Dated but still worth seeing!

Rating: 8/10 (8 September 2017)

Associate producer: George Cukor. Producer: Carl Laemmle, Jr. Copyright by Universal Pictures Corporation 17 May 1930. U.S. release date: 24 August 1930. New York opening at the Central: 29 April 1930. U.K. release date: October, 1930. 14 reels. 140 minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Conscripted German youths find war is neither glorious nor adventurous.
NOTES: Won the annual awards for Best Picture and Best Director, presented by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Also nominated for Best Writing (lost to Frances Marion for The Big House), and Best Cinematography (lost to Joseph T. Rucker and Willard Van Der Veer for With Byrd at the South Pole).
Winner of the Photoplay Gold Medal — Best Film of the Year — voted by the movie-going public of America. Also Winner of the Film Daily poll of American film critics for 1930. Also Winner of the National Board of Review citation for Best Film of 1930. Also Winner of the Picturegoer Seal of Merit for an Outstanding and Exceptional Motion Picture. Second place (to "With Bryd at the South Pole") on Mordaunt Hall's Ten Best in The New York Times.
COMMENT: Erich Maria Remarque's semi-autobiographical novel, "Im Westen Nichts Neues", was first published in Berlin in 1927. Other Remarque books that have been filmed include "Drei Kameraden" as Three Comrades, "Der Weg Zuruck" as The Road Back, "Flottsam" as So Ends Our Night, a short story "Beyond" as The Other Love, "Arch of Triumph" as The Arch of Triumph, "Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben" as A Time to Love and a Time to Die.
In its original form, All Quiet on the Western Front ran 140 minutes. This has now been restored. Continuity, however, is still somewhat jerky and abrupt. The film is constructed along the lines of a stage play with a fade-out at the end of each scene replacing the curtain fall. There is a tendency to make the individual scenes run too long, and despite the large amount of action footage — fully half-an-hour of the film would be solid action — the accent is firmly on dialogue. The pace is slow, sometimes excruciatingly so by modern standards, though this was contrived quite deliberately both for contrast with the sudden bursts of action and also to emphasize the dreariness and monotony of front-line sub-existence.
Nonetheless, Milestone's technique often seems uncompromisingly dated and this could prove a drawback for many audiences.
Available on DVD through Universal. Quality rating: 10 out of ten.