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The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell

by Glenn Erickson Jan 21, 2025

While gearing up to take on the hypocrisy of the Production Code, producer-director Otto Preminger hired out for Milton Sperling & Gary Cooper’s ode to an aviator-warrior who fought against the War Office. To air his grievances and promote Air Power, General William Mitchell forced a military trial that destroyed his career; his superiors almost succeded in silencing him. The big trial scene hands the stage over to a strutting Rod Steiger. Other notables are Ralph Bellamy, Charles Bickford, Jack Lord, and in her first film, Elizabeth Montgomery.


The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell
Blu-ray
KL Studio Classics
1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen (?) / 100 min. / Street Date November 5, 2024 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Gary Cooper, Charles Bickford, Ralph Bellamy, Rod Steiger, Elizabeth Montgomery, Fred Clark, James Daly, Jack Lord, Peter Graves, Darren McGavin, Charles Dingle, Dayton Lummis, Tom McKee, Stephen Roberts, Herbert Heyes, Robert Brubaker, Phil Arnold, Ian Wolfe, Will Wright, Gregory Walcott, Max Wagner, Carleton Young.

Cinematography: Sam Leavitt
Art Director: Malcolm Bert
Costumes: Howard Shoup
Planes supplied by Paul Mantz
Film Editor: Folmar Blangsted
Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin
Screenplay Written by Emmet Lavery, Milton Sperling
Produced by Milton Sperling
Directed by
Otto Preminger

The independent producer Milton Sperling needed an inexpensive feature to star his contractee Gary Cooper, with whom he had made  Cloak and Dagger,  Distant Drums and  Blowing Wild. He saw potential in a courtroom drama by Emmet Lavery,  The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell.  Would Otto Preminger direct?  The maker of the hits  Laura,  Where the Sidewalk Ends and  River of No Return was already in preproduction on his controversial  The Man With the Golden Arm, but saw an opening in his schedule.

The story of General William Mitchell did not flatter the Army and Navy, even when the events dramatized were three decades and one World War removed. The film speaks well for our liberal freedoms, as not all countries tolerate this kind of institutional criticism. The aim of The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell is to show how much things have improved. Just the same, a whistle-blower will always be controversial, even a patriot.

The middle 1950s were busy years for aviation movies lauding our flying services. The Pentagon granted millions of dollars of free personnel, materiel and expertise to studios that had a patriotic story to tell. Hollywood provided positive public relations for the arms buildup to strengthen national security. Air Force General James Stewart stumped for the airborne nuclear deterrent in the VistaVision film  Strategic Air Command, and Alan Ladd portrayed America’s first jet ace as a war hero in the CinemaScope The McConnell Story. Ladd’s movie begins with a real General haranguing the movie audience, telling us that we don’t appreciate the precious freedoms that Uncle Sam’s flyboys are paying for with their lives each and every goddam day.

At the other end of Hollywood politics, producer-director Otto Preminger was having fun publicizing the hypocrisy of the film industry’s Production Code. He had just made Carmen Jones, a movie musical in color and CinemaScope with an all-black cast. Otto’s military courtroom movie visits an old armed services scandal, but it doesn’t really criticize the Air Force of 1955. General William Mitchell was considered a hero in the military, but also an object lesson that the services needed better public relations. After commanding the air wing of the Expeditionary Force that went to France in WW1, Mitchell came home determined to get America’s military flying in any way he could. We had no established Air Force. The War Department was too busy squabbling over the shrinking military budget to pay attention to technological advances being made all over the world — as far as modernization was concerned, the services were stuck in the 1800s.

The screenplay is credited to Emmet Lavery and producer Milton Sperling himself. According to biographer Foster Hirsch, Preminger had ace screenwriter Ben Hecht rewrite the show to favor the third-act courtroom battle. We meet Billy Mitchell (Gary Cooper) just after the Armistice, at a demonstration of air power for the assembled heads of the War Department. Mitchell is eager to prove that his biplanes can sink a captured German battleship. But Army General James Guthrie (Charles Bickford) orders Mitchell’s test planes to attack from twice as high, with smaller bombs. Guthrie wants the air wing de-funded and marginalized, to focus his meager budget on conventional defense. An annoying Sentator (Charles Dingle) wants Mitchell’s ‘flying circus’ converted into an entertainment unit.

