Review of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) by Jacob M — 22 Aug 2013

War films have been one of the many successes in classic Hollywood cinema, with the most successful being Patton and The Longest Day. But these films probably would never have been made if it hadn't of been for All Quiet on the Western Front, an anti-war film that was the third film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, beating out The Big House, Disraeli, The Divorcee, and The Love Parade. For a film that was probably a risk to make cause of the fact that it was one of the first talkie war films, All Quiet on the Western Front is actually a good war film.

WWI approaches, and young German men are called to fight in the "Great War" to defend their country (as shown in one of the films most memorable scenes in a classroom). The boys are moved, and they immediately enlist and prepare to fight in the war. But as the war progresses, the realities of war start to take its toll on everyone.

Usually, in these kinds of war films, especially The Longest Day, Hollywood generally picks an all-star cast to lead the fighting. But here, the producers used a risky decision in picking unknown actors to play the young German men. Even today, they're still unknown to the modern public, and I think the decision really paid off. For a film like this, I didn't have too see a big-name actor to star in a film like this. I just see a young man doing his duty in the lines of war. And I think that's what director Lewis Milestone intended.

The actor that really stands out here is Lew Ayres as sort of the young men leader. His emotional expressions and reactions deliver and has the performance that should have given him an Academy Award. Boy was he snubbed.

Another thing unique about the film is that there's no film score. I generally hate it that a film has no score, and I usually lower a film's rating when there's no score (Frankenstein, for example), but here, the lack of score really works. The battle sequences, with the shots of young men dying in combat and explosions in the background, didn't need music to carry the scene out. I would call All Quiet on the Western Front the greatest film ever made that didn't have a film score in it. That's a huge accomplishment right there.

But despite the film's uniqueness to it, there was still some issues I had with it. First off, there were some unintentional corny moments in the film, where the scene ended up as funny rather than moving. One scene being a scene where a soldier gets shot in the face and hollers, "OH! MY EYES! I CAN'T SEE!" Cheesy, isn't it? Honestly, that didn't move me. Another corny moment was a scene where a soldier goes crazy when the dugout he's sleeping in collapses. That ended up as funny rather than dramatic. The other problem I had with the film is that some moments dragged the picture and should have ended on the cutting room. The sequence I'm looking at is when some men, including Ayres, attempt to impress some French women. This scene might have worked in a comedy, but for a war film, this scene felt unnecessary and should have been cut.

But the good news is, the film gets its point across, that war can be overhyped, and All Quiet on the Western Front is a good film experience, featuring some impressive battle sequences, a chilling performance from the still-unknown actor Lew Ayres, and a very unforgettable final sequence that sums up the whole film. It may not be the greatest war picture, but I enjoyed what I saw, and it's a good picture.