Paths of Glory

Paths of Glory
File:PathsOfGloryPoster.jpg Theatrical poster
Directed by	Stanley Kubrick
Written by	Stanley Kubrick Jim Thompson Calder Willingham Story: Humphrey Cobb
Produced by	James B. Harris
Starring	Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker Adolphe Menjou George Macready
Cinematography	Georg Krause
Edited by	Eva Kroll
Music by	Gerald Fried
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	December 25 1957
Running time	86 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$935,000

Paths of Glory (1957) is a black and white war film by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb.

Background

The book had no title when it was finished, so the publisher held a contest. The winning entry came from the ninth stanza of the famous Thomas Gray poem "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard."

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Production

When the novel was published in 1935 it was a minor success. A film adaptation was not made until 1957 when Stanley Kubrick decided to adapt it to the screen after he had remembered reading the book in his childhood. Kubrick and his partners purchased the film rights from Cobb's widow for $10,000. It is supposed to be inspired by a real case; the affair of the Souain corporals.

The novel was about the French execution of innocent men to frighten others in their resolve to fight. The French Army did certainly carry out military executions for cowardice as did all the other major participants. However the central plank of the film is the practice of selecting individuals at random and executing them as a punishment for the sins of the whole group. This is similar to Decimation, and while it was employed by the Romans, it was rarely used by the French Army in World War I. Little known is the French decimation (the shooting of every tenth person in a unit) of the 10e Compagnie of 8 Battalion of the Régiment Mixte de Tirailleurs Algériens. During the retreat at the beginning of the war these French-African soldiers refused an order to attack. They were shot on the 15th of December 1914 near Zillebeeke in Flanders.

Production took place entirely in Bavaria, Germany, especially at the Schleissheim Palace near Munich.

The only female character in the film, the waif who sings "The Faithful Hussar," was portrayed by German actress Susanne Christian. She later married director Stanley Kubrick, and the couple remained married until his death in 1999.

Plot

Paths of Glory is based loosely on the true story of four French soldiers, under General Géraud Réveilhac, executed for mutiny during World War I; their families sued, and while the executions were ruled unfair, two of the families received one franc each, while the others received nothing.

The film begins with a voiceover describing the trench warfare situation of World War I up to 1916; immediately following this is a scene in which General George Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) of the French General Staff asks his subordinate, General Mireau (George Macready), to send his division on a suicidal mission to take a well-defended hill. Mireau initially advises against the attack, citing the low probability of success and the danger to his beloved soldiers, but when General Broulard mentions the possibility of a promotion, Mireau quickly convinces himself the attack will succeed.

Mireau proceeds to walk through the trenches, addressing his men. He asks several soldiers (some of whom later become major characters) the question, "Ready to kill more Germans?" He throws one soldier out of the regiment for showing signs of shell shock. Mireau leaves the detailed planning of the attack to the 701's Régiment Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) despite Dax's protests that the only result of the attack will be to weaken the French army with heavy losses for no benefit. Mireau does not relent.

During a scouting mission prior to the attack, a drunken lieutenant sees movement in the direction of the enemy and throws a grenade. The lieutenant had sent one of his two men to scout out ahead, and the other soldier - Corporal Paris (Ralph Meeker) - realizes that the movement was the scout returning. He accuses the lieutenant of killing his own comrade and then running in cowardice, but the lieutenant denies it.

The attack on the German position proceeds, but ends in complete failure. None of the men who attack reach the German trenches, and one-third of the soldiers refuse to even leave the trench (or are unable to, due to heavy enemy fire). The general, enraged, is convinced that his troops who remained in the trench are cowardly, and orders his own artillery to open fire on them. The artillery commander refuses to fire on his own men without written confirmation of the orders.

As a result of the failure of the attack, General Mireau tries to transfer blame from himself to the soldiers, so he decides to publicly execute 100 of them as an example. General Broulard convinces Mireau to reduce the number to three, one from each company. Corporal Paris is chosen because his commanding officer (the one who had thrown a grenade earlier) has a personal vendetta against him. Private Ferol (Timothy Carey) is picked by his commanding officer because he is a "social undesirable." The last man, Private Arnaud (Joe Turkel), is chosen randomly, despite being one of the best and most courageous soldiers.

Colonel Dax defends the men at their court-martial for cowardice. He loses the trial, despite protesting the court's authenticity. Dax cites being prevented from introducing evidence that would have been vital for the defence, that the prosecution presented no witnesses, that no written indictment was ever made against the accused, and that no stenographic record of the trial was kept. In his final summation to the court he requests mercy, saying, "Gentlemen of the court, to find these men guilty would be a crime to haunt each of you till the day you die."

Although Dax reveals Mireau's treachery (regarding the artillery) to Broulard, complete with sworn statements by witnesses, Broulard takes no immediate action. The condemned men are imprisoned and given a last meal. When visited by a priest, Ferol is willing to have his confession heard, and Paris agrees after initially admitting to not being religious, but Arnaud is drunkenly angry and tries to attack the priest. Finally, Paris punches Arnaud to keep him from attacking the priest. Arnaud falls backward against the wall and fractures his skull.

With great pomp and ceremony, the three men are led out into a courtyard, where the soldiers from all three companies are present and at attention, along with senior officers and members of the press. Arnaud is carried out on a stretcher and tied to the execution post. Ferol is blindfolded and remains accompanied by the priest to the end. Paris takes no blindfold. All three men are then shot and killed by the firing squad.

Following the execution, General Broulard invites Dax to a breakfast with General Mireau. He makes it clear that Mireau will be investigated for the order to fire artillery on his own men. Mireau leaves angrily, realising that he has been made a scapegoat, but claiming to the end to be a true soldier. General Broulard then offers Dax Mireau's position, insinuating that Dax had been angling for promotion all along. Dax responds angrily suggesting where the general can put his promotion. The cynical General Broulard disdains Dax for being an idealist, saying he pities him as he would the village idiot; Broulard adds that he's done no wrong. Colonel Dax replies that he pities the general for his inability to see the wrongs he has done.

