All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Directed by: Lewis Milestone | 145 minutes | drama, war | Actors: Louis Wolheim, Lew Ayres, John Wray, Arnold Lucy, Ben Alexander, Scott Kolk, Owen Davis Jr., Walter Rogers, William Bakewell, Russell Gleason, Richard Alexander, Harold Goodwin, Slim Summerville, Pat Collins, Beryl Mercer

Lew Ayres could have become a big star, of the caliber of his contemporaries James Stewart. However, the film that marked his big break also cost him (partially) his career. Ayres was so deeply moved by the anti-war message of Lewis Milestone’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ (1930) that he openly presented himself as a pacifist and refused to enlist when he was called up to war in 1942. America spoke of it as a disgrace and cinemas and theaters vowed never to run one of his films again. Behind the scenes, however, Ayres became involved in the Second World War. Not on the battlefield, but with the Medical Corps in the Pacific, as he had always aspired to. Ayres made a few more films after the war, and was even nominated for an Oscar for his role in ‘Johnny Belinda’ (1948), but he lost the star status that he had previously.

‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ was certainly a remarkable film for its time. More war films were made in the Interwar period, because the First World War was still fresh in our minds. But none of those films had such an obviously pacifist message as the film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 book Im Westen nichts Neues. On the contrary, the struggle for the fatherland was often glorified. Soldiers were heroes, defending your country an honor. The horrors of the war, the endless and useless bloodshed and the traumas of those who survive were not talked about, let alone made into a movie. Producer Carl Laemmle Jr, who would soon make a name for himself with horror classics ‘Dracula’, ‘Frankenstein’ (both 1931) and ‘The Mummy’ (1932), was so moved by Remarque’s book that he insisted on making it into a movie. He did that in an impressive way, because more than eighty years later, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ still has a huge impact. Especially the confrontational scenes in the trenches and the images that were very explicit for that time make this film unforgettable.

When the film begins, Paul Bäumer (Lew Ayres) and his classmates are still fresh-faced schoolboys, who have no idea what lies ahead of them. His teacher (Arnold Lucy)’s patriotic sermons make them eager to fight for the homeland. After a short training led by the strict drill instructor Himmelstoss (John Wray), they are sent to the battlefield. They end up in complete chaos. The disillusionment begins. There is not enough food, people get sick and ranks are ignored. Paul develops a friendship with hardened veteran Katczinsky (Louis Wolheim), who teaches him some crucial survival strategies. He owes it largely to ‘Kat’ that he survives the air raids and night battles in the trenches. Unlike many of his comrades, who have learned to adapt less well or who are just plain unlucky. When he is injured and is allowed to go home for a while, he cannot hide his disillusionment. Yet he returns to the front, because it is the only place where he still feels at home.

‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ will remain current as long as wars are being fought. Milestone dares to ask questions that burn on many people’s lips: who are we actually fighting for? Certainly not because the soldiers want it to. But they do give up their lives. With his remarkable eye for detail, the director manages to create a powerful and credible representation of reality. Although this is actually a film in which the individual performances of the actors are secondary to the transmission of the message, Ayres and especially Louis Wolheim distinguish themselves with engaging acting. You can see that this was one of the first talkies, because especially in the beginning dialogues are spoken a bit artificially. As the ravages of war become more prevalent, the acting gets better. The absence of music is remarkable: Milestone made a conscious choice to omit the soundtrack, because music could only distract from what it really is about.

This classic war film by Lewis Milestone was in many ways a blueprint for all the other war films to follow. It is not without reason that Steven Spielberg named ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ as the main source of inspiration for his own war epic ‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998). Milestone was the first who dared to show the violence of war for minutes and did not shy away from showing the less heroic sides of the battle. The battle scenes in particular have withstood the test of time remarkably well and still have a lot of impact in the twenty-first century. ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ has a handful of memorable scenes, mainly carried by the director’s craftsmanship and the indestructible strength of his pacifist message. He gets his persuasiveness partly because he worked with cast and crew members who had consciously experienced the First World War themselves. ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ is the mother of all war films, a cinematic highlight worthy of its classic status.