Scene from Barry Lyndon

Oh how many times have I seen this sequence? OK I know there's a lot wrong with it - for a start if they're supposed to be a line regiment where's the lace? - and the drummer's mitres...white gaiters OK for parades like this but not in combat as later in the film - maybe it makes more sense to see them as Militia - but they turn up in Germany...but the flavour and the artistry are beyond criticism - capturing the excitement of seeing a military display in those times. Kubrick was originally set to make a movie about Napoleon but the Bondarchuk film Waterloo did badly and so Kubrick abandoned the project - the script is up online somewhere. Kubrick had threats from the IRA when shooting this movie - the German sequences were shot by a second unit - Kubrick began his habit of not leaving the British Isles. David Chandler who worked on this film later had access to all the uniforms and occasionally they were used by the Sealed Knot though not so much recently. Drums were made by Potter's.