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Blu ray review: The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell


Otto Preminger’s powerful dramatic treatment covering the real life trial of General Mitchell benefits from a top level cast that includes Gary Cooper, Ralph Bellamy, Rod Steiger, Charles Bickford, Fred Clark, and a young Jack Lord and Elizabeth Montgomery (in her film debut).  It is now available on blu ray from Kino Lorber.

 

After World War One, General Billy Mitchell stood up for air power but was met with resistance.  Going against orders to prove himself, he was put on trial after he spoke negatively to the press about military actions and operations.

 

While Preminger would create the ultimate courtroom drama with Anatomy of a Murder a few years later, this film also offers the sort of taut, compelling style that permeates the later film.  There are some Hollywood-style inaccuracies, namely the casting of Cooper.  Mitchell was a shorter man, quick to lose his temper, so the family would have preferred James Cagney in the role.  However, Gary Cooper is solid and confident, anchoring every scene, while the narrative is strong and immediately absorbing. When the film was released at the end of 1955, Mitchell’s real life sister agreed to do publicity for it.

 

Kudos to casting diminutive comic character actor Phil Arnold (the guy who gets his suitcoat shredded by The 3 Stooges in Sing a Song of Six Pants) as Mayor LaGuardia. 

 

Kino’s blu ray is a 2023 HD Master by Paramount Pictures from a 4K Scan.  It includes an audio commentary by filmmaker/historian Steve Mitchell and the author of Combat Films: American Realism, Steven Jay Rubin.

 

The blu ray can be purchased at this link: MITCHELL

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James L. Neibaur
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