Does an all time classic stand the test of time?

Rating: 7/10 (15 February 2014)

This film is widely considered to be an all-time classic, and I thought it worth showing my 12 year old as we are approaching the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1.
We watched the digitally remastered version, so the reproduction of sound and visuals was near on perfect.
This highlighted some of the sophisticated cinematography used, but equally some of the quite crude sound. (It is worth remembering that it was released only some 3 years after The Jazz Singer, so is a relatively early talkie.)
The overall production values are also really quite high: authentic looking European towns and villages and some impressive battle scenes.
Germans speaking with an American accent is rather quirky to an English ear, the dialogue and acting are very much of their time and often something of a disappointment. Again, this was quite early days for talkies and it is easy to forget how rapidly things developed to the more naturalistic style that we are used to today.
As far as the story is concerned, it is a simple but powerful polemic about the futility of war. The scenes of fighting are very telling. (After long waits of frightened boredom) struggling for a strip of land, to gain a few hundred yards only to then lose them again as quickly, with a huge cost in lives, The naiveté of the young volunteers as they join their cynical elders at the front, after being encouraged by their parents' generation at home to go and fight and die gloriously. Their dawning realisation of the reality is well made, even if it seems a bit clumsy by modern standards. This is further highlighted by a visit home on leave to a population largely ignorant of the harsh, painful, life-or-death drudgery of life at the Front.
Authored by and from a German perspective, the telling of the story by an American film company and crew is itself pretty remarkable. It did make me think that we still hadn't got the plain, simple truth that they are all "our boys"...