Paths of Glory (1/11) Movie CLIP - A Stroll Through the Trenches (1957) HD

CLIP DESCRIPTION:
General Mireau (George Macready) strolls through the trenches checking up on the soldiers and comes across a shell-shocked coward.

FILM DESCRIPTION:
Adapting Humphrey Cobb's novel to the screen, director Stanley Kubrick and his collaborators Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson set out to make a devastating anti-war statement, and they succeeded above and beyond the call of duty. In the third year of World War I, the erudite but morally bankrupt French general Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) orders his troops to seize the heavily fortified "Ant Hill" from the Germans. General Mireau (George MacReady) knows that this action will be suicidal, but he will sacrfice his men to enhance his own reputation. Against his better judgment, Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) leads the charge, and the results are appalling. When, after witnessing the slaughter of their comrades, a handful of the French troops refuse to leave the trenches, Mireau very nearly orders the artillery to fire on his own men. Still smarting from the defeat, Mireau cannot admit to himself that the attack was a bad idea from the outset: he convinces himself that loss of Ant Hill was due to the cowardice of his men. Mireau demands that three soldiers be selected by lot to be executed as an example to rest of the troops. Acting as defense attorney, Colonel Dax pleads eloquently for the lives of the unfortunate three, but their fate is a done deal. Even an eleventh-hour piece of evidence proving Mireau's incompetence is ignored by the smirking Broulard, who is only interested in putting on a show of bravado. A failure when first released (it was banned outright in France for several years), Paths of Glory has since taken its place in the pantheon of classic war movies, its message growing only more pertinent and potent with each passing year (it was especially popular during the Vietnam era).

CREDITS:
TM & © MGM (1957)
Cast: Richard Anderson, Fred Bell, Timothy Carey, George Macready
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Producers: James B. Harris, Kirk Douglas, Stanley Kubrick
Screenwriters: Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham, Jim Thompson, Humphrey Cobb

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[ispi]

Note that at each stop, whoever the general comes across, one among them will end up before the firing squad at the end.

[eh]

Just wanted to say that 1957 was as far away from 1917 as 1980 is from today

[Kernog]

The insincere, repeated greeting, the total denial of the existance of anything resembling a PTSD, the complete lack of sympathy for a traumatized soldier... Yup, it's an early 20th century officer for you. What a powerful setup scene.

[VixxKong]

Sam Mendes saw that camera 1 shot movement and thought:
"I bet I can make a whole movie like that lol"

[ramonalejandro]

How the hell did Kubrick shoot this without a steadicam? Way ahead of its time

[wendelldallas]

I love how the general is not even saluting properly here, he's doing some sort of half assed wave instead; an example of Kubrick using meaningful details to support the elements of characterization and plot.

[thecinematicmind]

RIP Kirk Douglas
A True Screen Legend Who Transcends Cinema For All Time.

[rossdow]

I love how the general walks and boom explosion. While all the soldiers don't care.

[doubleghod]

This film was banned in France until 1975

[tomnorton]

A nice detail here is that Mireau shows a stronger reaction to the explosions than any of the soldiers. Either he hasn't been in the trenches for a long time or he's just a coward.

[longlongjohnson]

A great tracking shot. A true Kubrick classic.

[Eralen]

This is the first time i've heard or seen anything of this film, i was wondering why the cinematography looks so progressive for 1957 ... then someone in the comments said it was stanley kubrick directing, that explains it. This scene put this movie right on my watch list

[gunterangel]

The accomplished director of photography of the movie, Georg Krause, was from Germany .Shortly before this movie he had also photographed two parts of the classic trilogy of the "o8 / 15" - movies, which were among the first movies made in Germany about WW2 in 1954/55. He was known and acknowlegded for his particular grim and gritty black & white cinematography.
( Actually he never shot a single movie in color.)

Some further bits of trivia about this movie:

Kirk Douglas played not only the lead role, but served also as producer of the movie thru his own production company, Bryna-Productions.

The movie was completely shot on a pretty tight budget ( close to $) at the Bavaria Studios, Munich-Geiselgasteig and some nearby surroundings in Germany.

The trenches were built and the battle scenes filmed on a field near Munich-Pullach.

