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All Quiet on the Western Front

  • 19301930
  • PassedPassed
  • 2h 32m
IMDb RATING
8.1/10
65K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
140
553
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.
Play trailer2:29
2 Videos
99+ Photos
DramaWar
A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.
IMDb RATING
8.1/10
65K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
140
553
  • Director
    • Lewis Milestone
  • Writers
    • Erich Maria Remarque(novel)
    • Maxwell Anderson(adaptation & dialogue)
    • George Abbott(screen play)
  • Stars
    • Lew Ayres
    • Louis Wolheim
    • John Wray
  • Director
    • Lewis Milestone
  • Writers
    • Erich Maria Remarque(novel)
    • Maxwell Anderson(adaptation & dialogue)
    • George Abbott(screen play)
  • Stars
    • Lew Ayres
    • Louis Wolheim
    • John Wray
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 282User reviews
    • 93Critic reviews
    • 91Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Won 2 Oscars
      • 7 wins & 2 nominations total

    Videos2

    Trailer
    Trailer 2:29
    Watch Trailer
    Shot for Shot: All Quiet on the Western Front
    Clip 1:01
    Watch Shot for Shot: All Quiet on the Western Front

    Photos119

    Lew Ayres, Ben Alexander, G. Pat Collins, Scott Kolk, Slim Summerville, Louis Wolheim, and John Wray in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    Lew Ayres, G. Pat Collins, and Louis Wolheim in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    Lewis Milestone and John Wray in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    Ben Alexander, Richard Alexander, William Bakewell, Slim Summerville, and Louis Wolheim in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    Lew Ayres, William Bakewell, and Scott Kolk in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    Lew Ayres in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    G. Pat Collins in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    Lew Ayres and Raymond Griffith in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    Lew Ayres in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
    Lew Ayres and Raymond Griffith in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Lew Ayres
    Lew Ayres
    • Paul
    • (as Lewis Ayres)
    Louis Wolheim
    Louis Wolheim
    • Kat
    John Wray
    John Wray
    • Himmelstoss
    Arnold Lucy
    Arnold Lucy
    • Kantorek
    Ben Alexander
    Ben Alexander
    • Kemmerich
    • (as Kemmerick)
    Scott Kolk
    Scott Kolk
    • Leer
    Owen Davis Jr.
    Owen Davis Jr.
    • Peter
    Walter Rogers
    Walter Rogers
    • Behn
    • (as Walter Browne Rogers)
    William Bakewell
    William Bakewell
    • Albert
    Russell Gleason
    Russell Gleason
    • Mueller
    Richard Alexander
    Richard Alexander
    • Westhus
    Harold Goodwin
    Harold Goodwin
    • Detering
    Slim Summerville
    Slim Summerville
    • Tjaden
    • (as 'Slim' Summerville)
    G. Pat Collins
    G. Pat Collins
    • Bertinck
    • (as Pat Collins)
    Beryl Mercer
    Beryl Mercer
    • Paul's Mother
    Edmund Breese
    Edmund Breese
    • Herr Meyer
    Zasu Pitts
    Zasu Pitts
    • Frau Bäumer - Silent Version Trailer only
    • (scenes deleted)
    Ernie Adams
    Ernie Adams
    • 2nd Medic Orderly
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Lewis Milestone
    • Writers
      • Erich Maria Remarque(novel)
      • Maxwell Anderson(adaptation & dialogue)
      • George Abbott(screen play)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      With the loss of limbs and gory deaths shown rather explicitly, this is undoubtedly the most violent American film of its time. This is because the Production Code was not strictly enforced until 1934 and also because Universal Pictures deemed the subject matter important enough to allow the violence to be seen. The scene where a soldier grabs a strand of barbed wire and then is blown up by an artillery shell, leaving only his hands still grabbing the barbed wire, was told to director Lewis Milestone by a former German soldier working as an extra, who saw that happen during a French attack on his position during the war. Milestone used it in the film.
    • Goofs
      When Paul talks to the dead soldier in the pit, the soldier is breathing visibly and at one point his eyes blink.
    • Quotes

      Paul Bäumer: You still think it's beautiful to die for your country. The first bombardment taught us better. When it comes to dying for country, it's better not to die at all.

    • Crazy credits
      Later reissues of the film mentioned that the film was an Academy Award winner in the opening credits.
    • Alternate versions
      The Library of Congess also restored a sound version, 133 minutes long, which is the version occasionally shown on American TV.
    • Connections
      Edited into No Greater Glory (1934)
    • Soundtracks
      All Quiet on the Western Front
      (1930) (uncredited)

      Music by Lou Handman

      Lyrics by Bernie Grossman

    User reviews282

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    10/10
    Wilhelmine Perspective
    Erich Maria Remarque's novel and the film made from it may possibly be the greatest anti-war statement ever created. All Quiet on the Western Front won a deserved Best Picture Academy Award in the year it came out and brought great prestige to Universal Pictures as the first Oscar in that category won by that studio.

    Lew Ayres is the student leader of a bunch of German school boys in 1914 who listen to the voice of their school master and enlist in the war that's just been declared. The whole class enlists and that's not hyperbole because in Germany at the time it was the boys who got the education and the girls if they got it, got it separately from the boys.

    I'm sure that viewers of All Quiet on the Western Front today probably are asking why that school master and so many of his generation were urging their youth on to such folly. Very simply that their generation had a quick victory in 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War. Every generation since wars were recorded figures their war experience will be the same for their children.

    Only it wasn't. On the western front the Allied and Central Powers armies were locked in a bitter stalemate that ran diagonally across France and Belgium from the English Channel to the Swiss border. This went on for a little over four years. In fact had it not been for the fact that America joined the Allied side and the French and British held out until they did, I'm sure an honest armistice would have been declared long before November 11, 1918.

    You lived, fought and died in those trenches. Either you were defending or you were attacking the other guy's trenches against murderous automatic weapon fire and long distance artillery batteries. All Quiet on the Western Front was the first great war film of the American sound era and graphically shows that.

    And it shows that from the enemy perspective. That's something today's audience can't appreciate, the fact that the film was from the Wilhelmine German perspective. Remember these were the enemy a dozen years before. But the experience in the trenches was universal.

    Lew Ayres became a star with this film and it effected him so deeply that he became a committed pacifist which caused later problems in his career. He's the voice of reason and civilization and the voice of a lost generation of Germans who would never have listened to the demagogic appeals of the Nazis.

    Louis Wolheim plays the veteran soldier who befriends Ayres and his school boy chums and teaches them how to survive in the trenches. It turned out to be his greatest role. He was a brutish looking man and played mostly those types in silent films. All Quiet on the Western Front would have been the start of a whole new career opening. But Wolheim died the following year just as he was to start filming The Front Page. Adolphe Menjou took the part of Walter Burns in that film which Wolheim was to have.

    The third really stand out performance is that of John Wray who some might remember as the brutal prison guard in Each Dawn I Die. Wray plays an officious mail man who is in the German Army Reserve. He gets called up and this little nobody gets rather impressed with himself and his new found authority as a training sergeant to Ayres and his friends. Later on at the front, he gets a view of combat he wasn't quite ready for.

    All Quiet on the Western Front with its eternal message of peace and life will be one eternal film, it will be shown and appreciated for many generations to come.
    helpful•161
    18
    • bkoganbing
    • Mar 15, 2006

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • August 24, 1930 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Languages
      • English
      • French
      • German
      • Latin
    • Also known as
      • Sin novedad en el frente
    • Filming locations
      • Sherwood Forest, California, USA
    • Production company
      • Universal Pictures
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Budget
      • $1,200,000 (estimated)
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 32 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White

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