All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

My 100th review is a World War 1 film based on the book of the same name. The film follows a young German, Paul Bäumer (Lew Ayres), over the course of the war. While eager to serve his country at first, he quickly realizes that the war is dehumanizing and serves no purpose. While the film is somewhat slow to begin, the second half is much better and offers a powerful anti-war message.

The film stars Lew Ayres and numerous others. As the film follows Ayres' character throughout, the majority of the cast members have small parts. Ayres is rather impressive portraying a typical soldier. Over the course of the film, the audience becomes emotionally attached to his character and is sympathetic towards his plight.

Although the plot is slow at times and most of the action in the film seems somewhat random, this is still a very good film and powerfully delivers its message. As Variety wrote, "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."

84/100
B

UP NEXT: Alfred Hitchcock's remake of his own film, The Man Who Knew Too Much.

i read the book and i think we watched the movie in class in like 7th or 8th grade

has anyone seen it.. we watched it last year in history ..its a movie about a guy going off to war to fight for germany in world war 1..

I have seen it as my review implies.

detroitwings82 wrote:

has anyone seen it.. we watched it last year in history ..its a movie about a guy going off to war to fight for germany in world war 1..

I saw it in High school; had to do a paper on it; I only got a C

I have to see it again to enjoy it

ya i knw i had like a two page report due on it