The book seemed to have the makings of a best-seller, but after selling well for a few weeks, it quietly disappeared. Upon its publication, various critics predicted wide sales, and the Book-of-the-Month Club adopted it as its main selection for June of 1935. In April of 1934 Cobb, deciding that he was tired of his desk job at an advertising agency, sat down to write a novel in August he completed Paths of Glory. 2 While Kubrick and writers Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson have changed the focus and toned down some of his narrative’s brutality, Cobb yet remains the ultimate source of the film’s drama and of most of its ideas. However, the record of commentary on this film points up a central weakness in the “auteur” theory that credits him with primary responsibility for the film’s content 1: in discussions of what is generally referred to as “Kubrick’s Paths of Glory,” no mention is made of Humphrey Cobb’s novel, from which is derived much of the film’s power, as well as its basic story. Stanley Kubrick, who directed the film of Paths of Glory, is one of the most respected of contemporary directors, and he is certainly deserving of the praise showered on him by critics and film scholars.
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