"Beautiful to die"

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2012)

It seems almost inconceivable today, or indeed any time in the last sixty-odd years, but there was a period between the two world wars when the United States was deeply anti-militarist, both in public opinion and government policy. This was reflected in the movies of the time, a trend which reached its peak with this 1930 adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front.
An early sound movie, All Quiet on the Western Front features technical feats that, according to some, weren't possible in the first talkies, especially extensive camera movement and outdoor shooting. Director Lewis Milestone it seems couldn't do without having his camera on the go, and All Quiet on the Western Front incidentally contains some of the most graceful examples from his entire career. We open with a crane-shot zooming over a parade of troops and in through a classroom window over the heads of students – a neat and engaging introduction to the movie. There was also a great deal of experimentation with new technology around this point, some of it very effective, such as the juxtaposing of the teacher's voice over the montage of student's imaginings of army life. Milestone's big thing for this movie however is placing the viewer inside the combat, with some dynamic trench-bound point-of-view shots. Importantly, Milestone stages these scenes with a cleverly-orchestrated chaos that eventually makes it nearly impossible to tell one side from the other.
But All Quiet on the Western Front is not without a few flaws common to the era. In particular the acting leaves a lot to be desired. Lew Ayres is horribly overwrought, and yet he is still the best of the lead actors. Some of the supporting players seem a little more realistic, but only because they don't have to emote. It's when people get angry or upset in this movie that all credibility goes out of the window. And some scenes feel rather awkwardly constructed and overlong even when they are fairly short. One example of this is the bit when Ayres comforts a French soldier he has fatally stabbed in a shell hole, which was presumably a moving moment in the novel, but here seems stilted and corny.
Still, the movie's haunting imagery and clear point-making have made it the touchstone anti-war picture down the generations. However, despite its initial critical and commercial success, its popularity would wax and wane along with attitudes to war, and it would be rarely seen in the gung-ho 40s and 50s. The tendency continues to this day. In 1998 All Quiet on the Western Front was #54 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years 100 Movies" list. When the list was revised in 2007, post-9/11 and post-Iraq war, it did not appear at all.