Dirk Bogarde makes his second Losey appearance in this neglected masterwork, set in the grim trenches of World War I. Bogarde is the dour Army lawyer Hargreaves, reluctantly charged with defending a meek and confused deserter, Hamp (Tom Courtenay in his second film role), who feels he was justified in his decision to simply walk away and “go home.” If Paths of Glory has long been considered a definitive statement on the Great War, King and Country rivals the venerable classic without depicting a single battle scene: it's staged entirely within the muddy squalor of subterranean trenches. As the war rages out of sight, Hamp's fellow soldiers amuse themselves by staging their own mock trial with rats, while at the real trial, Hargreaves engages in a memorable tête-à-tête with a contrarian army doctor (Leo McKern) over what constitutes cowardice. Denys Coop's elegant black-and-white photography casts a noirish pall over the proceedings, punctuated by the use of archival images and curiously evocative flashbacks.