The "New Castle Schleißheim" in Oberschleißheim is the location, where the execution scene was filmed in front of, and also the trial scenes were filmed inside that same castle.

The specialist providing the
(then still solely ) practical pyrotech effects was the famed German FX-man, Karl "Charlie Boom Boom" Baumgartner, who'd provide the pyrotech effects for some thirty years for many international movies, among them
"The Longest Day"
(USA 1962),
"Dunkirk 1940"
( France 1964),
"The Bridge at Remagen"
(USA 1968),
"Waterloo"
( Italy/USSR 1970),
"A Bridge too Far"
(GB 1977),
"Steiner - The Iron Cross"
( Germany 1977) and
"Das Boot"
(Germany 1979/80/81)

To save the production same money ironically all the ( non-speaking ! ) extras playing French soldiers were actually German policemen recruited from the state police of Bavaria, because they got payed by the Bavarian federal state and were by law not allowed to earn some extra money, because, as said, they were state officials.

There really lies some irony in the fact, that all the extras playing French soldiers were actually Germans, doesn't it !? ;)

This was a rather cheap method for the Bavarian goverment to promote the movie production facilities in Munich to foreign producers and attract them to produce their movies there.

The policemen would be sent to the movie set during their official work hours and got paid by the state.

Another advantage of hiring policemen as extras was, that they were naturally used to handle arms, so the production had not to spend considerable time in give unexperienced extras some training lessons in it.

( Five years later another classic American war movie would be produced here as well :
"The Great Escape"
with an all star cast.
And in 1979/80 another classic,
"Das Boot", this time as a complete German production.)

But it is pretty likely, that most of these men had also actually fought as soldiers, the older ones in WW1 ( and maybe they were even forced to fight again in the "Volksturm" during the last months of WW2 ) and the younger men probably in WW2.

So most of the non-speaking extras certainly knew the song, that tje German girl sings on the last scene ( "Der treu' Husar" / "The Faithful Husar") and could fully understand the lyrics.
So it was probably no big acting deal for them to tear up, when Christiane Kubrick had sung it in front of them so movingly and in such plain fashion like a German mother from a hundred years ago would have sung it to her little child.

There lies so much "innocence" in the unpretentious way she sings this simple tune, that you can't help but being deeply touched by it.

Btw. Kirk Douglas had quite a relation to Bavaria and the movie studios in Munich there.

He would make three movies there in the second half of the fifties and at the beginning sixties.

This one and then immediatly after that "The Vykings" ( yes, really, that movie was actually shot for the most part on and near a lake in the Bavarian Alpes, the Walchensee, which was quite s convincing stand-in for a Norwegian fjörd, and the battle scenes actually in the Normandy/France. At the Hardangefjörd in Norway were only a few second-unit establishing shots filmed, since the Vykings ships replica were actually not ocean-going.

and in 1961"Town without Pity",
a movie, that obviously had felt into oblivion today ( probabably due to its even more controversial subject), and where Kirk played a very similar role, but this time an American military lawyer.

And of course Kirk Douglas got some connections to Germany since in 1954 he'd married his second wife, Anne, who was from Hannover.

Kind regards from a classic movie buff from Germany !

[TheStapleGunKid]

One thing no one seems to talk about is how utterly amazing the production values of this movie are. It just flawlessly recreated the trenches of WWI. Everything looks perfectly authentic.

[jauresantiago]

Seeing 1917 I couldn't help remembering this scene, the way it is filmed.

[jessesands]

Absolutely devastating and brilliant movie about the horrors of war in the trenches!🤨

[pabcde.babcde.]

Great film and cast. Ralph Meeker, 1 of 3 tried for cowardice, a B-movie actor, in his best role.
George McCready, the general who blamed his troops for failing to capture a German stronghold, was an
American actor... great voice and diction. You heard every word.

[matthabir]

Mireau was a hell of a lot closer to the front than you'll ever find a general officer nowadays...

[DelightLovesMovies]

this is such a great film by Stanley Kubrick that gets better with repeat viewings.

[paintballerlife]

Stanley Kubrick was known for doing a huge number of takes on every scene in his movies. I wonder how many takes they did for this.