History Film / AllQuietOnTheWesternFront1930

* ShootTheShaggyDog: The film follows [[JustForFun/HowToSurviveAWarMovie war movie conventions]] rigorously right up to the third act, where the main characters are picked off one by one in trench warfare, until they are all dead. The AudienceSurrogate Paul survives long enough to stand up while sketching a butterfly in the trenches on [[HopeSpot the day of the Armistice, promptly getting shot and becoming the last casualty of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.]] The closing title card? "[[TitleDrop All Quiet On The Western Front]]." All this is, of course, true to the spirit of the book.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/all-quiet_0_8499.jpg]]

UsefulNotes/WorldWarI is raging in Europe. A group of German classmates, including protagonist Paul Bäumer (Creator/LewAyres), are goaded into enlisting by their jingoistic teacher, Kantorek (Arnold Lucy). The boys go to boot camp on a wave of patriotic fervor, but their brutal experience under vicious martinet Corporal Himmelstoss (John Wray) saps them of their enthusiasm even before they are sent to the front line.

UsefulNotes/WorldWarI is raging in Europe. A group of German classmates, including protagonist Paul Bäumer (Creator/LewAyres) are goaded into enlisting by their jingoistic teacher, Kantorek. The boys go to boot camp on a wave of patriotic fervor, but their brutal boot camp experience under vicious martinet Corporal Himmelstoss saps them of their enthusiasm even before they are sent to the front line.

The front line, of course, is a place of nightmarish horror. One of the classmates is killed in their very first day in combat. The boys are taken under wing by Corporal "Kat" Katzinsky (Louis Wolheim) who becomes a sort of father figure. The brutality of the war strips Paul of his innocence. As his friends die one by one, Paul struggles to survive, and to hold on to something of his humanity.

''All Quiet on the Western Front'' is a 1930 film directed by Creator/LewisMilestone.

It is the first film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's iconic 1929 novel, ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront''. UsefulNotes/WorldWarI is raging in Europe. A group of German classmates, including protagonist Paul Bäumer (Creator/LewAyres) are goaded into enlisting by their jingoistic teacher, Kantorek. The boys go to boot camp on a wave of patriotic fervor, but their brutal boot camp experience under vicious martinet Corporal Himmelstoss saps them of their enthusiasm even before they are sent to the front line.

->''"This story is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war."''-->-- '''opening scene'''

->''"This story is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war."''

** Fairly early in the film, as Paul and his squad are marching into a combat zone for the first time, there's a shot of Paul and several other soldiers looking back at the truck that dropped them off. At the end, after every soldier in that shot has been killed, the shot of each soldier looking back is repeated now with graves sign.