Daily Dialogue — September 22, 2016

“15… 14… 13… 12… 11… 10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… zero…”

— Paths of Glory (1957), screenplay by Stanley Kubrick & Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Military Moments, suggested by Will King.

Trivia: For box-office reasons, Stanley Kubrick intended to impose a happier ending. After several draft scripts he changed his mind and restored the novel’s original ending. Producer James B. Harris then had to inform studio executive Max E. Youngstein and risk rejection of the change. Harris managed by simply having the entire final script delivered without a memo of the changes, on the assumption that nobody in the studio would actually read it. Apparently, he was right.

Dialogue On Dialogue: An incredible scene with Col. Dax (Kirk Douglas) marching past dozens of soldiers in the trenches as bombs blast overhead, then the countdown in which Dax leads the men up and into battle.