All Quiet on the Western Front (Universal Cinema Classics)

All Quiet on the Western Front is a movie released in 1930, directed by Lewis Milestone, and starring Louis Wolheim, Lew Ayres, John Wray. It is an incredible film that accurately displays the difficulty, victories, and truths of World War One. Unaware of future hardships, a group of German boys set off to the war feeling heroic and arrogant, because of their teacher’s manipulative speech and forced propaganda. However, when they reach the front, they quickly learn that war would destroy their lives, instead of pronouncing them heros. Each soldier in the group seems to drop like flakes and melt, dying miles from their warm homes, many just teenagers with a possibility of a wonderful life if they lived today. The film depicts horrible images of the truth: machine guns searing the scene, soldiers having leg amputations, and the drone of a bombing airplane. The movie ends with a scene of senseless violence: the main character, Paul, is shot by a hidden soldier as he reaches out to capture a butterfly for his sister. This movie is a cinematic success. Especially for the early 1900’s, it captured warfare as few had ever witnessed. The film is a roller coaster of opinion on The Great War. First, the movie seems to be encouraging the importance of war, and treats it as a true honor to go and fight, when it really was a burden thrust upon the young men of Europe. Even so, because of the propaganda surrounding their society, there was one student that became quiet when asked if he would join the others in the fight. However, he soon gave in and joined his friends when subject to peer pressure. When he is the first to die in battle, his peers are horrified, and the audience can’t help but feel the same.​​ The film then switches to another opinion: that war is not glory, but death. The storyline is very entertaining and sucks the watcher into the deep horror and reality of this war, especially as you watch your favorite characters die. Bringing to light the life of soldiers, the film highlights their reluctance to go back to war, as they commonly joke about how they should really fight. The camera gets up close and personal with those who die in battle as well, further insisting that the audience feels a part of the battle, and constant struggle for victory. The uniqueness of the bitter and symbolic ending fills the audience with remorse, as they watch the main character, Paul, fall victim to the same horror as his fellow comrades earlier in the film. Perhaps the only setback from this movie is the primitive and overdone acting shown by the general of the German troops, especially in the scene when he is drunk. In all, the quality of this movie is great. Finally, All Quiet on the Western Front helped me see and feel what I had already learned about World War 1.The movie begins with a scene of celebration with people singing and the teacher believing it will be a short war with few deaths. It’s hard to get swept up in their enthusiasm for going to the front when you can anticipate the horror that proceeds. This beginning contrasts sharply with the end. We see that every soldier has a family that suffered horrible grief, but the war didn’t recognize this. It just killed for the sake of sheer killing, and didn’t care about individual lives and the families who were impacted by their deaths. Seeing this occurrence is different from reading because you become attached to real individuals, and you see their death and how they die in different ways. One of them witnesses shell shock in first person, and runs out of safety and is hit by a shell. He had his leg amputated later along with thousands of other soldiers in WW1. Many others died from bullets and in hospital beds, with one in particular dieing from a bomb dropped from a plane above. I already knew that war is terrible, but seeing this movie really helped bring to life the horrors of war.