After the execution, the rest of the battalion is in a bar, carousing, when a young captured German woman is forced to entertain the French troops on its small stage. When she comes on stage, the soldiers begin to howl and whistle wolfishly at her attractiveness, encouraged by the bar manager. After the manager says she can sing and has a "throat of gold," the woman starts softly singing the German folk song "The Faithful Hussar." The soldiers become emotionally touched by the song, with many eventually humming along. Outside of the bar's entrance, and within earshot of the singing inside, Dax gets word that he and his men are to immediately return to the front. Dax gives the men a few minutes of more time, and he leaves his men to their moment of pleasure before they go back to the front .

Cast

• Kirk Douglas as Col. Dax
• Ralph Meeker as Cpl. Philippe Paris
• Adolphe Menjou as Gen. George Broulard
• George Macready as Gen. Paul Mireau
• Wayne Morris as Lt. Roget
• Richard Anderson as Maj. Saint-Auban
• Joe Turkel as Pvt. Pierre Arnaud
• Christiane Kubrick as German singer
• Jerry Hausner as Proprietor of cafe
• Peter Capell as Narrator of opening sequence and Judge of court-martial
• Emile Meyer as Father Dupree
• Bert Freed as Sgt. Boulanger
• Kem Dibbs as Pvt. Lejeune
• Timothy Carey as Pvt. Maurice Ferol
• Fred Bell as Shell-shock victim

Reception

The film was released in January of 1958 and premiered in Munich, Germany and Los Angeles, USA. The film was considered a modest box office success, although it did earn Kubrick much critical acclaim.

The release of the film and its showing in parts of Europe were controversial. Active and retired military personnel, offended by the way the French military was portrayed in the film, vehemently criticized it after its showing in Brussels (although the film was otherwise well received). Contrary to a persistent urban legend, the film was not banned in France; however, the French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, the European distributor for the film, through diplomatic channels, to refrain from releasing the film. As a result, the film was not submitted to French censors, and was not shown in France until 1975, when moral codes had changed and attitudes calmed. In Germany the film was not allowed to be shown for two years after its release to avoid any strain in relations with France. The film was also officially censored in Spain by the government of Francisco Franco for its anti-military content, and was not released in that country until 1986, eleven years after Franco's death.

The film was nominated for a BAFTA Award under the category Best Film but lost to The Bridge on the River Kwai. The film also won a Jussi Awards' Diploma of merit. In 1959 the film was nominated for a Writers' Guild of America Award but ultimately lost.

In Kirk Douglas' memoirs, he tells how Kubrick considered a traditional "Hollywood Happy Ending," with the three men getting a last minute reprieve. It was Douglas who insisted on the more realistic (and now famous) ending (which had been in the original script co-written by Kubrick). This account has been corroborated by other accounts as well.

Stanley Kubrick has been quoted as saying that he never interpreted the movie as "anti-war." He instead characterised Paths of Glory as "anti-authoritarian ignorance." These are themes he later revisited in Doctor Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket, both of which are 'war movies'. A similar anti-authoritarian approach was amply displayed in Clockwork Orange.

Popular culture

The film has had an important, albeit small impact on popular culture. The British series Blackadder Goes Forth (set in the British trenches during World War One) appears to have taken some inspiration from "Paths of Glory", particularly the episode "Corporal Punishment" in which Capt. Blackadder is subjected to a ludicrously unfair trial (the judge appears as a witness for the prosecution), a virtual Kangaroo court. The character of General Melchett differs wildly from the actor's previous roles in the Black Adder, being portrayed as a sociopath with a complete detachment from both the practical capacities of his officership as well as any rapport with the other officers, let alone with the men under him - a direct parallel to George Macready's role. At one point in the series, the famous scene of the French general touring the trenches is recreated with the story's counterparts.

Paths of Glory is the name of a card-driven strategy game covering World War I in Europe and the Near East, developed by game designer Ted Raicer and published by GMT Games. "Paths of Glory" is also the name of the tenth track in Faith No More's Album of the Year. Mike Patton (songwriter/singer of Faith No More) is a huge fan of Stanley Kubrick, and a few of the band's songs/videos have Kubrick-inspired themes in them. David Simon, describes Paths of Glory as the film template for his HBO series The Wire.

The Tales from the Crypt episode "Yellow" in 1991 echoes the movies themes. The ep stars Kirk Douglas, Eric Douglas, Dan Akroyd, and Lance Henriksen. Here K.Douglas plays a Great War general whose neer-do-well son (played by E. Douglas) is tried for cowardice in the face of the enemy on a scouting mission in the trenches. Akroyd effectively plays the Colonel Dax role, and Henriksen is the mortally wounded soldier who bears witness against the son. The episode pivots on the ego of both the father and the son.

Preservation and restoration

In 1992, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In October and November of 2004 the movie was shown at the London Film Festival by the British Film Institute. It was carefully remastered over a period of several years; the original film elements were found to be damaged. However, with the aid of several modern digital studios in Los Angeles the film was completely restored and remastered for modern cinema. In addition, Stanley Kubrick's widow Christiane (who also appears in the closing scene as the German Singer) made a guest appearance at the start of the performance.

See also

• All Quiet on the Western Front, a novel and film with similar themes
• Trial movies
• The Execution of Private Eddie Slovik

External links

• Paths of Glory at IMDb
• Paths of Glory at AllMovie
• Paths of Glory at the TCM Movie Database
• Paths of Glory at gonemovies.com (includes images)