The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1988)

In 1988 I Executive Produced a film based on my father's play "The Caine Mutiny Court martial.

We chose Robert Altman to direct it because of his amazing adaptation of the stage play "Come back to the five and dime, Jimmy Dean.

We had an excellent budget of 4 million dollars which allowed Altman to recruit top line actors.

We filmed it in Port Townsand, WA (the same location where "An Officer and a Gentleman" was filmed.)

When Altman and I arrived, he asked to be taken to the court. The groundskeeper misunderstood and took us to the basketball court.

After pondering for a few minutes, Altman said, "This is perfect!" During the war resources were stretched and they could have very well used this basketball court to try the case.

The filming took place over 4 weeks during which time I made sure that not one word of my father's dialogue was changed.

William Friedkin's adaptation which I recently uploaded, in my opinion, pales in comparison to Altman's.

See if you agree with me. - JW

Review by Bill Shannon ★★★★½ 1

Hard to believe that this extraordinary courtroom drama was on regular, broadcast network TV -- CBS, no less! -- in 1988.

If you've seen the original The Caine Mutiny, you know that Cmdr. Queeg is a basket-case. This film, based on a play, removes all of the actual incidents of the unfortunate events of the U.S.S. Caine on 18 December, 1945, and focuses only on the aftermath, namely the court-martial trial of the XO that replaced Queeg.

Having never known of this project before I ordered it on-demand, his movie made me and makes me profoundly miss Robert Altman. There are few directors in America, or maybe the world, who could have made a TV-movie like this in the late 1980s, that feels nothing like a TV-movie.

The dialogue of the play itself is rather dry, and though it's compelling and sometimes explosive, the more quiet moments are greatly enhanced by Altman's mise-en-scene.

A basketball court converted into a makeshift courtroom might not feel like the most majestic locale for a high-stakes judicial drama, but Altman uses every corner of the location to tell the story. The dialogue is sometimes overlapping, sometimes obscured. And some of the dialogue is met with very pointed reactions from the principals -- notably Michael Murphy and Peter Gallagher. But there is no wasted motion, in the camera work, in the acting, in the dialogue, or in the narrative.

I find myself in awe of such a master craftsman, who could have made this a very straightforward "Law & Order" style drama and still made it a solid made-for-TV film. Instead, he strips away the pageantry and the pomp, and boiling the entire affair down to the words and actions of a few men, who on one fateful day made a decision that probably saved dozens of lives.

The real star of the film is Bogosian, who not only is the pivot point for all the real "action" in the film (such as it is), but brings the depth of being a Jew in WWII. His post-trial coda, cutting through all the legalities, and concluding that Cmdr. Queeg was actually a pawn, and that he actually did more to defend the Jewish people than any of the mutineers did. It is a bitter pill after investing in this trial and siding against the clearly troubled Queeg.

The entire production is at least a full decade ahead of its time: it had no business being on late-'80s TV. Were there a lot of these kinds of productions like this back then that I don't know about? I would love for the Big Four networks to set aside a night or two to have a great director take on a great play and broadcast it to the American masses; they could use some culture.

https://josephwouk.locals.com/post/2662051/the-caine-mutiny-court-martial-1988