Around 18:00, what I feel is a nice percussion-only soundtrack accompaniment for a suspense filled scene.The b & w photography, night-time setting, and steady drum tempo help create a unique effect..., not always heard in this era of keyboard synth-sounds! Helps make this film the classic that it is IMHO!

This film was released less than 40 years after the end og the 'Great War'. As a result, it carries a sense of immediacy and relevancy that I doubt a modern film could reproduce, even very good ones like 1917.
It is a truly anti-war film. I mean this in the sense that the 'bad guys' of the film are not the Germans. German soldiers are never on screen once, in fact. The real enemy is the senior officers who view human lives, whether German or French, as a sort of resource to be expended like any other. The film deals thoughtfully with important themes, like humanity in the face of brutal, industrial warfare. It also deals with themes of duty and cowardice. The senior officers are too cowardly to take responsibility for their cruel and ignorant decisions, thus they project their failures onto their own victims.
The final scene of the film brings these themes home in a remarkable way, leaving it up to the viewer to determine the film's final meaning. Is it a message of hope? Of despair? I think it could be interpreted in many ways.

Kirk Douglas stated this was the best of all the work he had done as an actor. One of the reasons was that he believed it is has a timeless quality that will never seem dated or irrelevant.

the actors, the dialogue, the story line are at their superlative best. banned by the french government for over ten years. only the ugly truth can do that! Kubrick and Douglas are masters of their craft in this one of a kind film. See it and be convinced!