sadly, it hasn't aged very well...

Rating: 5/10 (2 November 2010)

Lewis Milestone's First World War epic is fondly regarded as a classic, but it may appear stale to viewers not conditioned to the shortcomings of early sound cinema. The battle scenes (shot mostly silent, with sound effects added) are still quite powerful, but the dialogue sequences come across as clumsy and stilted by comparison. The problems of pacing were very much a worry for sound productions in the early 1930s; new techniques of exposition and editing had to be acquired, and the learning process was often slow and painful. Had it been made just two or three years earlier, with judicious cutting and with silent intertitles replacing the labored talking scenes, the film would have been unforgettable.