Paths of glory
1957 USA Black /White 87 minutes
Release date: October 25, 1957
The movie was shot in and around Munich, Germany
Winston Churchill (1874-1965, prime minister of the UK during the second World War) praised the film’s authenticity.Source / More
Dax quotes from Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”. Johnson made this famous pronouncement on the evening of April 7, 1775.
Over a ton of explosives were discharged in the first week of filming alone.
Until 1975 no distributor in France dared to screen the film (for its negative portrayal of the French army).Source / More
When the film was selected for the 1958 Berlin Film Festival, the French threatened to withdraw altogether if the film was shown there.Source / More
Paths of Glory was written by Humphrey Cobb and first published in 1935. Cobb was a veteran of the Great War and was both shot and gassed in combat.The novel was based on an actual 1915 French army mutiny and its punishment.Source / More
The title is a quotation from Thomas Gray’s (1716 - 1771) poem Elegy written in a country churchyard: “ The paths of glory lead but to the grave”.Source / More
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March 7, 1999
Stanley was born in New York City (USA). As a child he was encouraged by his father to take up still photography as a hobby. He entered the field by selling amateur photos to New York's Look magazine. Together with a friend, Kubrick planned a move into film, and so he sank his savings into making the documentary Day of the Fight (1951).
Kubrick's first real film of note was Killer's Kiss (1955) followed by the dark picture The Killing (1956). His breakthrough came with the antiwar movie Paths of Glory (1957) and so Stanley was asked to replace Anthony Mann as the director of the high-budget multistar epic Spartacus (1960). But Kubrick was at odds with both the cast (especially Kirk Douglas) and the crew. The experience was so unpleasant that he forsook Hollywood altogether and moved to London (UK), where he was based ever since.
He made a series of classic films: the sexualized and uproariously comic Lolita (1962), the black comedy Dr. Strangelove (1964), the science-fiction classic 2001: A space odyssey (1968), and the violent A clockwork orange (1971). After Barry Lyndon (1975), Kubrick's filmmaking pace slowed extremely. He made only three more films in the next twenty-five years. Kubrick died shortly after completing his final film, Eyes Wide Shut