Kirk Douglas makes decency look strenuous, with clenched teeth and anger that never quite settles. In Paths of Glory, that force makes him an unusually convincing good man, though the speeches sometimes labour the point.
Fi1m perspective
Even when Kirk Douglas is playing a decent man, he looks capable of losing his temper. His Colonel Dax in Paths of Glory (1957) is a particularly fine use of that tension: we believe in him as a soldier and in his anger at the officers above him. The character needs to be decent without becoming dull, and Douglas keeps him restless. His goodness never makes him seem harmless.
The breakthrough was Champion (1949), in which he played a ruthless boxer. Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole (1951) gave him the cynical, ambitious journalist Charles Tatum. These men suit an actor whose restless energy can make ambition seem unpleasant without making it uninteresting. Playing Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956) took that intensity into an artist's distress. Dax then let him direct the anger towards people who deserved it.
In Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory, Douglas's presence does nothing to make the military hierarchy less frightening. We were moved by his anger on behalf of the soldiers, because he makes their treatment feel intolerable without making their protection seem assured. Ralph Meeker's Corporal Philippe Paris and Joe Turkel's Private Pierre Arnaud matter here too. Both have enough individual presence to keep the soldiers distinct, despite the attention Douglas draws.
The reservation is how readily that anger can become a speech telling us what we already know. Kubrick sometimes gives Dax indignation to express after the situation has made the point, and Douglas briefly sounds like a spokesman. He remains convincing, but we wished the script would leave him less to say. The fault is brief, and it does not undo the performance.
The collaboration with Kubrick continued with Spartacus (1960), which Douglas also produced and led. We would still begin with Dax. Start with Paths of Glory for the soldier whose toughness makes his decency credible, allowing for those over-insistent speeches. Then try Ace in the Hole for a journalist whose ambition gives that same intensity a less reassuring use.
Biography
Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch; 9 December 1916 – 5 February 2020) was an American actor and producer. He grew up as Izzy Demsky and changed his name to Kirk Douglas before serving in the United States Navy during the Second World War.
Douglas appeared in more than 90 films. He is credited as Col. Dax and executive producer on Paths of Glory (1957). He established Bryna Productions in 1955, which produced that film and Spartacus (1960), in which he also starred. Other notable roles include those in Ace in the Hole (1951), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Out of the Past (1947).
