horse, preventing him from riding out to warn the sheriff. The town's unrelenting suspicions finally cause Delong to take refuge in a cantina owned by the German immigrant, Fritz. When the chief deputy, Tub Murphy, returns to town with his assistant, Ross Hughes, the citizens clamor for Delong's arrest, but, reluctant to take charge or disbelieve Delong's story, Tub urges the citizens to wait for the sheriff. He does ask Delong to come, unofficially, to the sheriff's office, but Delong refuses, as he wants to remain free to fight Marady. Although no one is brave enough to confront Delong, who is an excellent marksman, the townspeople keep a vigil around the cantina, and many of Delong's innocent actions, such as reloading his gun, are interpreted by the crowd as intentionally harmful. Later, Winkler, seeing a lynch mob forming, tries to convince the townsmen that Marady has used the same strategy described by Delong in previous robberies and urges them to keep watch on the bank and casino, but the people remain stubbornly single-minded. When Orissa goes to the cantina to warn Delong that the crowd is getting meaner, Delong refuses to make an escape, explaining that he wants revenge on Marady, who killed his sister and nephew during a stagecoach attack three years before. Col. Flynn, who is Orissa's father and owner of the casino, orders Orissa out and asks Delong to give himself up. Delong persuades Orissa to leave with the colonel, but explains that it would be suicide for him to leave the safety of the cantina. Having worked up a collective courage, the townsmen try to flush out Delong and begin shooting. Delong refrains from returning fire, except to shoot out a candle flame that exposes his movements to the people outside. Marady and some of his gang ride into town, and Marady, judging that the townspeople's distraction with Delong will work to their advantage, enters the casino unobtrusively to await reinforcements, while his henchman Pinto mingles with the crowd. Then, Ben, a brash young man, tries to single-handedly drag Delong out, and Delong is forced to shoot back, but is careful to disarm him without doing serious harm. During the encounter, Delong spots Pinto in the crowd. Realizing that Marady is near, Delong escapes through the attic, leaving the crowd to discover his absence, and works his way to the casino, where a robbery is now in progress. Before entering, Delong cuts the cinch straps on the saddles of Marady's men, then shoots out the lights in the casino, and a gunfight ensues. The townspeople hear the shots and arrive in time to collect the escaping outlaws, who fall off their horses when they try to mount. In the darkened casino, Marady and Delong continue to fight. As he has been counting Delong's shots, Marady boldly approaches Delong after hearing six shots fired. Delong, however, still has Marady's good-luck pocket gun and with it, kills Marady. Outside, the crowd thanks Delong, but Pinto is with them, having so far escaped notice. When young Johnny sees Pinto taking aim at Delong, he uses his slingshot to hit the outlaw in the face with a rock, which gives Delong time to shoot in self-defense.

John Vickers joins Custer's cavalry regiment seeking private revenge. John Vickers finally tracks down one of the three men who killed his true love. Before he dies, the miscreant admits that his accomplices joined the cavalry. Vickers, a former officer himself, does likewise, after saving pretty Molly Quade from rowdy Sergeant O'Hara, who sets out to harass the new recruit. After incidents during a battle with the Sioux, Vickers is pretty sure O'Hara is one of his men. But can he reconcile his desire for vengeance with loyalty to the Army? —Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

In Pittsburgh, PA, an F.B.I. agent works to undermine the Communist party, but his brothers and his teenage son think he's a real Red. The FBI infiltrates one of their agents, Matt Cvetic, into the US Communist Party. This causes big problems in the normal life of the agent. Nobody knows, including his family, that he is in fact working to expose a large-scale plan to have Communists in key positions in industry and unions. —Luis Carvacho <lcarvach@lascar.puc.cl> Beyond his mother who provides her unconditional love, Pittsburgh steel factory manager Matt Cvetic is hated by his family, including his son Dick Cvetic, and his old friends because of rumors that he is a member of the Communist Party, which he does admit to most who directly ask. They are unaware, however, of how deep he is ensconced within the party, he who, in his position as manager, is to place card carrying members into the company, so that it eventually can be taken over by the party. What only a handful of people know is that he is undercover, planted by the FBI nine years ago to learn as much as he can about the workings of the party within the US. The Communist Party is ramping up their activities in Pittsburgh and place Matt in a position of authority locally, which may provide him greater access to the party goings-on, but also places him under a microscope by the party, anyone who could secretly be spying on him. This job places him under greater strain, especially in wanting to tell those important in his life of his true work, that work which may never come to light as the FBI cannot expose his true workings if he does unilaterally decide to quit. Things get even more complicated with the arrival on the scene of Eve Merrick, Dick's teacher who comes out to him as a card carrying member of the party, an idealist who has a different perspective on his life than the party brass. —Huggo

At the end of the Civil War, two friends return home to Colorado and one of them has changed and is violent and erratic. Two friends return home after their discharge from the army after the Civil War. However, one of them has had deep-rooted psychological damage due to his experiences during the war, and as his behavior becomes more erratic--and violent--his friend desperately tries to find a way to help him. —frankfob2@yahoo.com