 

Mitchell’s fliers don’t even have parachutes.

 

Refusing to let Guthrie chloroform the fledgling Air Corps, Billy ignores orders and has his squadron sink the target ship from low altitude with bigger bombs. Furious, the brass demotes him to Colonel and sends him to a desk job far away in Texas. Billy uses his vacation time to lobby the War Department about air power, but General Pershing refuses to see him. Congressman Frank R. Reid (Ralph Bellamy) believes in Billy’s ideas, however, and becomes a staunch ally. While in D.C. Billy visits his friends Margaret and Lt. Commander Zack Lansdowne (Elizabeth Montgomery & Jack Lord). As the captain of a Navy dirigible, Zach is in another ‘showcase’ unit. The experimental airships are tempermental in risky conditions, but the brass doesn’t care. Zach’s brave sailor-aviators are ordered to fly in hazardous weather.

After Zack Lansdowne dies in a dirigible disaster, Mitchell feels that he has both a right and a duty to publicize his views outside of military channels. Frustrated by the bureaucratic mire that kills good officers and threatens the country’s defense, he breaks a cardinal rule: he gives an open press interview in which he criticizes War Department policy as inadequate, outdated and criminally negligent. His criticism is printed in every major newspaper. He’s immediately served with Court-Martial papers.

Defense attorney White (James Daly) thinks he can get Billy off with just a reprimand, but Billy refuses to recant, and insists on pleading Not Guilty. His intention is to use his ‘day in court’ to force the Army to reassess the nation’s entire defense policy. Congressman Reid volunteers to represent Billy at trial. But the army prosecutor Moreland (Fred Clark) has no difficulty restricting the trial to the question of whether or not Col. Mitchell violated Army regulations with his press conference. He won’t get his day in court and will be convicted for simple insubordination, end of story. His sacrifice will get him nothing.

In 1920 America had just won the War To End All Wars. There was no Military Industrial Complex and not even a Pentagon. Our army was assembled only when a conflict is imminent; it’s not the fault of the War Office that Washington wouldn’t support defense more aggressively. Yet the Army and Navy brass of 1920 come off as complacent bureaucrats that think in terms of dreadnaughts and cavalry units, and personal careers.

We of course expect Billy Mitchell to be vindicated, but The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell is about a different kind of patriotic victory. The real Billy Mitchell was a firebrand who repeatedly put his career on the line for his ideals. As a distinguished air veteran he was too important to be quietly suppressed. A few years later the military would regard him as a great hero. Mitchell had been one of my father’s childhood inspirations. As a young Air Force kid I knew of his fame, and can remember gluing together a plastic model of his  namesake WW2 bomber. It was serious business.

 

Loyal Army officers never rock the boat, they obey orders.

 

Preminger’s movie unfortunately makes an interesting subject a little less so. Gary Cooper’s Billy Mitchell is a reluctant firebrand. Only in his initial interviews, breaking ranks to give the press his scathing opinions, does Cooper’s Mitchell seem like a zealot with a mission. His quotes are so damning to the War Office that one of the reporters asks the general to initial his note pad: High-ranking Army officers just don’t do this.  But from that point forward Mitchell shuns the press. He goes into martyr mode, refusing to slam his superiors to gain public opinion. Billy seems tired and demoralized. Because he’s Gary Cooper, he resembles a depressed Frank Capra hero: ‘Mister Mitchell Goes to Misery Land’. The stern head of the trial is none other than Billy’s nemesis General Guthrie. Even President Coolidge (Ian Wolfe) wants the Mitchell Affair swept under the rug.

The trial is almost over, with Billy’s defense unable to address anything beyond his statements to the press. It takes a clever legal maneuver to get the court to consider letting the defense air the substance of Billy Mitchell’s complaints. Led by an uncharacteristically idealistic Douglas MacArthur (Dayton Lummis), the judges vote to allow Mitchell to plead his case in open court.

