Paths of Glory
PATHS OF GLORY is among the most powerful antiwar films ever made. The story takes place in 1916 France, as the French command orders an exhausted unit to wrest control of an anthill from the Germans--expecting a casualty rate of 60 percent. The battle during which the Germans are never seen, indicating that the French are their own worst enemy turns into a bloody massacre.
Looking for a scapegoat, General Mireau (George Macready) orders Colonel Dax (a never-more-intense Kirk Douglas) to select three of his men to face a court-martial and possible firing squad for the troops' cowardice. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, PATHS OF GLORY, based on the novel by Humphrey Cobbs, is a gut-wrenching, unforgettable drama. Every scene is awash in grays, covered in doom. Kubrick marvelously contrasts the ornate palace where the generals sip their cognac with the ramshackle trenches where injured men stumble about, demoralized and shellshocked.
Douglas gives a tough, gritty performance; his tense sparring with the high command features sharp, biting dialogue. The entire cast is outstanding; watching so many men die for no reason is maddening. Kubrick captured the Vietnam War in FULL METAL JACKET, the cold war in DR. STRANGELOVE, the Seven Years' War in BARRY LYNDON, and a slave uprising in SPARTACUS, but PATHS OF GLORY is his crowning achievement when it comes to depicting the devastation, both physical and psychological, that war wreaks on the individual as well as the state.
Directed by
Stanley Kubrick
Cast
Kirk Douglas - Colonel Dax
Ralph Meeker - Corporal Paris
Adolphe Menjou - General Broulard
George Macready - General Mireau
Wayne Morris - Lieutenant Roget
Richard Anderson - Major Saint-Auban
Joseph Turkel - Private Arnaud
Timothy Carey - Private Ferol
Peter Capell - Colonel Judge
Bert Freed - Sergeant Boulanger
Production Co.
Harris-Kubrick Picture Corporation
Produced by
James B Harris
Studio
United Artists
Writer
Humphrey Cobb
Stanley Kubrick
Music
Gerald Fried
