Great early Kubrick

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2004)

'Paths of Glory' confirms what a great director Stanley Kubrick was early in his career. This and 'The Killing' from a year earlier are just a one-two punch. You can just feel Kubrick sharpening his knives on this one in preparation for 'Dr. Strangelove.' While this is a drama, you can't help but laugh at the complete absurdity of the situations. I kind of doubt (or at least *need* to, anyway) that an officer would be allowed to go as far as he did, but I think Kubrick wasn't necessarily going for a literal lesson here and was instead trying to make a larger statement about the lives of soldiers being in the hands of madmen. At any rate, Kirk Douglas does a wonderful job of portraying quiet, white-hot rage, and I especially liked Ralph Meeker, who reminded me a little bit of a young, goateed Orson Welles.
The black and white really stood out as well-I really liked the scenes in the basement of the chateau.
If I had to criticize anything about the movie, I suppose the very end with the German girl and the men didn't really work for me. It might have been powerful in another film, but I think it took away from the final showdown between Douglas and Adolphe Menjou. It's a trivial complaint and shouldn't dissuade anyone from seeing this.