Top 100 Movies you must Watch... 51- Paths of Glory

1957 Film

8.5/10-IMDb

93%-Rotten Tomatoes

Release date: December 20, 1957 (USA)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Running time: 88 minutes

Initial DVD release: May 15, 2001

Screenplay: Calder Willingham, Stanley Kubrick, Jim Thompson

Description

The film begins with a voiceover describing the trench warfare situation of World War I up to 1916; immediately following this is a scene in which General George Broulard (Adolphe Menjou), a member of the French General Staff, asks his subordinate, the ambitious General Mireau (George Macready), to send his division on a suicide mission to take a well-defended German position called the "Anthill". Mireau initially refuses to comply, citing the impossibility of success and the danger to his beloved soldiers, but when Broulard mentions a potential promotion, Mireau quickly convinces himself the attack will succeed.

Mireau proceeds to walk through the trenches, addressing his men. He asks several soldiers, "Ready to kill more Germans?" He throws one soldier out of the regiment for showing signs of shell shock, which Mireau denies exists, blaming the soldier's behavior on cowardice. Mireau leaves the detailed planning of the attack to the 701's Régiment Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), despite Dax's protests that the only result of the attack will be to weaken the French Army with heavy losses for no benefit. Mireau does not relent.

During a nighttime scouting mission prior to the attack, a drunken lieutenant named Roget (Wayne Morris) sends one of his two men ahead as a scout. Overcome by fear while waiting for the scout's return, he lobs a grenade and retreats. The other soldier — Corporal Paris (Ralph Meeker) — finds the body of the scout, killed by the grenade. Having safely returned, he confronts Roget, but Roget denies any wrongdoing, and falsifies his report to Colonel Dax.

The next morning, the attack on the German position proceeds, beginning with a first wave of soldiers, and with Dax leading, but ends in disaster. None of the men reach the German trenches, and one-third of the soldiers (B Company) refuse to leave their own trench because of heavy enemy fire. Mireau, enraged, orders his own artillery to open fire on them to force them onto the battlefield. The artillery commander refuses to fire on his own men without written confirmation of the orders. Meanwhile, Dax returns to the trenches, and tries to rally B Company to join the battle, but as he climbs out of the trench, the body of a retreating French soldier knocks him down. It becomes obvious that the attack has failed.

To deflect blame for the failure, Mireau decides to court martial 100 of the soldiers for cowardice. Broulard convinces him to reduce the number to three, one from each company. Corporal Paris is chosen because his commanding officer, Lt. Roget, wishes to keep him from testifying about his actions in the scouting mission. Private Ferol (Timothy Carey) is picked by his commanding officer because he is a "social undesirable." The last man, Private Arnaud (Joe Turkel), is chosen randomly by lot, despite having been cited for bravery twice previously.

Dax, who was a criminal defense lawyer in civilian life, volunteers to defend the men at their court-martial. Unfortunately, the entire trial is a farce and can accurately be described as a "kangaroo court" as the rights of the accused are repeatedly violated. For example, there is no specific and formal statement of the charges against them at the commencement of the trial, no verbatim stenographic record of the trial proceedings is being created, and compelling evidence which would support acquittal of the defendants is not permitted to be heard. In his closing statement, Dax challenges the court's authenticity, and requests mercy, saying, "Gentlemen of the court, to find these men guilty would be a crime to haunt each of you till the day you die." Nonetheless, the three men are sentenced to death.

Later, Dax, aware of the reason Roget picked Paris to be executed, appoints Roget to have charge of the executions. Horrified, Roget protests, but Dax dismisses him curtly from his quarters.

Captain Rousseau (John Stein), the artillery commander who had earlier refused Mireau's order to fire on his own men, arrives to tell Dax about the order. Dax then crashes a formal ball where he privately informs Broulard of Mireau's treachery, providing sworn statements by witnesses, but is brusquely dismissed.

The next morning, the three condemned men are led out into a courtyard, among soldiers from all three companies and senior officers. Arnaud, injured during a desperate outburst in prison, is carried out on a stretcher and tied to the execution post. A sobbing Ferol is blindfolded. Paris is offered a blindfold by Roget, but refuses. Roget meekly apologizes to Paris for what he has done, eliciting an ambiguous response. All three men are then shot and killed by the firing squad.

