For a film about the armed forces with virtually no action, no love interest and over half its running time set in a court room this is strangely effective. Prior to Jack Lemmon's emergence on the scene in the early 50s no one did 'decency' as well as Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper and that being the case Cooper could have phoned this one in had he put his mind to it. Although meaningless liberties have been taken with this true story - what possible difference, for example, could it have made to acknowledge that Mitchell was married rather than imply bachelor status - it still grips in an understated way. Essentially Mitchell distinguished himself as a pilot in the First World War but grew appalled at the indifference if not bias in favour of the Army and Navy in peacetime - there was, in fact, no Air Force - and having exhausted every avenue in an attempt to address this problem he called a press conference and accused the General Staff of incompetence. His purpose, of course, was to get the army to court martial him and use this as a forum to sue for recognition and the formation of a third armed force. For his pains he died in virtual obscurity prior to the second World War he had foreseen. Cooper is solid as the dedicated army man, Rod Steiger showboats in the flashiest role in the film as Prosecuting Attorney and the support is largely out of the right bottle. On the low-key side for an Otto Preminger film but none the worse for that.