TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

movieHIT88 Can't believe it took till now for me to see this wonderful film. Although made in 1930, it has a currency which did not go unnoticed. Other films, with similar themes, have not equalled or captured so tenderly the complete waste of young minds, bodies and lives that war demands. The film stresses the falsehoods which continue to be told to trick young "adventures" into sacrificing all to the theatre of war and the pressure that is put on them if they dare resist. The film emphasises the impact on the stoic but tortured families who are waiting back home, waiting for bad news which can come at any hour or if their loved ones do come home, the families are "gifted", often, the role of lifetime carers of their damaged husbands, fathers, brothers, sons and friends and now we can add returning women to the list. AQOTWF is one of the best anti-war movies ever made and one which matches Gallipoli for its poignancy. Highly recommend.

talula1060 I absolutely love this book and have read many times, so was expecting to feel a similar love for the film. Although there were parts that were gut wrenching (the guy who discovers his leg has been amputated, the madness that ensues after repeated shelling), I had a major problem with the acting. Because sound was so new in film, many of the actors were doing a lot of exaggerated movements and making faces after every line. Lew Ayres was the biggest culprit. He yelled many of his lines, constantly posed for the camera, and in several instances, he started to say the wrong lines and came off sounding like he was reading it. He's not very good at sound movies and it's really a plum role for an actor. He only redeemed himself when he came back home and gave his little monologue in the classroom. He spoke with passion and resolve and was believable for the first time in the film. I was very disheartened to see how badly acted most of this film was because the story is a heartbreaking statement on the horrors of war and the pointlessness of it all. Another pet peeve is the way so many of the actors smile throughout the film as though they were on a Broadway stage. It wasn't written that way in the book and there are certainly other ways to show satisfaction with comfortable boots than having the actors grinning as they march into certain death. It's ridiculous. Someone else mentioned that if this film had been shot a couple years later, it would have been better and I agree completely. Sound was so new that the early years were filled with silent actors who brought that same dramatic, expressive sensibility to the screen. I know there's also a silent version of this film which might work better with the way it's acted. I can't express enough what a complete shame it is that Milestone couldn't have directed these guys better or else cast others in the role who understood the importance of the subtleties in each character and the changes wrought by the war. He had a very large budget for the time and was able to reshoot all of the mother's scenes so why not have the actors do more than one take? Why not notice that the dead French soldier has a different expression every time the camera is on his face? If Paul is dreaming of home, you don't need Ayres to have a dreamy look on his face. Also, bread submerged in water would fall apart. There are so many little things that should have been be caught. I know there's a remake of the film from the 70s, but this movie really only works in black and white. This was shot 11 years after the war's end which is only fitting. I would have loved to see a German version of this movie as it would be interesting to see how they approached it. Great story, but film rendition is ruined by shoddy acting and sloppy blocking.

John Bailey In the early 20th century, war changed from a game of professionals to an all-out contest of whole nations. Generations of young men were fed into the meatgrinder that was WWI; the first really technological war on a mass scale. No general staff understood what modern weapons would mean. These weapons created a war of stalemate and trench warfare, both sides evenly matched, and no breakthrough possible, with the ordinary soldier suffering the most. That is the story that 'All Quiet on the Western' Front tells.It tells it from a German perspective because it was adapted from Eric Maria Remarque's novel based on his experiences as a combat soldier in the German Army. The book is itself a testament to the grueling fate of soldiers of both sides. Interestingly, another book came out of Germany about the war, Enst Junger's "Storm of Steel" which paints the same bleak picture of the war, but concludes with patriotic pride that the millions of dead were worth it as a test of strength.The film 'All Quiet on the Western Front' is one of those works of art that come only once every few years. The reasons are several. 1. It follows the book fairly closely, and the book was good. 2. The realism was first rate for a film of that or any other period. 3. The acting, while not always modern, is well done in the major parts. The actor who plays 'Kat' dominates the film and the film's hero, 'Paul', played by Lew Ayres, although his performance is also good. 4. The direction was superb, and the movement of the camera during the battle sequences is amazingly good for that era. 5. The sound effects of the warfare scenes are quite good, as good as I've ever heard in that kind of film.It's also interesting that America was able to produce a film from the standpoint of what was an enemy nation only 12 years before. But is seems less an accomplishment when you consider that the soldiers in the film question the war and all wars. If they'd been in the American Army, there would have been censorship problems about those sentiments coming from American soldiers. Nevertheless, the film is an admiral anti-war statement-- the futility of war at all times and for all nations. Hitler and Goebbels certainly knew the film's power-- it was banned from showing in Germany after the Nazis took power there in 1933.It's not banned anymore. If you feel a film that old will be too dated, you will come to understand that really good filmmaking happens in all eras. If you haven't seen this film yet, you have a remarkable experience ahead of you.Have people learned the lessons of this film? I hope so, for the weapons of war are much more terrible than before. That fact is what has stopped war. But this film, and the knowledge it imparts played a small part too.

Ross622 Lewis Milestone's adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's " All Quiet on the Western Front" was definitely a better film on his military resume than the flawed but still good Pork Chop Hill (1959). The movie is a character study of a young man named Paul Baumer (played by Lew Ayres in an Oscar snubbed performance) who is in college during the start of the film with some classmates of his and a teacher who convinces them to serve in World War I and that "It is a wonderful thing to die for your country, which is the heroic thing to do". Then as soon as Paul persuades his friends to enlist and go off to war they begin to realize that killing people isn't as fun as they previously thought to which they go from a pro-war to an anti-war stance. Although I disagree with the film's point of view I think that is a great thing for people to serve their own country, and the great thing about movies is that people can tell a story from a certain perspective. The movie compares to some of the greatest war films of all time for example Platoon (1986), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Patton (1970), The Deer Hunter (1978), and The Hurt Locker (2009). Even though the war films that I just listed take place in different wars that we have been involved in, the thing that made me love the movie a whole lot more was reading the novel because it gave me a better understanding of what the film was about and the emotions of the characters, which is why in the film's case it is great on so many levels even the storytelling, acting, photography, and writing, etc. Also these are reasons why I personally think that the movie should received more Oscars and nominations that it ended up receiving at the 3rd Oscars ceremony.