Kirk Douglas gives a powerful performance as an honorable French Army officer who, on orders from his superiors, must lead his men on a doomed mission to wrest control of a German-held hill in WWI France. This stark dramatization was a harbinger of the major themes director Stanley Kubrick would develop throughout his career, underlining the hypocrisy and cynicism of authority.
35mm, b/w, 90 min. Production: Bryna Productions, Inc. Producer: James B. Harris. Director: Stanley Kubrick. Based on the novel by Humphrey Cobb. Screenwriter: Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham. Cinematographer: George Krause. Editor: Eva Kroll. Composer: Gerald Fried. With: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready, Wayne Morris.