Following the execution, Broulard has breakfast with the gloating Mireau. Dax enters, invited by Broulard. Broulard then reveals that Mireau will be investigated for the order to fire on his own men. Mireau leaves angrily, declaring that he has been made a scapegoat. Broulard then offers Dax Mireau's command, suggesting that the whole nasty affair of events had been an plan by Dax to get a promotion all along. Disgusted, Dax turns down the promotion, and Broulard and Dax exchange comments about each other's personality.

After the execution, some of Dax's soldiers are happily partying, unaware that orders have come for them to return to the front line trenches immediately. Dax lets the men enjoy a few minutes while his face hardens as he returns to his quarters.

. Wikipedia

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Top 100 Movies you must Watch... 7- 12 Angry Men

1994 Film

8.9/10-IMDb

100%-Rotten Tomatoes

Initial release: April 10, 1957

Directors: William Friedkin, Sidney Lumet

Screenplay: Reginald Rose

Story by: Reginald Rose

Awards: PGA Hall of Fame - Motion Pictures, Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written Drama, Golden Bear Award for Best Motion Picture, BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor

Description

The story begins in a New York City courthouse, where an 18-year-old boy from a slum is on trial for allegedly stabbing his father to death. Final closing arguments are presented, and the judge then instructs the jury to decide whether the boy is guilty of murder. The judge further informs them that a guilty verdict will be accompanied by a mandatory death sentence.

The jury retires to a private room, where the jurors spend a short while getting acquainted before they begin deliberating. It is immediately apparent that the jurors have already decided that the boy is guilty, and that they plan to return their verdict without taking time for discussion—with the sole exception of Juror 8 (Henry Fonda), who is the only "not guilty" vote in a preliminary tally. He explains that there is too much at stake for him to go along with the verdict without at least talking about it first. His vote annoys the other jurors, especially Juror 7 (Jack Warden), who has tickets to a baseball game that evening; and Juror 10 (Ed Begley), who believes that most people from slum backgrounds are more likely to commit crimes.

The rest of the film's focus is the jury's difficulty in reaching a unanimous verdict. While several of the jurors harbor personal prejudices, Juror 8 maintains that the evidence presented in the case is circumstantial, and that the boy deserves a fair deliberation. He calls into question the accuracy and reliability of the only two witnesses to the murder, the "rarity" of the murder weapon (a common switchblade, of which he has an identical copy), and the overall questionable circumstances (including that an elevated train was passing by at the time of the murder). He further argues that he cannot in good conscience vote "guilty" when he feels there is reasonable doubt of the boy's guilt.

Having argued several points and gotten no favorable response from the others, Juror 8 reluctantly agrees that he has only succeeded in hanging the jury. Instead, he requests another vote, this time by secret ballot. He proposes that he will abstain from voting, and if the other 11 jurors are still unanimous in a guilty vote, then he will acquiesce to their decision. The secret ballot is held, and a new "not guilty" vote appears. This earns intense criticism from Juror 3 (Lee J. Cobb), who blatantly accuses Juror 5 (Jack Klugman) – who had grown up in a slum – of switching out of sympathy toward slum children. However, Juror 9 (Joseph Sweeney) reveals that he himself changed his vote, feeling that Juror 8's points deserve further discussion.

Juror 8 presents a convincing argument that one of the witnesses, an elderly man, who claimed to have heard the boy yell "I'm going to kill you" shortly before the murder took place, could not have heard the voices as clearly as he had testified; as well as stating that "I'm going to kill you," is often said by people who do not literally mean it. Juror 5 changes his vote to "not guilty". Soon afterward, Juror 11 (George Voskovec) questions whether the defendant would have reasonably fled the scene before cleaning the knife of fingerprints, then come back three hours later to retrieve the knife (which had been left in his father's chest); then changes his vote.

Juror 7 then mentions the man's second claim: upon hearing the father's body hit the floor, he had gone to the door of his apartment and seen the defendant running out of the building from his front door in 15 seconds. Jurors 5, 6, and 8 question whether this is true, as the witness in question had had a stroke, limiting his ability to walk. Upon the end of an experiment, the jury finds that the witness would not have made it to the door in enough time to actually see the killer running out. Juror 8 concludes that, judging from what he heard earlier, the witness must have merely assumed it was the defendant running. Juror 3, growing more irritated throughout the process, explodes in a rant: "He's got to burn! He's slipping through our fingers!" Juror 8 takes him to task, calling him a "self-appointed public avenger" and a sadist, saying he wants the defendant to die purely for personal reasons, not the facts. Juror 3 shouts "I'll kill him!" and starts lunging at Juror 8, but is restrained by two others. Juror 8 calmly retorts, "You don't really mean you'll kill me, do you?", proving his previous point.

