"King & Country" is a film about a man who deserted from his unit during WWI. After over three years of fighting, the naive young man had frankly had enough and began walking home from France. Considering he grew up in Britain, he seemed either a bit dumb or just so psychologically damaged that the impossibility of his task eluded him. In many ways, this film is reminiscent of the exceptional Stanley Kubrick film "Paths of Glory"--about an entire unit of French soldiers who simply refused to fight due to the utter stupidity and waste of life of this so-called 'Great War'. In fact, both would make an excellent double-feature.

The film begins with an officer (Dirk Bogarde) being asked to defend a deserter. It's obvious that he assumes the man is guilty and deserves to be executed and is doing this only out of obligation. As for the deserter (Tom Courtenay),he is an odd fellow. While he obviously was brave for volunteering and fighting in so many god-awful battles, his reaction to all this is a bit odd--like he doesn't fully appreciate the horrible predicament he's in at this time. He seems guileless and naive.

As far as the trial goes, you know that the court must find him guilty and execute him, lest they admit that the war was a horrible mistake--futile and an atrocity upon the people....and they certainly were not about to admit that. It is simply preordained and Bogarde seems to have little care about the doomed man--he is only doing it out of obligation--even after he gets to know the man and pleads his case. Only towards the very end of the story do we see Bogarde regard the man as anything other than a coward--and then the accumulated horror of the war and its stupidity is revealed. However, at the same time, the momentum of the film slows down to a crawl--and the film unfortunately ends with a bit of a fizzle. Overall, it's quite good in some ways but just barely misses the mark.

The obvious comparison that can be made with King & Country is Paths Of Glory. Both are concerned with people being tried for desertion and cowardice in World War I. Both are outstanding films though I would give the edge to Paths Of Glory.

One important distinction must be made. Paths Of Glory is an American made film with a French setting about wholesale French desertion during a battle and three guys being courtmartialed and shot as examples. King & Country is a British film with an American director at the helm about the British experience in trench warfare encapsulated in the story of one poor English Tommy.

With the last American dough-boy dying this year, World War I is a memory now with no first hand account of what it was like in those trenches. I know the last French veteran also passed away, I'm not sure of the British forces including those in the Commonwealth. America entered in 1917 and our Expeditionary force saw its first action in Belleau Wood in the spring of 1918. By November 11 of that year it was over. We had six months or so, the Allies and the Central Powers had four years.

All fought for ground gain measured in yards. A stalemate of opposing trenches stretching from Belgium to the Swiss border of France. And both sides throwing everything including poison gas in attempt to break through and score the decisive knockout blow.

Tom Courtenay plays Private Hamp who just saw the slaughter of his entire battalion and just went into shell shock and walked out of the trench in the direction of the coast of France and Great Britain. When he was caught he became a symbol of resistance to the futility of war that the British Army could not tolerate.

Like Paths Of Glory the verdict is already fixed though his defense counsel Dirk Bogarde makes a gallant attempt to save Courtney who is a total innocent as to the forces around him. One particularly good supporting performance is that of Leo McKern who plays the officer bringing the charges. He's a complete fool and there were many like him in all the armies of World War I who had not the wit or imagination to just call a halt to the slaughter.

Unlike Paths Of Glory, Dirk Bogarde has a humiliating indignity that Kirk Douglas did not have placed on him. King & Country is a fine film showing if not the futility of war itself, the futility of that particular war that scarred the world for generations and is still scarring it yet.

King & Country is directed by the American Joseph Losey and stars Tom Courtenay as a young soldier in the Great War, shell shocked and facing a court martial for desertion.

Dirk Bogarde plays the officer whose duty is to defend him, at first he seems to be reluctant in his dealings with him, viewing him as a working class imbecile and cowardly to boot. However once he gets to know him a little, Bogarde discovers that many of Courtenay's friends and comrades in his battalion have died, he takes the case more seriously especially as he will be executed if found guilty.

The film is very much a stage play but is also arch as well as having a stylistic template with actual photos of dead bodies from the Imperial War Museum. The set tries to recreate the trenches with a cold, damp, dank setting.

The film has a grim atmosphere as displayed by the foot soldiers and Courtenay is one of them, a soldier who does not realise what he has done and the trouble he is in.

The film highlights the class aspect of the war as the officers have little compassion for the lower ranked soldiers and show no mercy for those driven to despair or madness.