All Quiet on the Western Front

Rating:
Summary: This movie really shows what those guys were going thru.
Review: This movie is the best. It follows the book very well. It is one of the best descriptions of the war ever filmed or written, even though it was made in 1930. I just wish they had shown some of the early tanks. I would give it six stars if that were possible.

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Summary: BEST WAR ACCOUNT I HAVE EVER READ
Review: THIS BOOK IS AN ACCOUNT OF WAR AT ITS CRUDEST FORM. IT DOES NOT GLORIFY WAR NOR ROMANTIZE IT EITHER. IN PURE TERMS, THE BOOK PUTS THE READER ON THE TRENCHES AMONG SOLDIERS WHO HAPPENED TO BE JUST AS CONFUSED AND SCARED AS YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN. THIS WAR ACCOUNT MUST BE READ BY EVERY ONE SO THAT WHEN COMPATRIOTS ARE SENT TO FIGHT ANY WAR, WE'LL HAVE AN IDEA OF THE ATTROCITIES THEY WILL FACE, AND MOST LIKELY WILL NOT HAVE THE WORDS TO DESCRIBE IT TO YOU, THAT IS IF THEY EVER RETURN SAFELY.

I FINISHED READING THIS NOVEL WHILE TRAVELLING ON A TRAIN BOUND FOR BERLIN, GERMANY, TWO YEARS AGO. TIMES HAVE CHANGED OVER THERE SINCE THE WAR, BUT THE LANDSCAPE IS THERE TO REMIND YOU THAT SOMETHING UNCONPREHENSIBLE HAPPENED THERE NOT LONG AGO. END

Rating:
Summary: it was an accurate discription of what it would have been.
Review: it was a good book it could have been a little more friendly. it was very strong i enjoyed it a lot. END

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Summary: The best war story ever told.
Review: Any Soldier from any country, during any war, can relate to this story. A timeless classic. END

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Summary: Best Picture Winner of 1929-1930
Review: 'All Quiet On The Western Front' was released in 1930 and won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1929-1930. When you watch it, you will see why.

The films leading star is Lew Ayres, and he gives a very fine performance as a German college student who enlists in the Army during the First World War, along with the other students in his class, because of the professor at the college who makes them all want to become brave soldiers. We then watch the brilliantly shot action scenes, which are very realistic and sad to watch, as they go to fight on the front lines. They certainly discover the horrors of war, while we watch it. The movie is directed by Lewis Milestone, and has a very powerful, and sad ending, that you wont forget it.

Now for this Universal Region 1 DVD. Sadly, the print and sound quality are not really too great in all honesty. However, the film is very old, and still, even if its not in the condition some might like it to be, it is still very watchable. Overall, the DVD is not too bad.

This is an absolute must-have for classic film fans. So if you can pass by the fact that the print used here on this DVD is not brilliant, you will absolutely love this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Pitch Perfect Adaptation of the Best War Novel Ever
Review: For only $12, this movie is a steal. AGOTWF won the academy award for best picture the year it came out and, over 70 years later, it is easy to see why. A blistering indictment of war as wasteful and tragic. The way the movie captures the enthusiasm and innocence of the boys as they fight and die for reasons they don't understand is brilliant. Note the progress of the prized pair of boots as it goes from soldier to soldier. Especially relevant movie in our troubled times.

Rating:
Summary: A heart-breakingly honest portrayal of war
Review: Upon returning to his hometown school from which he had enlisted into duty in WWI, Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres) tells prospective recruits: "When it comes to dying for one's country, it's better not to die at all." This is the essence of "All Quiet..." In the film, war is stripped of all its glory, all its valor, all its heroism, and shown in its true state: a hell in which men are taught to kill each other and become animals, fighting not for a cause, but for survival. The film's most powerful scene is its very last, when Paul reaches out of his trench for that beautiful butterfly, a vain attempt to recapture some sense of humanity amongst the horrors that surround him. Notice that many scenes in the movie begin with director Lewis Milestone showing us marching lines of soldiers and flag-waving crowds framed by windows or doorways. This is cinematography at its finest: we see the war not as a part of humanity, but as something foreign, something unknown, like the monster that lurked in your closet when you were a child. Only this monster is real. It is war.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite movie of ALL TIME.
Review: All Quiet On the Western Front is my all time favorite movie. Lew Ayres stars as Paul Baumer with Lewis Wolheim as Katczinsky or "Kat". This has some pretty good battle scenes for 1930, but the sounds of the shells hitting the ground isn't that realistic, but like I said it's 1930. This film won 2 Academy Awards including Best Picture(1929-1930). When director Lewis Milestone went up on stage to receive the award, some guy (don't remember his name) told Milestone that the next award the film would win would be the Nobel Peace Prize, because the film is anti-war. This movie is also #54 on AFI'S 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. I have now seen this 17 times and still counting and I'm not one bit tired of it. Every single scene, even though I've seen it a million times, still holds my attention whenever I see it. I would recommend this on DVD over VHS, because the bonus features contain the original theatrical trailer, and has short bios about the stars who played in it, and production notes. I love this movie so much I could run down the streets telling everyone I see to go see this film. Well now that you know about it go buy it NOW.