Jurors 2 (John Fiedler) and 6 (Edward Binns) also decide to vote "not guilty", tying the vote at 6–6. Soon after, a rainstorm hits the city, threatening to cancel the baseball game Juror 7 has tickets to.

Juror 4 (E. G. Marshall) states that he doesn't believe the boy's alibi, which was being at the movies with a few friends at the time of the murder, because the boy could not remember what movie he had seen three hours later. Juror 8 explains that being under emotional stress can make you forget certain things, and tests how well Juror 4 can remember the events of previous days. Juror 4 remembers, with some difficulty, the events of the previous five days, and Juror 8 points out that he had not been under emotional stress at that time, thus there was no reason to think the boy could remember the movie that he had seen.

Juror 2 calls into question the prosecution's claim that the accused, nearly a foot shorter than the victim, was able to inflict the downward stab wound found on the body. Jurors 3 and 8 conduct an experiment to see if it's possible for a shorter person to stab downward into a taller person. The experiment proves the possibility, but Juror 5 then explains that he had grown up amidst knife fights in his neighborhood, and shows, through demonstrating the correct use of a switchblade, that no one so much shorter than his opponent would have held a switchblade in such a way as to stab downward, as it would have been too awkward and time-consuming. Rather, someone that much shorter than his opponent would stab underhanded at an upwards angle. This revelation augments the certainty of several of the jurors in their belief that the defendant is not guilty.

Increasingly impatient, Juror 7 changes his vote just so that the deliberation may end, which earns him the ire of Jurors 3 and 11, both on opposite sides of the discussion. Juror 11, an immigrant who has repeatedly displayed strong patriotic pride, presses Juror 7 hard about using his vote frivolously, and eventually Juror 7 claims that he now truly believes the defendant is not guilty.

The next jurors to change their votes are Jurors 12 (Robert Webber) and 1 (Martin Balsam), making the vote 9–3 and leaving only three dissenters: Jurors 3, 4, and 10. Outraged at how the proceedings have gone, Juror 10 goes into a rage on why people from the slums cannot be trusted, of how they are little better than animals who gleefully kill each other off for fun. His speech offends Juror 5, who turns his back to him, and one by one the rest of the jurors start turning away from him. Confused and disturbed by this reaction to his diatribe, Juror 10 continues in a steadily fading voice and manner, slowing to a stop with "Listen to me. Listen..." Juror 4, the only man still facing him, tersely responds, "I have. Now sit down and don't open your mouth again." As Juror 10 moves to sit in a corner by himself, Juror 8 speaks quietly about the evils of prejudice, and the other jurors slowly resume their seats.

When those remaining in favor of a guilty vote are pressed as to why they still maintain that there is no reasonable doubt, Juror 4 states his belief that despite all the other evidence that has been called into question, the fact remains that the woman who saw the murder from her bedroom window across the street (through the passing train) still stands as solid evidence. After he points this out, Juror 12 changes his vote back to "guilty", making the vote 8–4.

Then Juror 9, after seeing Juror 4 rub his nose (which is being irritated by his glasses), realizes that, like Juror 4, the woman who allegedly saw the murder had impressions in the sides of her nose which she rubbed, indicating that she wore glasses, but did not wear them to court out of vanity. Juror 8 cannily asks Juror 4 if he wears his eyeglasses to sleep, and Juror 4 admits he doesn't – nobody does. Juror 8 explains that there was thus no logical reason to expect that the witness happened to be wearing her glasses while trying to sleep, and he points out that the attack happened so swiftly that she would not have had time to put them on. After he points this out, Jurors 12, 10, and 4 all change their vote to "not guilty".

At this point, the only remaining juror with a guilty vote is Juror 3. Juror 3 gives a long string of arguments, ending with, "Rotten kids, you work your life out—!" This reveals that he had had a poor relationship with his son, and his anger over this fact is the main reason that he wants the defendant to be guilty. Juror 3 loses his temper and tears up a photo of himself and his son, then suddenly breaks down crying and changes his vote to "not guilty", making the vote unanimous.

As the jurors leave the room, Juror 8 helps the distraught Juror 3 with his coat in a show of compassion. The film ends when the friendly Jurors 8 (Davis) and 9 (McCardle) exchange names, and all of the jurors descend the courthouse steps to return to their individual lives.

. Wikipedia

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