One of the best movies on war ever

Rating: 10/10 (28 October 2002)

Impassioned examination of military injustice during WWI. Douglas must defend 3 prisoners wrongly accused of cowardice and sentenced to be hung. Menjou is powerful and convincing as a military higher up who believes Douglas cares only for a promotion. Beautiful photography in the style of Ophuls contrasts plush life of higher officers with the hell of trench war. Some melodrama, but all in all it's much less sentimental and also less spectacle-oriented than most war films (including Douglas and Kubrick's later "Spartacus", which is a pompous bore). Doublas only speechifies when the plot makes it a necessity (highly unusual for him, a trained Spencer Tracy wannabe).