Sky Commando is a 1953 American war film released by Columbia Pictures, directed by Fred F. Sears and starring Dan Duryea, Frances Gifford and Mike Connors (credited as "Touch Conners").
The film was one of Connors' first, having made his debut in Sudden Fear (1952); he had previously appeared in Sears' The 49th Man, earlier in 1953.During the Korean War, while American Air Force pilots Lt. John Willard (William Bryant) and his brother Frank (Dick Paxton) are flying a routine reconnaissance mission, their commanding officer, Col. Ed Wyatt (Dan Duryea) orders them to bomb an enemy position.
War correspondent Jo McWethy (Frances Gifford) who was assigned to cover Wyatt's group, wanted to know the truth about his reputation for being a hard-driving and unsympathetic commanding officer.
With the aid of partisans, Hobbie reconciled with the badly wounded Wyatt, and managed to convey the crucial roll of film safely back to England.
With principal photography done over an eight-day span, March 16–23, 1953, most of the production work that remained involved merging the stock combat footage of USAF and USAAF action.
[4] Reviewer Hal Erickson, in a latter day critique, observed that the film was notable for presenting Duryea in a sympathetic role, and for the presence of former headliner Frances Gifford.