Look : A Talkie on the Western Front

Rating: 7/10 (7 July 2013)

"All Quiet on the Western Front" deserves every accolade that is thrown in it's direction, no argument from me there. It is impactful, poignant, relevant even to this day and there is no mistaking it's overall message.
I truly wish I could rate this movie higher, and if it was produced only a few years before of after 1930 I likely would have. The film fell right into the middle of the transition between talkies and silent films(there were even parallel versions made for theaters that didn't have sound yet), and this is plainly evident on screen. But should I really hold this against the movie, or rather concentrate on what was achieved in-spite of it? And the achievement was considerable indeed. "All Quiet..." stands today as one of the most memorable war movies of all time. The action scenes do a fantastic job of illustrating the near futility of trench warfare. The evolution and growth of the main character of Paul, as played by Lew Ayres, from naive schoolboy to battle hardened soldier is one of the best in cinema history.
Perspective. That is where this movie truly shines. We get to see the war from the perspectives of schoolboys being recruited(almost goaded)into the war effort. The soldiers on the front lines both experienced and fresh out of boot camp. The old men back home arguing over their maps, completely removed from the realities of modern warfare. The families left behind and the civilians caught in the middle of two armies. As I said already there is no mistaken the anti-war message of the film but it is in the presentation of all the various points-of-views and the impact that war has on ordinary people where it shines.
In so the movie manages to rise above the technical issues and natural grow pains that movie makers experienced during this time. The end result being a remarkable experience sure to stay with you long after the film's end.