All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

All Quiet on the Western Front
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Written by Maxwell Anderson, George Abbott, Del Andrews et al from a novel by Erich Maria Remarque
1930/US
Universal Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

Paul Bäumer (speaking to a class of high school students): I shouldn’t have come on leave. Up at the front you’re alive or you’re dead and that’s all. You can’t fool anybody about that very long. And up there we know we’re lost and done for whether we’re dead or alive. Three years we’ve had of it, four years! And every day a year, and every night a century! And our bodies are earth, and our thoughts are clay, and we sleep and eat with death! And we’re done for because you *can’t* live that way and keep anything inside you! I shouldn’t have come on leave. I’ll go back tomorrow. I’ve got four days more, but I can’t stand it here! I’ll go back tomorrow! I’m sorry.

Now this is my idea of a timeless must-see classic.  Still one of the greatest anti-war films.

The film begins in a small German town filled with the excitement of men marching out to what everyone assumes will be a short war.  At the local high school, a professor preaches the glory of war.  When Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres), the class leader, agrees to sign up the rest of the class follows.

The boys are completely unprepared for the hunger and squalor that are awaiting them in the bunkers and trenches much less for the horrible combat, maiming, and death that are to follow very shortly. Disillusionment takes maybe a day to sink in.

Paul is soon befriended by Sergeant Katczinski (Louis Wolheim) a rough-hewn and hardened soldier.  He must watch as his buddies are killed one after another.  He feels even worse when he must kill the enemy himself.

Paul gets leave after being wounded and finds that his small town is still living in dreamland and the old men are full of strategies for winning what Paul knows cannot be won.  The local professor is still pushing out teenage recruits like links in a sausage factory.  Paul cuts his leave short to return to the front where at least he is understood.  The horror continues.

Brutal and poetic by turns, I cannot find a single thing wrong with this powerful film.  I often drift away at times when re-watching films but this had me riveted at all times.  The combat sequences are unbelievable for the era.  Most highly recommended.

All Quiet on the Western Front won the Best Picture and Best Director Oscar.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.  I think Ayres deserved a Best Actor nomination.

Re-release trailer

Lew Ayres returns to the classroom from which he was recruited to fight to find absolutely nothing has changed.