JohnHowardReid Associate producer: George Cukor. Producer: Carl Laemmle, Jr. Copyright by Universal Pictures Corporation 17 May 1930. U.S. release date: 24 August 1930. New York opening at the Central: 29 April 1930. U.K. release date: October, 1930. 14 reels. 140 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Conscripted German youths find war is neither glorious nor adventurous.NOTES: Won the annual awards for Best Picture and Best Director, presented by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Also nominated for Best Writing (lost to Frances Marion for The Big House), and Best Cinematography (lost to Joseph T. Rucker and Willard Van Der Veer for With Byrd at the South Pole).Winner of the Photoplay Gold Medal — Best Film of the Year — voted by the movie-going public of America. Also Winner of the Film Daily poll of American film critics for 1930. Also Winner of the National Board of Review citation for Best Film of 1930. Also Winner of the Picturegoer Seal of Merit for an Outstanding and Exceptional Motion Picture. Second place (to "With Bryd at the South Pole") on Mordaunt Hall's Ten Best in The New York Times.COMMENT: Erich Maria Remarque's semi-autobiographical novel, "Im Westen Nichts Neues", was first published in Berlin in 1927. Other Remarque books that have been filmed include "Drei Kameraden" as Three Comrades, "Der Weg Zuruck" as The Road Back, "Flottsam" as So Ends Our Night, a short story "Beyond" as The Other Love, "Arch of Triumph" as The Arch of Triumph, "Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben" as A Time to Love and a Time to Die.In its original form, All Quiet on the Western Front ran 140 minutes. This has now been restored. Continuity, however, is still somewhat jerky and abrupt. The film is constructed along the lines of a stage play with a fade-out at the end of each scene replacing the curtain fall. There is a tendency to make the individual scenes run too long, and despite the large amount of action footage — fully half-an-hour of the film would be solid action — the accent is firmly on dialogue. The pace is slow, sometimes excruciatingly so by modern standards, though this was contrived quite deliberately both for contrast with the sudden bursts of action and also to emphasize the dreariness and monotony of front-line sub-existence.Nonetheless, Milestone's technique often seems uncompromisingly dated and this could prove a drawback for many audiences.Available on DVD through Universal. Quality rating: 10 out of ten.

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.

zardoz-13 Louis Milestone's "All Quiet on the Western Front" is a testament not only to the resilience of author Erich Maria Remarque, who was wounded five times, but also to the determination by Universal Pictures producer Carl Laemmle, Jr., son of Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle, to produce prestige films. If any movie demonstrated the absurdity of war, this movie does with images and scenes that are unforgettable. Told from the perspective of the Kaiser's army, we follow a school boy and his pals from the class room to the trenches. Initially, an elderly, spectacled, school teacher raves about how they must defend the pride of the fatherland as soldiers can be seen marching outside past the school. "Now, my beloved class, this is what we must do. Strike with all our power. Give every ounce of strength to win victory before the end of the year. It is with reluctance that I bring this subject up again. You are the life of the fatherland, you boys. You are the iron men of Germany. You are the gay heroes who will repulse the enemy when you are called upon to do so. It is not for me to suggest that any of you should stand up and offer to defend his country. But I wonder if such a thing is going through your heads. I know that in one of the schools, the boys have risen up in the classroom and enlisted in a mass. But, of course, if such a thing should happen here, you would not blame me for a feeling of pride." Paul (Lew Ayers) and then his pals encounter the true horrors of war. These horrors include not only the actual battlefield but the devastating horrors on their own side of the battlefield. Later, we watch as our protagonists struggle to make sense out of war and how it started. The most captivating character of the film is Kat (Louis Wolheim) who steals the film. Compared with contemporary films, "All Quiet on the Western Front" lacks the brutality of war, aside from one shot of two severed hands clinging to a barbed wire fence. Like most memorable war pictures, the action is confined to the trenches with no scenes played out in map rooms as general pontificate about strategy. Milestone would later helm more war movies, including "The Purple Heart" (1944), "A Walk in the Sun" (1945), "Halls of Montezuma" (1950) and "Pork Chop Hill" (1959).

Bearded MovieGuy Well done movie that was influential enough that at least 2 remakes were made of it. It is pretty interesting, it is a war movie, but it is from the German perspective, starting with how the a group of youth are convinced to join the war effort by their teacher, being told it will be glorious and fun to fight and die for their Motherland. These same boys are all shocked when they finally do get in the war at how loud and ugly it is, and they are forced to grow up real fast as their friends are dying all around them. The story is good, and it looks decent considering when it was made. It is also cool to see when one of the boys who is now a man comes back and sees the teacher that talked him into going, just to find him giving the exact same speech that motivated him to a new class of teens. He is then asked to tell the students all about the glory of war, which he can't and after telling the kids how it really is, they consider him a coward and a traitor. All Quiet On The Western Front does a great job of showing war as the terrible thing it is, and how it is very different for those fighting compared to those who stay behind and criticize from the safety of their homes. Check out my video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIjFsdowDeg 5 Beards Out Of 5