William "Billy" Mitchell (1879- 1936) was one of America's leading air aces in World War I. He was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, and after the war became an advocate of air power, believing that aircraft would be the decisive weapon in future wars. In 1921 he demonstrated his theories by using aerial bombing to sink the German battleship Ostfriesland, transferred to the US under the terms of the Versailles peace treaty. He advocated the creation of a separate US Air Force, similar to the British RAF created in 1918, and became increasingly disillusioned with the Army top brass, which was keeping the Air Service starved of funds.
Mitchell was particularly outraged by the deaths of his close friend Zachary Lansdowne in the crash of the airship USS Shenandoah and of six of his wartime colleagues in another disaster. These tragedies led him to make harsh criticisms to the press of the Army and Navy's attitude towards air power. As a result, he was reduced in rank to colonel and eventually court-martialled for insubordination. The first half of the film tells Mitchell's story, the second deals with the court-martial itself.
What comes out from this film is how prescient Mitchell was. It is unlikely that if a major war had been fought in 1925, the year of his court-martial, air power would have been the decisive factor, any more than it had been in 1914-18. Mitchell, however, foresaw that aeroplane technology would continue to evolve rapidly and that soon aircraft would be an all-important component in the military forces of every nation. He even predicted a Japanese airborne attack on Pearl Harbor, a prediction which was to come true in 1941, five years after his death. (He, however, predicted that the attacking planes would be launched from the Japanese mainland; the capabilities of aircraft carriers seem to have progressed even more rapidly than he anticipated).
Mitchell's family were, apparently, not happy with the choice of Gary Cooper to play him in this movie. Cooper was considerably taller than the real Mitchell and played him with his normal calm, laconic demeanour, whereas Mitchell had been notoriously quick-tempered. Their suggestion of James Cagney for the role might have made for an interesting drama. I suspect, however, that the film-makers went for Cooper precisely because the film is very favourable to him and they wanted to show him as sympathetic; if he had been played as aggressive and hot-tempered this might have increased sympathy for his opponents, who are generally shown as stubborn and reactionary. (One of Mitchell's supporters says that "The Navy hasn't got any policy on flying, they are ignoring the aeroplane in hopes that it will just go away").
I thought, in fact, that Cooper played the part very well. Another strong point is an intelligent script, which earned the scriptwriters Milton Sperling and Emmet Lavery an Oscar nomination for Best Story and Screenplay. A film dealing with questions of military strategy and defence policy from thirty years earlier could easily have become boring. In Sperling and Lavery's hands, and those of director Otto Preminger, "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell" instead becomes a fascinating and intelligent drama, looking at the question of what a soldier should do when his duty to his superior officers conflicts with what he sees as his wider duty to his country. 7/10
A goof. Contrary to what is stated in the film, the Ostfriesland was not an unsinkable modern super-battleship, and nobody in 1921 believed it to be one. It was an old ship of an obsolete design, which is why it was used as a target in naval exercises rather than being commissioned into the US fleet.
Mitchell was particularly outraged by the deaths of his close friend Zachary Lansdowne in the crash of the airship USS Shenandoah and of six of his wartime colleagues in another disaster. These tragedies led him to make harsh criticisms to the press of the Army and Navy's attitude towards air power. As a result, he was reduced in rank to colonel and eventually court-martialled for insubordination. The first half of the film tells Mitchell's story, the second deals with the court-martial itself.
What comes out from this film is how prescient Mitchell was. It is unlikely that if a major war had been fought in 1925, the year of his court-martial, air power would have been the decisive factor, any more than it had been in 1914-18. Mitchell, however, foresaw that aeroplane technology would continue to evolve rapidly and that soon aircraft would be an all-important component in the military forces of every nation. He even predicted a Japanese airborne attack on Pearl Harbor, a prediction which was to come true in 1941, five years after his death. (He, however, predicted that the attacking planes would be launched from the Japanese mainland; the capabilities of aircraft carriers seem to have progressed even more rapidly than he anticipated).
Mitchell's family were, apparently, not happy with the choice of Gary Cooper to play him in this movie. Cooper was considerably taller than the real Mitchell and played him with his normal calm, laconic demeanour, whereas Mitchell had been notoriously quick-tempered. Their suggestion of James Cagney for the role might have made for an interesting drama. I suspect, however, that the film-makers went for Cooper precisely because the film is very favourable to him and they wanted to show him as sympathetic; if he had been played as aggressive and hot-tempered this might have increased sympathy for his opponents, who are generally shown as stubborn and reactionary. (One of Mitchell's supporters says that "The Navy hasn't got any policy on flying, they are ignoring the aeroplane in hopes that it will just go away").
I thought, in fact, that Cooper played the part very well. Another strong point is an intelligent script, which earned the scriptwriters Milton Sperling and Emmet Lavery an Oscar nomination for Best Story and Screenplay. A film dealing with questions of military strategy and defence policy from thirty years earlier could easily have become boring. In Sperling and Lavery's hands, and those of director Otto Preminger, "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell" instead becomes a fascinating and intelligent drama, looking at the question of what a soldier should do when his duty to his superior officers conflicts with what he sees as his wider duty to his country. 7/10
A goof. Contrary to what is stated in the film, the Ostfriesland was not an unsinkable modern super-battleship, and nobody in 1921 believed it to be one. It was an old ship of an obsolete design, which is why it was used as a target in naval exercises rather than being commissioned into the US fleet.