Without diluting or denying any ... criticisms, it should be said that from World War I to Korea, Milestone could put the viewer into the middle of a battlefield, and make the hellish confusion of it seem all too real to the viewer. Steven Spielberg noted as much when he credited Milestone's work as partial inspiration for Saving Private Ryan ... Lewis Milestone made significant contributions to [the genre of] the war film. [14] Shot with gritty brutality, caked in dirt and dust and sweat and blood, and gifted a succession of truly punishing extended setpieces that, one after the other, hammer home the true horrors of war, All Quiet on the Western Front is a hell of an endurance piece. If you thought it was hard enough watching best friends see each other blown to pieces by artillery fire, or be fooled by a brief reprieve before the tanks arrive, how about some vicious you-or-me squirming-around-with-knives hand-to-hand combat? It's a meticulously crafted examination of everything horrible that could possibly happen to a young and naive kid who has just walked onto a battlefield. It's won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Cinematography, Best Production Design and Best Score (that last one is an easy fit - the aggressive, intrusive and arguably atypical score gifting the film its one glimmer of something different from its peers). On paper, you can see why it's won so many damn awards, and it is definitely a solid, impressively put-together feature.

A great number of German Army veterans were living in Los Angeles at the time of filming and were recruited as bit players and technical advisers. Around 2,000 extras were utilized during production. [9] Among them was future director Fred Zinnemann ( High Noon, From Here to Eternity, A Man for All Seasons, Julia), who was fired for impudence.

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They hear that they are to return to the front the next day and begin a semi-serious discussion about the causes of the war and of wars in general. All Quiet on the Western Front opened to wide acclaim in the United States. Considered a realistic and harrowing account of warfare in World War I, it made the American Film Institute's first 100 Years...100 Movies list in 1997. A decade later, after the same organization polled over 1,501 workers in the creative community, All Quiet on the Western Front was ranked the seventh-best American epic film. [5] [6] In 1990, the film was selected and preserved by the United States Library of Congress' National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". [7] [8] The film was the first to win the Academy Awards for both Outstanding Production and Best Director. It is the first Best Picture winner based on a novel. American Film Institute (June 17, 2008). "AFI Crowns Top 10 Films in 11 Classic Genres". ComingSoon.net. Archived from the original on June 19, 2008 . Retrieved June 18, 2008. The film was shot with two cameras side by side, with one negative edited as a sound film and the other edited as an " International Sound Version" for distribution in non-English speaking areas. The League of Nations could make no better investment than to buy up the master-print, reproduce it in every language, to be shown in all the nations until the word "war" is taken out of the dictionaries.

In a retrospective review, American film critic Pauline Kael commented, "The year 1930 was, of course, a good year for pacifism, which always flourishes between wars; Milestone didn't make pacifist films during the Second World War—nor did anybody else working in Hollywood. And wasn't it perhaps easier to make All Quiet just because its heroes were German? War always seems like a tragic waste when told from the point of view of the losers." [19]Schleh, Eugene P. "Books About Film and War". Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies 8.1 (1978): 11-14. Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2nd ed. 2005): 14-15.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a 1930 American pre-Code epic anti-war film based on the 1929 novel of the same name by German novelist Erich Maria Remarque. Directed by Lewis Milestone, it stars Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Arnold Lucy, and Ben Alexander. The Nazi campaign was successful and German authorities outlawed the film on December 11, 1930. A heavily cut version was briefly allowed in 1931, before the Nazis came to power in 1933 and the film was outlawed again. The film was finally re-released in Germany on April 25, 1952, in the Capitol Theatre in West Berlin. the leap up from 4K Netflix DV to 4K disc DV isn't seismic, but it is noticeable in all the right places Top 10 Epic". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on June 19, 2008 . Retrieved June 13, 2008.

Conclusion

The new soldiers arrive by train at the chaotic combat zone. One in the group is killed before the recruits can reach their post, to the alarm of one of the new soldiers (Behn). The new soldiers are assigned to a unit composed of older, unwelcoming veterans. Having not eaten in days, they pay cigarettes to Corporal "Kat" Katzinsky (who has stolen a slaughtered hog from a field kitchen) in exchange for a meal.