100 BEST WAR MOVIES: 9. All Quiet on the Western Front (1979)

 

       The movie won the Golden Globe for Made for TV Movie.  It also was nominated for six Emmys including Outstanding Drama or Comedy Special.  It was directed by Delbert Mann.  He filmed the movie in Czechoslovakia, which was a rare locale considering this was before the Iron Curtain came down.

                The movie opens with the opening statement from the novel:  “This story is to be neither an accusation nor a confession…”  We get a crane view of trenches.  They are zig-zagged, with barbed wire and sand bags.  A Czech field has been molded into an excellent no man’s land replete with the remnants of trees.  Paul (Richard Thomas) narrates and introduces his squad.  Some are Paul’s classmates, who are new to the war and see it as a bump on the road to their futures.  The other characters in the group are veterans like Kat (Ernest Borgnine) who have been scarred by the war.  It is obvious the movie will whittle down this band and it starts with an ambitious battle scene.  The Germans work their bolts as the French approach their position.  The sounds include the tinkling of the barbed wire.  The iconic shot of the severed hands on the barbed wire is recreated so you know there will be homages  to the original.  The counterattack is followed by crane and tracking shots.  It’s made for TV scale.  The deaths are of the touchdown signaling type, but otherwise the scene is a harbinger of the film’s attempt to do justice to the source.  The war’s futility is embodied in this opening.

                The movie flashes back to Paul’s classroom where his teacher Kantorek (Donald Pleasence) exhorts his class to be “iron youth” and do their duty to the Fatherland.  In a bit of foreshadowing, Paul sketches a bird as Kantorek indoctrinates.  He personally pressures Paul as their leader. The boys march off to enlist enthusiastically.  As boys were wont to do in 1914. They have a memorable boot camp trained by the villainous Himmelstoss (Ian Holm). The rest of the film depicts their lives in the trenches. Paul’s friends die one after the other. Paul is wounded and spends some time in a hospital. He also makes a trip back home where he has trouble reconciling the peacefulness of this town with the horrors of the war. The citizens are clueless about what is happening on the Westen Front. Paul feels more at home in the trenches. Most of the scenes are from the book and close to the book.

ACTING:   A                

ACTION:   A (6/10)  there is not a lot of combat

ACCURACY: as far as recreating the book - A      

PLOT: A+                

REALISM:   A

CINEMATOGRAPHY:   B

SCORE:   A

SCENE:  Paul and the French soldier in the shell crater

QUOTE:   Paul:  [to a dying Frenchman] If we threw away the guns, the grenades... We could have been brothers, but they never want us to know that.

                How do you compete against the most revered war movie of all time?  That is the problem the 1979 version has had ever since it came out.  This is unfair because this version was simply an attempt to bring the classic war novel to a new generation.  A generation that was not keen on watching an old black and white movie.  It also was an attempt to bring the story to television.  When you consider the goals and don’t hold it to impossible standards, it is actually a very worthy interpretation of the book.  All of the scenes in the movie are straight from the novel and faithful to it.  (Contrast this to the 2022 movie which bore little resemblance to the book.) Much of the dialogue is straight from the book.  No characters are added and the ones that appear are well developed.  The members of the squad are individuals and are fleshed out.  Obviously, Paul dominates, but it is a true ensemble effort. 

Paul and his mates are dehumanized by the war. Paul’s arc from naïve recruit to cynical veteran is powerful and reflects one of the novel’s main themes.  Note that Paul declines to smoke cigarettes throughout the movie, but in the final scene he has taken up the habit.  Another theme is the disconnect between the soldiers and civilians. Paul’s father and his friends play armchair general as they discuss how the war can easily be won. Paul lies to his mother about what soldier life is like. The movie is strong on the camaraderie of soldiers. Paul becomes best friends with Kat. The two never would have gotten together in peace time.

 The acting is surprisingly good. Richard Thomas is outstanding and deserves more credit for his acting than he got.  Many forget that he played two of the most iconic characters in war novel history since he also starred in the remake of “The Red Badge of Courage” (1974).  The cast is uniformly strong with Ernest Borgnine outstanding as Kat and Ian Holm bringing gravitas to Himmelstoss.  Borgnine was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Emmy, as was Patricia Neal as Paul’s mother.  You can justify all you want the silent movie histrionics of the original film, but this version has no cringeworthy performances. 

                Because of the nature of it being a made for TV movie, the combat scenes are not epic.  However, people forget that the novel does not emphasize battles.  Probably the most important scene in the book is Paul’s encounter with Pierre Duval in the shell crater.  This movie handles that scene perfectly.  Watch it and tell me Thomas is not Paul Baumer brought to life.  The effects are fine with the explosions and the sound effects showing a fidelity to war on the Western Front.  A lot of effort went into the exteriors and interiors.  The dugouts are claustrophobic and no man’s land is cratered.    The bombed-out villages contrast to the untouched home front locations.  Allyn Ferguson’s score is used sparingly and does not try to steer the audience’s emotions.

I decided to pair 1979 and 1930 because they are close in their plots. 1930 has better battle scenes because of its high budget (relative to its time), but 1979 has much better acting and is closer to the book. You can’t go wrong with either one. However, if you want to avoid reading the book, 1979 is the clear choice. And both are vastly superior to the terrible 2022 version. It is incredible to me that the critics that were harsh on 1979, wrote glowing reviews of the 2022. They clearly had not read the book. And there is also the bias against made-for-tv war movies. Some lists of the greatest war movies do not include any made-for-tv films. That is ridiculous because some of the best war movies did not appear in theaters.