Western Front Association - U.S. Branch - Movie Review of All Quiet on the Western Front

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, a critical U.S. Branch movie review (reviewed 2004); the ASIN number is 0783230435. The DVD format was released by Universal Studios in September 2003 and can be purchased at Amazon.com for $13.48, with the VHS (NTSC, U.S.) format selling for $9.98, and is available at other retail outlets. This is the famous original 1930 release, starring Lew Ayres (1908-1996). Running time: 140 minutes. This movie won an Academy Award Oscar in 1930. Virtually all the actors had been on active duty on the Western front during the war. The reviewer is Jim Minnoch, rating the film

½, out of five, for students of the Great War; he can be reached at: jemcam@comcast.net.

The 1979 version , also from the award winning novel by Erich Maria Remarque, stars Richard Thomas (1951- ), best known from the TV series, "The Waltons" and Ernest Borgnine as "the old hand" (1917- ), long a famous American actor. The director was the respected Delbert Mann (1920- ), "Gathering of Eagles", "Desire Under the Elms", "Marty", to name a few. The characterization is magnificent. Jim Minnoch rates this adaptation

.

This film must be good, Adolph Hitler banned it in 1938 and author Remarque barely saved his own life when the SS came after him. A tip-off by a friend, in a note to a bar where he was drinking beer, saying "Leave now" told the author that he must flee Germany at once. He did not go back to his apartment, but, taking a circuitous route, he was able to reach Switzerland. The famous movie was just too anti-war for the Third Reich, at a time when the giant war machine was calling for massive numbers of soldiers. It is also notable that The American Film Institute has consistently named the 1930 movie among the best 100 American films ever made.

Paul Comforts a French Soldier He Has Just Fatally Wounded

Truth comes out as the story follows a small group of students who, instigated by their teacher, join the German Army before they finish school. They train together under the tyrant Corporal Himmelstoss and are sent to the Western front where they meet the amiable "old hand" Katczinsky (Louis Wolheim, 1880-1931, a former math professor at Cornell) who shows them the ropes. They are trudged to the front lines immediately and, from then on, they are disappointingly aware of what war is really like. Scene to scene, there was no disguising the brutal and terrifying ordeal that the squad was forced to endure. They learned to defy the shock of death, even of their friends. They were often hungry and they grew weary of life in the trenches or bombed-out buildings. Paul (Ayres) is the key actor and, in one scene when he returns home, discovers that the German citizens believe they are winning the war and accepts what he will have to endure and that the trenches are now his home, without perceivable end. His life will end there.

The acting is superb and realistic, the battle scenes dynamic. This is beyond any doubt an anti-war film. The images are sure to be imbedded in the viewer's mind and, as shocking as it is, sends its message loud and clear. This film is, of course, highly recommended for all students of the First World War.

Created: 20 March 2004