That’s when we expect the courtroom fireworks to arrive. Gary Cooper had delivered several uncut minutes of stirring (if irrational) oratory in King Vidor’s  The Fountainhead. But Billy is suffering a recurrance of Malaria symptoms, and isn’t in good shape. How will he perform?

To publicly humiliate Mitchell in the courtroom, the prosecutor brings in the Army’s toughest legal mind, Major Allan Guillon (Rod Steiger). Steiger’s presence raises the stakes, reminding us that Otto Preminger directed what is considered  the best courtroom drama ever. But the script uses Steiger only to sneer at Mitchell and to scoff at the his predictions of the future of aviation. In the 1920s Mitchell wrote that planes will pass the speed of sound, and that major wars will begin with massed aerial strikes. Mitchell even proposed ways the Japanese could strike Hawaii, 15 years before the attack on Pearl Harbor. In hindsight, we know that Mitchell was right about the need for Air Power. The Army brass consider airplanes just a toy, but in just a few years the Nazis will be bombarding civilian populations from the air. The race will be on for military control of the skies.

Preminger was an attorney yet he curiously plays down the courtroom finale. Cooper’s Billy looks miserable at all times. He never seems the kind of zealot who would buck the system and throw away his career. The supporting actors are all good, especially Ralph Bellamy, who never let a movie down. Brought in by the prosecution at the last minute, Rod Steiger goes BIG and gnashes his teeth at Billy, but can only do so much within the limits of the script. Viewers that like Billy Mitchell will know it can’t compare with Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder.

Billy’s aviation colleagues have been pulled from a list of experienced up ‘n’ comers: Darren McGavin (his 9th film appearance), Jack Lord (his 4th), Peter Graves (his 21st). This is the first movie role for Elizabeth Montgomery, who of course would become the beloved Samantha Stephens on TV’s Bewitched. Montgomery made few features; her next real film role would be 8 years later. For her courtroom appearance she dresses in widow’s black, with a black bonnet that makes her look like Joan of Arc … a subject that Preminger would get to in just a couple of years.

The courtroom speeches make some good points, without changing history to give General Mitchell a happy ending. But there’s no summation of the good that came from the trial — Mitchell was respected and thanked by many, and his attacks on the military status quo led to a reform effort, that better prepared us for the next World War. The rebel general would die just as the U.S. was beginning to take air power seriously, but his ideas have been vindicated a hundred fold.

 

One of the ugliest ‘big’ movies of the 1950s.

 

Although we see scenes on Washington streets re-dressed for the 1920s, the production is low-budget. It’s mostly filmed on ugly interior sets, many of them drab military offices. The trial takes place in a warehouse that matches historical photos. The only flying action in the picture is a brief display of indifferent effects during the bombing tests. A lot of rear-projection is utilized. After all the talk about dirigibles, we never see one. Perhaps producer Sperling didn’t have the money, or Preminger wanted to focus on his courtroom scenes. Commercially speaking, the show needs more spectacle and better visual effects. A mocked-up newsreel with footage from some older dirigible movie would have worked fine.

Neither is The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell directed well for the camera. The CinemaScope compositions don’t reflect Otto Preminger’s usual precision. Actors seem crammed into position, and Preminger is often left with a smallish figure at opposite ends of the frame. Add the distortion of early CinemaScope to that, and actors at the edges of the frame sometimes seem smaller than those in the middle. Cameraman Sam Leavitt elsewhere did excellent work for Preminger:  The Man with the Golden Arm,  Anatomy of a Murder,  Advise and Consent. But something wasn’t working here, as if Preminger wasn’t committed to another producer’s project.

Otto Preminger may have regretted his decision to direct The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell.  Foster Hirsch’s book covers the film in only a couple of pages, telling us that Preminger was in a rush to get to his next attack-the-Production-Code epic, The Man with the Golden Arm. The show ended up nabbing a Best Screenplay nomination, for Emmet Lavery and Milton Sperling.

