DVD The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell

Gary Cooper is in fine form given the constraints of the material he has to work with. Charles Bickford is perfect as General Guthrie, Ralph Bellamy steals his scenes, and Rod Steiger rules his eight to ten minutes of screen time. Here we also have three future stars of television, who round out the supporting cast; Jack Lord, Elizabeth Montgomery, and a cameo for Peter Graves.

The story of the almost prescient Mitchell, who forsaw the then-fanciful advancements in air power, perfectly captures the views of the Army and Navy at the time; that airplanes were nothing more than unreliable toys.

Mitchell, always a crusader for air power, is muzzled and ignored by the military establishment. Only when the Navy airship Shennedoah is lost due to shortsighted Navy orders does Mitchell break with the Army and make public statements accusing the Army and Navy command of negligence. Inviting his own courtmartial in order to finally have his say, Mitchell is given the opportunity to martyr himself in the name of military airmen everywhere.

If anything holds the film back, it would have to be the combination of the script and the oddly detached direction of Otto Preminger. Neither serves the material well, but the film is compelling anyway. The film bogs down a bit as it transmutes from historical action bio into a courtroom drama, but the legend of Mitchell is enough to carry the film over the rough spots, and keep the viewer watching.

The packaging of the DVD says that the film is in standard (or pan n' scan) format, but the disc is actually (and thankfully), in widescreen. The widescreen framing is not perfect, but close enough for satisfaction. The color is a bit "washed out", and the sets are clearly painted in a color scheme meant for black and white film. This combination makes the colors a bit garish at times, but for the age of the film, it looks pretty good overall barring a full-on restoration.

Of special note is the final set piece, the warehouse that served as location for Mitchell's trial. The set is surprisingly true to the photos taken of the actual location during the real life trial.

The first half sets up this courtroom drama with sterling performances by Jack Lord, Elizabeth Montgomery, and Darren McGavin. As his friends die, you can sense that Mitchell's iron-bound duty not to break the chain of command is beginning to rust. The dramatic center of the first half is internal, as Cooper portrays a man who knows what he wants to do but is forbidden to do. The second half is the trial itself. Although Cooper has to share center stage with Charles Bickford as the presiding judge and a young and arrogant Rod Steiger as the prosecuting attorney, Cooper manages a rare balancing act. He successfully keeps the military jury's and the audience's attention on the need for aviation reform while not allowing the film to sink into a 'message' movie, that might otherwise have been literally true but less interesting. One of the reasons that enabled Cooper to be the megastar that he was was his ability to say commonsense things in a straightforward way that never let the audience forget that a fully-fleshed character truly believed in the veracity of his words. No matter how hard Steiger tries to make Cooper look foolish on the witness stand, it is Steiger--and by implication the army--that was foolish for not heeding Colonel Mitchell's many warnings about the need to upgrade the American air force. The movie ends rather abruptly with no hint that Mitchell's foresight would one day be vindicated. And if the audience is denied the pleasure of seeing Colonel Mitchell vindicated, then, by contrast, the integrity of a man who had only his gut feelings to guide him stamps him as the rarest of men: one who has strong convictions and is unafraid to place his job and character on the line to express them.