Paths of Glory November 21, 2005

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
US, 1957, B&W, 87 min.
With Kirk Douglas, Adolph Mejou, George Macready
English and German with English subtitles

During World War I, a French general (Macready) orders his men on a suicidal charge; when they fail, he picks three of them to be tried and executed for cowardice. An extraordinarily effective film showing the insanity of war, Paths of Glory is more genuinely pacifist than either Saving Private Ryan or The Thin Red Line. The screenplay is written by Kubrick with two of his favorite novelists, Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson.