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A low-angle shot of Gary Cooper against the Capitol Dome settles this as Otto Preminger's reconsideration of Capra, just as David Niven's double-takes made The Moon Is Blue a requiem for Lubitsch. The "unwanted child" that is the air force in the wake of The War to End All Wars, antiquated equipment and dispirited crews and rigged demonstrations, still the brigadier general sinks the old German battleship and is demoted for his trouble. He denounces the armed forces for negligence and is tried for insubordination, all part of the plan to get his day in court. The tribunal in the abandoned warehouse is presided over by the Army ramrod (Charles Bickford), the Congressman counsel (Ralph Bellamy) and the prosecutor (Fred Clark) play ping-pong with laws and doubts. "You know what a filibuster is? I'm going home to gargle." A curious case, the quandary of examining a dedicated military man while extolling the need to disobey orders, Billy Mitchell the "good soldier" and the "bad soldier." (He sees a future up in the air and predicts Pearl Harbor, two years later there's the voices heard by the accused maiden in Saint Joan.) President Coolidge and Gen. MacArthur are cameos rattling inside the wry legal spectacle, which hinges on manipulating a young widow (Elizabeth Montgomery) onto the witness stand and dismantling the philosophy of the malaria-cracked veteran—the cross-examination between Cooper and Rod Steiger's marauding Major is a purposeful clash of agendas and of acting traditions. "I hope our Army is as invincible in the fields as it is in its offices." In the end the only certainty is the great Preminger theme, the need to ask questions. With James Daly, Jack Lord, Darren McGavin, Peter Graves, Robert F. Simon, Charles Dingle, and Ian Wolfe.
--- Fernando F. Croce |