In 1930 the silent Era was still active and sound film had just begun. In addition Hollywood, was going through a period of giving the depression suffering population a lot of easy and light entertainment. Which is why when Lewis Milestone came out with this trend setting and jaw dropping spectacular film, it caught everyone from movie producers to audiences off guard.
He created a story about WWI that was filmed less than 20 years after the end of the war with a viewpoint and a hero coming from the viewpoint of the enemy (Germany). It also happened during a period where Germany was veering toward a dangerous and ultra-patriotic direction. I am certain that Milestone saw the world and realized what was happening. Otherwise why did he make this powerful film?
“All quiet on the Western Front”, also had the historic benefit in blasting its audience with the new technology of sound and they never thought or dreamed how the use of sound could be used in such a way and with such lasting effect. If you remember the feeling of sadness you had when you first walked into the Theatre and saw the opening half hour of “Saving Private Ryan”, then know that Spielberg, for that film, received his inspiration from, this movie. And this movie is no less startling and devastating to the senses. It’s that powerful. There, however is where the similarities to Spielberg ends. The Ryan film goes on to become a linear story until its end. This movie is one giant and explosive piece of antiwar propaganda. Yet it is not really propaganda because it is so real and true to the facts. How is that you ask? Real and actual German veterans of the war who were living in the USA at the time worked on the movie and gave vivid advice and detail to Milestone. I think Milestone decided to use the German army because he was told that the American audience would not be ready to see their own soldiers suffering as we see the German soldiers suffer in this film.
The movie begins at an end of year, graduating, high school, classroom in Germany. We have what looks like the school Dean, or principle giving a patriotic speech to his young and influential pupils about patriotism and the glory of war. Goading them on to enlist for the Motherland. One of the students is a normal frail soul named Paul, portrayed by a 21 year old new actor named Lewis Ayres, who by the way went on to serve in WW2 as a battlefield medic due to his being a conscientious objector of War. Then the film takes us to the harsh, unemotional and quick training. We see the Army just trying to get as many new soldiers out into the battlefield as quickly as possible. They are told that they are going to be soldiers and that is all they are going to be. No heroic or patriotic speech here. Then our ant-hero and his friends arrive at the Front and immediately before doing anything one of their own dies from a shell blast. They arrive at a bunker where they have to sit and sleep with rats and dried blood and not enough food to eat every day. This part of the film is startling, because even today, in modern war films, we are not shown this difficult and torturous part of being in war. Uncomforting hunger and fear. Yes the fear is hanging throughout because while they are cold, hungry and miserable, they hear bombs and shells and death all around them outside. Then on their first foray into the dangerous fields of blood, when they are given an assignment to fix a field, barb wired fence at night, they are bombarded while in the open field. Here we have one of the many powerful scenes in the movie. A bomb blinds one of Paul’s friends. He stands upright no longer thinking of any other type of survival instinct and screams in utter fear “I can’t see! I can’t see!” . Then as quickly as that occurs he is cut down by machine gun fire. We now know that this is not going to be an easy watch. From there we get a defense of a trench and many amazing scenes of trench warfare in and out of the trenches. All the scenes are shown from a ground side perspective of the soldiers. We die with them, suffer with them and at the end of the film we cry. This is why I believe that this movie is by far the greatest war movie ever made. It happened at the birth of sound cinema and it put a stamp on movies as a serious art form that would now have limitless abilities to inspire. At the time the Nazis hated this film and when it was shown in Germany they rioted in the streets. That is what powerful films can do. Very few attain this ability. When they do, they become timeless pieces of art that must be watched. Even close to a century after the film was made. Many elements stand out in the movie. Spending the night in a lone trench with a dying enemy (actually influenced from the Silent war picture “The big Parade”). A severed hand holding a barbed wired fence, not able to let go (symbolizing the need of the dead soldier to not want to die).
As in most great films the ending here is unforgettable. Our hero in returning to the trenches sees a beautiful butterfly and reaches out of the trench to grasp at the beauty of nature, which results in his getting shot. What an ending. What a film. Forget the year (1930). This film is timeless and one of those movies that leaves an impression on its viewer even years after seeing it.
1001 Movies before you die 