 


 

The KL Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell is a new HD (2023) master by Paramount pictures. We perked up at this news because Olive Films’ 2013 Blu-ray was no thing of beauty. It made us remember the studio print we screened at UCLA — almost completely faded. Although originally released by Warner Bros., Milton Sperling’s United States Pictures productions all reverted to his control. They eventually migrated to Viacom, and are sheltered in the Paramount library.

The package gives an aspect ratio of 2.55:1, the first CinemaScope width, but we suspect something isn’t right. The picture looks mis-framed: actors are often jammed against the left and right extremes, almost cropped themselves. Was the ‘Scope image enlarged and cropped all around?

The new transfer looks as if every digital tool has been employed to revive the film’s colors, which look forced. Plenty of white dirt flecks show up near reel changes. Some shots still look like dupe material, and have also faded. Either they were replacements due to film damage or the picture always looked this way. Billy Mitchell has an interesting script, but the awful art direction and the ragged compositions combine to make it the worst-looking picture Otto Preminger ever made.

Dimitri Tiomkin’s music score peeks out mainly during transitional scenes, enlivening shots of antique cars tooling around Washington D.C.. Several of the city’s main monuments are on display, lending the show added interest. When Billy and Congressman Reid need to discuss defense strategy, they take a stroll on the Mall beneath the Lincoln Memorial.

Olive’s disc had no extras; Kino goes to its reliable war movie spokespeople Steve Mitchell and Steven Jay Rubin. They do well explaining the reversed military politics that existed ‘between the wars.’ There was no money for anything. Enlistees were turned away because thousands of able-bodied derelicts were looking for a haven from the hardships of the Depression. The services sometimes recruited athletes to improve their sports programs. My father described the pre-war military as a ‘jock strap army.’

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson


The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Good
Video: Good
Sound: Very Good
Supplements:
Audio commentary by Steve Mitchell and Steven Jay Rubin.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed:
January 19, 2025
(7261mitc)

*  Mitchell scores with his accusation that the peacetime military routinely risks the lives of aviators in antiquated or experimental craft solely for recruitment and public relations purposes. Aviators are treated like daredevils that should expect to die in their line of work.

In this light, John Ford’s The Wings of Eagles (1956) almost seems a rebuttal to The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell. John Wayne’s 1920s Navy Flying Corps pilot is one crazy guy; the movie treats peacetime aviation as a big party. ‘Round the world air races never result in fatalities. The Duke thinks nothing of crashing a plane into the pool of his commanding officer. These guys never had it so good. Enlist kids, free beer and nothing but fun.

The only thing wrong with this theory is that it implies that John Wayne made a habit of filming conservative rebuttals to Gary Cooper movies, as with  High Noon and  Rio Bravo. We doubt that movies were made for reasons like that, no matter what Howard Hawks or John Wayne said when talking to interviewers. Otto Preminger didn’t say “I want to criticize the Army.”   He likely made Billy Mitchell because he wanted to work with Gary Cooper, had a hole in his schedule, and was tempted by a fat payday.CINESAVANT

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Text © Copyright 2025 Glenn Erickson

About Glenn Erickson

Screen Shot 2015-08-24 at 6.51.08 PM

Glenn Erickson left a small town for UCLA film school, where his spooky student movie about a haunted window landed him a job on the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS effects crew. He’s a writer and a film editor experienced in features, TV commercials, Cannon movie trailers, special montages and disc docus. But he’s most proud of finding the lost ending for a famous film noir, that few people knew was missing. Glenn is grateful for Trailers From Hell’s generous offer of a guest reviewing haven for CineSavant.

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Jenny Agutter fan

I watched The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell in 2005 and saw a straight line between the armed forces’ disregard for the troops and what was going on in Iraq.

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[…] gathers the ambassadors of America’s debtor countries for a demonstration of air power,  Billy Mitchell- style. He first lectures the deadbeat foreigners for defaulting on their war debts while spending to […]

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