THIS LEGENDARY 1st WORLD WAR PACKAGE INCLUDES:
PATHS OF GLORY
PATHS OF GLORY is among the most powerful antiwar films ever made. The story takes place in 1916 France, as the French command orders an exhausted unit to wrest control of an anthill from the Germans--expecting a casualty rate of 60 percent. The battle--during which the Germans are never seen, indicating that the French are their own worst enemy--turns into a bloody massacre. Looking for a scapegoat, General Mireau (George Macready) orders Colonel Dax (a never-more-intense Kirk Douglas) to select three of his men to face a court-martial and possible firing squad for the troops' cowardice. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, PATHS OF GLORY, based on the novel by Humphrey Cobbs, is a gut-wrenching, unforgettable drama. Every scene is awash in grays, covered in doom. Kubrick marvelously contrasts the ornate palace where the generals sip their cognac with the ramshackle trenches where injured men stumble about, demoralized and shellshocked. Douglas gives a tough, gritty performance; his tense sparring with the high command features sharp, biting dialogue. The entire cast is outstanding; watching so many men die for no reason is maddening. Kubrick captured the Vietnam War in FULL METAL JACKET, the cold war in DR. STRANGELOVE, the Seven Years' War in BARRY LYNDON, and a slave uprising in SPARTACUS, but PATHS OF GLORY is his crowning achievement when it comes to depicting the devastation, both physical and psychological, that war wreaks on the individual--as well as the state.
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
WINNER OF 2 OSCARS INCLUDING BEST PICTURE
Still widely regarded as the best war film ever made, director Lewis Milestone's adaptation of the Remarque WWI novel is clearly his masterpiece, a searing indictment of the insanity of war. Starring Lew Ayres as the young Paul Bauman, the film focuses on the fates of the boy and his classmates, who have enlisted to fight in the German army during WWI. Still on fire with the patriotism instilled by their teacher, Kantorek (Arnold Lucy), they arrive for training, eager to face death. When they reach the front lines, the realize that the German troops have few supplies and no food. Sgt. Katczinsky (Louis Wolheim), briefs the recruits on how to avoid getting killed, but on the first night, one of them gets shot. The carnage of the battle shocks the boys, and some are driven mad. Day after day, the recruits huddle in the trenches, frightened, starving, and unable to gain ground, realizing that it is not glorious to die for one's fatherland. This powerfully affecting film is brilliantly directed and written, and generally well acted despite some dated elements. Milestone's magnificent crane and tracking shots of the battlefields surely owe something to the work of Karl Freund, arguably the finest cinematographer in film history.
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