All Quiet On The Western Front 1929/30

The Film:

Iconic poster for a Classic film

Still watched fairly regularly today (including by school History classes, I am reliably informed!) and considered by many to be the greatest anti-war film ever made. Like Wings, it is set in WW1 and is recalling events of just a decade earlier. Unlike Wings, the plot focuses far more on how the naive willingness of young men to sign up to fight for their country turns to horrific tragedy, rather than triumphant victory.

It is an absolute classic movie and often appears in lists of Greatest Films Ever Made.

Like The Broadway Melody last week I've read a fair bit about the film and seen clips, but hadn't so far got round to watching it - so we were really looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is about.


The Ceremony:

Another lavish banquet!

The 3rd Academy Awards ceremony took place only a few months after the 2nd, although it honoured films from a year later - the 1929/30 season. Like the previous ceremony, it was held at the Ambassador hotel.

It was notable for two key things. Firstly, it was the first year in which there was a specific award for Sound Recording - showing how vital sound was becoming in the movie industry. Secondly, it featured one film (The Love Parade) being nominated in 6 out of the 8 categories - the highest number of nominations so far. It didn't win any of them.

This was also the first ceremony that was filmed, and the short film that was made of it is a lovely bit of movie history!

Other Notable Winners That Night:

Norma and Oscar - black and white photography
gives the impression that she's in mourning!

This was the first of many years to come when the same film won Best Picture and Best Director (Lewis Milestone) - something else that truly marked this out to be an outstanding film.

Best Actor was George Arliss for his portrayal of Disraeli (I've never seen the film, but he really looks like him!) and Best Actress was Norma Shearer who was nominated for two films, but won for The Divorcee. She would go on to be nominated four more times in the 1930s, the first actress (of 19 to date!) to be nominated five times.



What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Out of the four other nominees, three of them went home with other awards - The Divorcee and Disraeli picked up the acting awards, and The Big House took Writing and Sound. The other nominee was the much nominated but unrewarded The Love Parade.

I've not seen any of these films, although I have heard of all but The Big House (which sounds like a fairly run of the mill pre-code crime drama). The Divorcee is notable for being exactly the sort of film that wouldn't be possible a few years later when the Hays Code kicked in. The Love Parade is the only Chevalier/MacDonald musical to be nominated for an Oscar, so it is a shame that it went away empty-handed - if it hadn't, more people may still be aware of quite how big their films were at the time, and they wouldn't just remember Maurice singing *that* song in *that* film (more of which at a later date...)

Despite all of this, time has definitely shown that the right film won on the night - the fact that it still gets watched regularly and has such an effect on people nearly 90 years on says it all.


Our Verdict:

It doesn't take long for Paul to realise that it is not a sweet
and noble thing to fight for the Fatherland

A famously horrific - and surprisingly brief - shot, based
on a real eye-witness account

 It didn't disappoint. It is a very good film indeed, by whatever criteria you choose to measure a film. Technically it is extremely impressive, especially considering that it was made less than three years after the silent films we watched a few weeks ago. In terms of story telling and acting it is also very good. So many films from the 30s and 40s have dated because of the melodrama or the forced and clipped accents etc. But this really hasn't.

The realisation that your enemy isn't your enemy - he's just
another man like you.

The characters are well written and well played, the dramatic scenes are realistic and there is some well placed scenes of gentle humour that help you to like the characters even more and never detract from the horrors that they are experiencing.

But it's in terms of social and political commentary that it really stands up as a masterpiece. When we watched Wings a few weeks ago Andy commented on how interesting it was that the Germans weren't really shown to be enemies.

Well - this film takes that even further by following the story from the point of view of young German soldiers. Not only are they not the enemy, they are the protagonists (it would be wrong to call them heroes - there are no heroes here!). There's a fantastic scene where the men sit eating their double rations (double because half their troop have been killed) discussing how a war even starts. You can almost imagine Sir Humphrey explaining the same thing to Jim Hacker - it's so absurd, yet so true and, unfortunately still relevant.

The support and friendship of an older and wiser (or jaded) man.
If they had Supporting Actor categories back in 1930, Louis
Wolheim would have been a contender!

The film shows very clearly how quickly all patriotic thoughts vanish with the reality of the trenches - even those of their pompous Sergeant (who was formerly their postman!). The film is pretty brutal in its portrayal of the violence they encounter and the battle scenes are technically impressive. However, it's the quieter, more human scenes that have stuck with me. Paul in the trench watching the French soldier he has stabbed dying slowly and then finding out his name and vowing to tell his family. The night spent with the three girls who just gave them a bit of normality and some human contact.

Another iconic shot - a little glimmer of hope,
very quickly extinguished

There were also relationships that built up between the men, which often provided humour. Particularly through the characters of Kat and Tjaden (the latter of which was played by a famous comedic actor of the time).

This is a really good film. It makes you think. It definitely has some very strong opinions about war. And it is completely understandable why it has been banned by various countries at various times over the last nine decades (including being hated by the Nazis!). It was difficult - but important - to keep reminding ourselves that this film was being made just over a decade after the events it portrayed. Everyone in it remembered the war, some fought in it. German veterans that had settled in the US acted as on-set consultants to the film. This was an authentic and personal film.

I think Sunrise is still my personal favourite so far, but this is undoubtedly the "best" (however you choose to measure it) of the winners up to now. The print we watched had been very well restored, with the sound and picture as good as anything I've seen from the 30s and 40s. The real art and craft of film making is starting to develop in this era and it really shows in this film.

Above all though, what makes it a classic is the story it tells. And - sadly - it is just as relevant today as it ever was.

At the beginning we see the men marching to war -
at the end we see the same footage again, with a difference