User:J.o.thomp 5/sandbox

Writing

Willingham claimed that Thompson had minimal involvement in the final script of the film, claiming responsibility for 99 percent of Paths of Glory for himself and that Thompson had not written any of the dialogue. When Thompson's draft screenplay was compared to the final film, it was concluded that Thompson wrote seven scenes, including the reconnaissance mission and the soldiers the night before their death by court martial. In the end, the Writers Guild attributed the script in the order of Kubrick, Willingham and then Thompson.

After reading the script, Kirk Douglas was impressed and managed to get an advance for a $1 million budget from United Artists to help produce the film. Of the roughly $1 million budget, more than a third was allocated to Kirk Douglas' salary. Prior to the involvement of Douglas and his Bryna Production Company, no studio had showed interest in the seemingly noncommercial subject matter and filming in black and white. MGM rejected the idea of the film based on fears that the film would be unfavourable to European distributors and audiences.

Primarily, Kubrick and Thompson had added a happy ending to the film to make the film more commercial to the general public, where the men's lives are saved from execution at the last minute by the general. However, these changes were reversed back to closer to the original novel at the demand of Kirk Douglas. On the Criterion Collection blu-ray, James B. Harris claims to have got this ending past distributors by sending the entire script, instead of just the reversed ending, in the knowledge that they would not read through the whole script again. After viewing the film, United Artists were happy with the changes and left the ending as it is.

Filming

Due to having three years military training, around 600 German police officers were used as extras for soldiers. It took Kubrick a month to set-up the filming of the assault, arranging props and tearing up the field to look like a war zone. For the filming of the battle sequence, the battlefield was divided into five regions where explosive charges were specifically placed. This made it easier for Kubrick to film the dying of extras as he split the extras into five groups, one for each of the regions, and each man would die in his own zone by an explosion that was near him.

He was reportedly extremely difficult to work with during filming, even to the extent of faking his own kidnapping, holding up the whole production.