Blu-ray:Fidelity of video transfer is excellent and the audio is very good. It's a distinct improvement over the DVD. Keep in mind this is a 1930 B&W and any digital transfer will be constrained by 1930 film, camera and sound technologies, in addition to the condition of the source material used for the transfer.The original German novel was serialized in a newspaper Nov-Dec 1928 with the book published in early 1929 (Im Westen nichts Neues; literally: In the West Nothing New). An English language translation was published very quickly after that followed by the Academy Award winning film in 1930. It is very important to remember the novel and film were created during the interbellum period between the World Wars, five years before the rise of the Nazi party to power in 1933 (which promptly banned the book and its sequel). The movie was banned by the German censors under pressure from the growing Nazi party, which had developed particularly ugly and violent methods of getting their way using the SA, aka Brown Shirts.The movie follows the basics of the novel, with a class of boys in the German equivalent of high school receiving a lecture from their teacher about the patriotic glory of serving the Fatherland. It's reminiscent of a hoo-rah locker room pep talk. By the end, the entire class is moved by their teacher's exhortations to enlist en masse. Lost in the film and by most reading the book is the type of school, called a "gymnasium," the equivalent of a college preparatory high school. In Germany, the brightest students destined for the universities that passed the exams for it were sent to a gymnasium (this is NOT an athletic building). The others that continued their educations were sent to trade schools. These were the brightest, most intelligent young men, potentially the future of their country, launching themselves into what they believe will be a quick war with few losses. In reality, they're headed for the abyss of stalemated trench warfare.The reality of being a common soldier in the German Army starts to sink in when they're going through basic infantry training. The reality of war starts to hit home as they're being transported toward the front, they see the wounded being evacuated, and they come under harassing artillery fire. From there it continues to devolve into the grim realities of WWI trench warfare, with shell shock, fighting with the rats for their food, watching fellow soldiers get blown apart by artillery or machine gunned, and the gradual realization they're little more than expendable cannon fodder as the number of fellow classmates being killed or wounded increases relentlessly. In the meantime, there are hints of the gnawing questions about what they're fighting for and why. One of their battle hardened soldiers puts it well when he states they ought to strip all the kings, politicians and generals down to their underwear, put them into an arena, and let them fight it out among themselves with clubs to determine the winner. This is contrasted with one of the students' home leave when he encounters men too old to fight and completely out of touch with battlefield realities and the horrific human cost, debating the correct strategy to win the war as armchair generals in his home town's gasthaus (pub). It's also contrasted with a visit to his school, where the teacher is exhorting his current class to enlist using the same patriotic rhetoric, and they're also clearly out of touch with the war's brutal realities.Made only a couple years after "talkies" started replacing silent films, portions of the acting show vestigial silent era high drama over-acting. Sound effects are quite remarkable considering what they had to create, again just a couple years after the introduction of sound. Likewise, the special effects for small arms, machine guns, mortars and artillery are all real pyrotechnics. Scenes of this era shot using matte backgrounds are usually obvious if you look for them. I don't recall seeing any rotoscoping although I wasn't looking for it; that's normally detectable in vintage films. As would be expected, it's in the grainy B&W of its era, which accentuates its drab and weary bleakness. It was also made prior to 1934 when the strict, Draconian Hays Code could be enforced by the MPAA, which would have undoubtedly resulted in a number of scenes being shortened or cut entirely. The MPAA Hays Code not only set strict limits to language, sex and violence, it also controlled broader content and how it was portrayed compared to the code's [questionable] moral and ethical standards, and portraying an idealistic American way of life; it was de facto content censorship, including political and religious material, from 1934-1954 under Joseph Breen.Five stars for a realistic portrayal of the extremely brutal and violent reality of war, physically and psychologically (given 1930 technical filming constraints), with WWI in particular. It faithfully shows the bonds that develop among the common soldiers to cope with unspeakable battlefield horror, and contrasts it with how insulated and completely ignorant those on the "home front" are of the horrors their front line soldiers are enduring. It is classed as one of the all-time classic "anti-war" films. It should give pause to consider the real human cost of armed conflict before drawing one's saber and going to war.

Good movie

very satisfied with getting this collectors edition

I watched this movie after watching the newer version. The 1930 film is much better. It has a spirit and soul not hampered by the special effects and shock drama of the latest of these productions - not to mention superb acting. I highly recommend it.

A classic movie with an important theme.

On the images shown for the Blu-ray copy of this film, of which in its own right is an amazing film, the images show a movies anywhere code copy that should come with it. After waiting about 3 weeks after ordering to receive my Blu-ray copy, I was a little disappointed to not see a digital copy code or any sign of one supposed to be with it. I feel the images were a bit misleading but other than that I don't have any other complaints regarding this film.

Killer movie; saw it when I was young, also read the book. Follows the orig story well. Grueling times of the worst war.

Surprisingly All Quiet on The Western Front 1930 (Blu-ray) does not feature in the critics BFI 2012 list of greatest ever films, even though it is undoubtedly one of the best anti war films ever made and even today has a tremendously poignant message of the follies of war and unlike many early sound films has stood the test of time extremely well and I thought it was far better than many of the critics favourites such as 'Tokyo Story'. Seeing this incredible restoration is like watching a different film, when compared to the DVD version. Gone is the camera flicker inherent of many early sound films, the contrast and uneven exposure issues and damage to the film has been nearly totally removed. Many of the shots have quite a lot of depth especially in the tracking shots over the trenches. The battle scenes look as if they have been shot recently and computer enhanced to look like the genuine thing. Gone is all the hiss and crackle on the soundtrack and it has real atmosphere despite the gunfire/artillery sounding a bit muted. Also on this disc is a documentary about Universal's dedicated team who are doing incredible work on restoring the classics in the vaults. Incidentally this documentary is also on the excellent restored `Pillow Talk' now available on the Blu-ray. It struck me, having recently bought quite a few classics of recent times, that The Studios need you `The Collectors' support to finance this programme of preserving the great films of the past by buying the Blu-ray restored versions, after all most of them cost relatively little compared to a lot of things. Many Blu-rays I own (replacements for the DVD version) have cost around £10, which is far less than two tickets at your local multiplex!

