Rod Steiger and Gary Cooper - "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell" 

Rod Steiger should have been nominated for an Oscar for this performance.

Some will disagree with me, but my personal opinion is this. One of the greatest tragedies of the 20th Century was that General Mitchell never got to stand at Pearl Harbor and say, "You wanted confirmation General? TAKE A LOOK! THERE'S YOUR CONFIRMATION!"

Lt Stu Scheller: Since this started I immediately thought of Billy Mitchell who was court marshaled for pointing out the weakness of our flying capabilities. He also predicted Pearl Harbor many years before it occurred.

Great movie that I hadn't thought about in years. Saw it when I was a kid. People like him, Chaire Chanault, Jimmy Doolitle and MacAuther got us to whee we are today. Thank Go for men like them!

Gen. Mitchell's court martial was skillfully masterminded by not only the Army higher echelons but also Gen. Mitchell's willfully sacrificing his own career for the betterment of the service and the defense of the nation. The Army and the Navy of that era were trying to maintain their own services in a time of demobilization, treaty limitations, and BUDGET CUTS and having a distinguished high ranking General making such claims made a tense situation with international implications even more tedious. That out of the way, Gen. Mitchell was 100% correct in all his claims and the indecision of the Army did needlessly cause the deaths of so many at Pearl Harbor. The abhorrent condition of the aircraft led to many deaths in the interwar years coupled with the willful blindness of the potential of air power. Gen. Mitchell's initial demotion to Col. was orchestrated by senior Army staff generals as a means of silencing Mitchell. Both the Army and Navy were at the time deadlocked in preserving tradition doctrines of war and worried more about jurisdictions than the safety and security of our national defense. Gen. Mitchell's court martial was more about placing blind obedience over indicating flaws and real vulnerabilities of the uniformed services. Even to this with the wake of Pearl Harbor the US Air Force still refuses to give Gen. Mitchell his deserved vindication citing the claims he made were accurate but means he took were not and cannot be condoned for risk of upsetting order and discipline within the US military.

I read the air trials covered this June 1921 100 years ago. God bless the veterans!

A true prophet in every sense and those prediction’s based on a well developed superior foresight and intellect. The naysayers branded Him and stripped Him of His proper authority so they could self congratulate themselves and prepare the way for their own future adoration and hero worship , oblivious to the fact that they were nestling their own necks into History’s guillotin.

I bet after Pearl Harbor there were a lot of red faces in the military when the subject of Billy Mitchell came up.

17:18 damn I felt that

Steiger is like a bolt of lightening in a grey drizzle. Terrific performance.

The ending was edited. The original ending started with biplanes and transitioned into F-100 series jets. The ending here shows modern jets, which look like F-15 and F16, and F-18s. Sadly, Billy Mitchell didn't live to see Pearl Harbor. The only thing that, I'm aware of the military did to honor him, was to name a bomber after him, the B-25. This plane is famous for bombing Tokyo.

World History is so difficult to understand. This film prouve this.

Cast of stars and future stars- Gary Cooper, Ralph Bellamy, Jack Lord, Elizabeth Montgomery, Rod Steiger

Looks like someone did some editing at the end. I saw the ending of the movie years ago. I'm sure there were jet planes at the end. But those jets would have been most likely F-86 Sabers. The jets at the end of this video look more like our modern jets.

Steiger is just fantastic here, a real portent of what was to come. I first watched this film in black and white and didn't recognise Steiger at first, but after a few seconds I realised this prosecutor was exactly like Napoleon in Waterloo.

It's the same problem too many chiefs in high places out of touch With reality!

My step-great grandfather. One of my personal heros ..

Can you imagine if they locked him up and Dec 7th 1941 came, and actually what he said came true and they got their best man in a jail cell!

Watch Tora! Tora! Tora! An accurate account of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor from both sides. Tiger Tiger Tiger... the Code radioed back to the Japanese fleet that they had achieved complete surprise.

Before this I had only heard of Rod Steiger as playing Judd in Oklahoma. Here he is playing a very intelligent and articulate officer. I didn't know he was so versatile.

Gary Cooper sees acting for the first time.

The trial scene with the Japanese diplomat observers leaving the courtroom has been edited out!

Rod steiger and fred clark Appeared together again in Back from eternity 1956

I WOULD love to know how that layers felt during the Pearl Harbor attack if he was alive since Mitchell was not!

MItchell's family complained that Gary Cooper didn't act like Billy Mitchell. Cooper's response was "I'm not playing Billy Mitchell---I'm playing Gary Cooper." If Mitchell had had his way we (The United States, that is) would have been saddled with thousands of obsolescent, useless airplanes on the eve of World War Two. The Brewster Buffaloes the Marines flew at Midway were bad enough. Besides, he wasn't the only person who foresaw that Pearl could be attacked from the air.

Sometimes I hear a similarity between the speech of Rod Steiger and that of Anthony Hopkins. Walking around the court while giving your testimony seems rather odd. Also, Gary Cooper is actually a bad actor, and also strangely one of my favourites.

Imagine getting parts in movies because you are unlikeable. I've never liked Rod Steiger.