Cast
Col Dax : Kirk Douglas
Cpl Philip Paris : Ralph Meeker
Gen George Broulard : Adolphe Menjou
Gen Paul Mireau : George Macready
Lt Roget/Singing Man : Wayne Morris
Maj Saint-Auban : Richard Anderson
Pvt Pierre Arnaud (as Joseph Turkel) : Joe Turkel
German singer (as Susanne Christian) : Christiane Kubrick
Proprietor of cafe : Jerry Hausner
Narrator/Colonel Judge of court-martial : Peter Capell
Father Dupree : Emile Meyer
Sgt Boulanger : Bert Freed
Pvt Lejeune : Kem Dibbs
Pvt Maurice Ferol : Timothy Carey
Shell-shock victim : Fred Bell

Stanley Kubrick's curiously overlooked 1957 masterpiece is one of the finest anti-war films ever made, easily bracketed alongside such films as the Deer Hunter, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Saving Private Ryan. Based on Humphrey Cobb's 1935 novel Paths of Glory, it draws from a true incident that took place in the French army during World War I, when five enlisted men were unfairly executed for mutiny when they rebel against a terribly conceived mission which is sure to end in futile suicide for them all. Years later the men's families sued the army and won, but were awarded only two francs for damages.

Kirk Douglas puts in a superb performance as Colonel Dax, the man at the centre of the controversy, and the film is a taut, powerful piece of film drama that stays true to the actual events that inspired the book. The French were so offended by Kubrick's film they banned it until the early 1970s.