It's fairly common for novel-movie adaptations to, quite literally, fail before a release has made it to the theatres, and the same can even be said for remakes (Colin Farell's casting in Total Recall made the entire planet groan). In the case of 'All Quiet on the Western Front - a subject encapsulated by warfare - the legibility can become even more crucial since Erich Remarque's translations of a lost generation where already harrowing in their textual form. So harrowing that it stands as one of the greatest pieces of anti-war literature ever conceived.Fortunately, this 1930 movie is one of the rare adaptations that not only meets, but often exceeds the imagery found in the original book. Sure enough, if you're not used to watching movies from this era then it's perfectly acceptable to question the actors accents and, at times, very staged performances, but these are attributes born from the era that this film was made. Being one of the first 'talkies' to have any kind of success, it's fascinating to witness the often awkwardness of the older actors bellowing into the microphones (in order for the sound to be picked up), and the gentle naivety of guiding the audience vocally.'All Quiet...' is shocking, thought provoking and genuinely cruel. Based upon the diary entries of a young German soldier, the experiences perfectly exemplify the propaganda, excitement, reality, frustration, acceptance and death that formed the livelihood of almost everyone involved. And for every generation lost, a new one was ready and waiting to serve.You'd expect a film over 80-years old to not have the same degree of realism that we have come to expect today - particularly during action scenes - but in many cases, the scenes present in 'All Quiet...' are worryingly real. So real that it disposes any notion CGI could recreate this kind of drama whilst still retaining an emotional connection with the characters. The black and white photography only enhances the realism of this footage as it mirrors the similar style photography that we have come to expect from archive footage. Everything, from the explosive effects to the trenches, is completely genuine and not wrapped up in a self-indulgent mess.As for the restoration of this film, I was pleased to read that Universal spent so much money (little under a quarter of a million) and time getting it up to shape for a new master, and the results on the whole are excellent. Detail is truly amazing - particularly if you've been used to watching an old DVD or VHS version of this film. Contrast is simply excellent, and the removal of judder from ageing film stock has really stabilised what used to be awfully shaky scenes.Could Universal have done a better job themselves? Perhaps, but only if they invested even more time, and with the breadth of their release schedule at the moment that was obviously not possible. Their work is not always perfect - scratches appear only on certain elements - but it simply looks wonderful on the whole. If I only had one complaint, its the 'digitised' effect that the grain has on some scenes.The audio however is flawless, which is rare coming from a mono track. The clarity and dynamic range is vastly improved (possibly beyond it's original state), and the really reveals little details that you may never have heard. One the very last scene of this movie, you actually hear the motor of the camera running in the background, and during the battle sequences, shell fire effects sound unbelievable better. Hiss is obviously a product of it's time (due to optical recording techniques), but one of this movies most powerful elements is it's lack of music, and the decision to grant silence as an emotive catalyst. It's insanely powerful.Finally, we have the 'Digibook' itself - an addition that will mean a lot to some, little to others. Considering how cheap this product is, I think it's absolutely excellent that Universal have included such lovely packaging and a wonderful book inside to match, and the best part is that it forms part of a 'Collectors Series' that Universal have begun (with titles like Jaws, E.T and The Sting having the same format). You can read bios about the actors and much, much more. Sadly this doesn't make up for the lack of Bonus Features on the disc itself, and if it wasn't for the awesome quality of the rest of the product, then I would go down to 4 Stars. Such a groundbreaking and culturally significant film deserves at least ONE feature that critically reflects on the film, but Universal decided to include absolutely nothing apart from the silent version of the movie, and two very short features that reflect on the studios history.Despite this annoyance, 'All Quiet...' on Blu-ray demonstrates just what can be achieved through restoring something over 80-years old, and this only serves to give the product far more impact than in its previous battered state. If you are unable to weep at the very last scene of this movie, then do yourself a favour and at least read the original diary.

(This review refers to the Blu-Ray 2012 release) Universal is to be congratulated on the amount of love and care they have afforded the restoration of this all-time greatest war movie. Not a flash or flicker to been seen... we can only hope that this new technology will be used resurrect other silent and early sound masterpieces, e.g. Wings. All thanks to the talent that restored All Quiet to its former devastating glory!

This is an all time classic. Wonderfully restored for blu ray. I enjoyed it as much today as I did when I first saw it over 50 years ago. The only complaint I would have is that there could have been far more substantial extras included, particularly in relation to the making of the film. Having said that we must count our blessings that a master has been restored, Here's hoping that for the 90th anniversary we will get those much deserved extras

Super. Very good