Rating:
Summary: A generation of men destroyed by war
Review: For a movie in the 1930's, Lewis Milestone's adaptation of All Quiet On The Western Front, based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel, follows the book reasonably well. However, rather than starting with the soldiers lining up to get the cook Ginger's stew per the novel (that part comes later), it starts with Paul Baumer's school teacher telling him and his fellow students that they are the light of the Fatherland, the iron men of Germany, the brave heroes who will repulse the enemies when called to do so. In other words, he's exhorting them to enlist, which they do, pressed into patriotism in what was initially thought to have been a quick war with small losses.

From the start, the recruits are eager to get into uniform and to the front, and are puzzled by the behaviour of burned-out experienced soldiers like Tjaden and Kat. This latter, a large, pleasantly ugly man has a knack for scrounging for food and finding enough for the group, and soon, all the recruits stick with and respect this man, especially after their first bombardment. When one of the recruits realizes he has wet his trousers, Kat tells him not to worry about it, as it's happened to better men.

The stages of attacking, the bombardment, attack, counterattack, and repulse, is presented in graphic detail for that period, with the shots of men dying by artillery shells, being bayoneted, or machine-gunned. Some recruits go crazy waiting in the bunker during the bombardment, and one of them rushes outside, only to get cut down by bullets. And the aftermath isn't pretty for some. Franz Kemmerich ends up in the infirmary and has his leg amputated. From the grueling experience of phantom limb pain to the realization that one has lost his limb, the greed of some like Muller who wants Franz's nice boots, to the unconcern of the doctors who see Franz's death as another free bed, war is hell.

War changes people's perspectives. Paul fights and stabs a French soldier at close quarters in a foxhole, and he pleads and apologizes to the dying man, telling him that without these uniforms, they could be friends, and promising to write to his wife. And on leave, Paul is clearly alienated from the older civilians who have no clue that war has burned out his soul, and just keep telling him to give those Frenchies a licking and push on to Paris. I'd go for Tjaden's solution to war: get the politicians and generals wearing just their underpants into a big field and fight it out with clubs. But the discussion of the soldiers yields something still relevant: manufacturers want a war to sell more arms.

The subplot involving the butterflies is new, but the shot of the soldier reaching for the butterfly before being shot by a sniper symbolizes a soldier's whose burned out soul is suddenly heartened as seeing something beautiful, and suddenly thus illuminated within, reaches toward it.

All Quiet On The Western Front deservedly went on to win four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, in the US. However, Joseph Goebbels' antics in Berlin demonstrates how Germany was in a state of war denial. The incident at a theatre of the second night showing of the movie involved Goebbels' men starting disturbances and yelling anti-Semitic epithets that resulted in the film's termination after ten minutes. Goebbels hadn't even seen the film; he merely wanted to demonstrate Nazi power in Berlin and discredit Albert Grzesinski, Prussia's Interior Minister who was a Social Democrat. When the film was banned by the Board of Censors because it "endangered Germany's image abroad", the headlines of Goebbels' newspaper Der Angriff (German for The Attack) read "Grzesinski Defeated."

One of the few war films I'll watch due to its pacifist message, denouncing the glorification of war. The prologue at the movie's beginning, taken from Remarque's book, says it all: this story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all, an adventure. For death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men, who even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.

Rating:
Summary: The book can be read in several hours. Do that first.
Review: "Some time ago there was an army theatre in these parts. Coloured posters of the performances are still sticking on a hoarding. With wide eyes Kropp and I stand in front of it. We can hardly credit that such things still exist. A girl in a light summer dress, with a red patent-leather belt about her hips!" After some more description of this girl, the narrator continues---in these words from "All Quiet on the Western Front": "The girl on the poster is a wonder to us. We have quite forgotten that there are such things, and even now we hardly believe our eyes. We have seen nothing like it for years, nothing like it for happiness, beauty and joy." In the film, of course, this is replaced by the poster itself; for we get to see it as well. Which do you think is more effective in conveying the longing of these soldiers, a simple poster of a girl, or the words (as indicated) above? I don't think there is any question which is more successful. Some things are better left unseen, even in films, I'd argue. The scene in the film would have been much more effective if, say, we got the details from one or two of the soldiers, perhaps sitting around having a drink, describing it to the others. Such would draw us into what they were feeling. Instead we see a picture for a few moments and then the scene changes & we carry nothing from the scene with us as the film progresses. This is not the only example of such herein either. In short, what I am suggesting is that the book is far more effective than this film. Big surprise, you say---most films in this category are inferior to the lauded books on which they are based. I'd agree. I'm just saying that you will not get anywhere near the effect of this book by just watching this film. There ought to be two categories for famous books brought to the screen: those that are complementary, ie., can be either read or seen (or both) without detracting from the work on which it is based, and those that cannot. "All Quiet on the Western Front, I'd suggest, falls into the latter category, but at least I'd hope that you'd invest the few hours it takes to read this book first---borrow it from your library, say---before instinctively looking to give me negative feedback simply because I'm not chiming in with a review of this film that, perhaps, simply reinforces your previously held predilections. Why ought one to go to the trouble of writing a review, after all, if one is not going to be honest? Cheers!