| All Quiet on the Western Front | |
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DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Delbert Mann |
| Produced by | Norman Rosemont |
| Written by | Paul Monash |
| Starring | Richard Thomas Ernest Borgnine |
| Music by | Allyn Ferguson |
| Cinematography | John Coquillon |
| Editing by | Alan Pattillo Bill Blunden |
| Release date(s) | November 14, 1979 |
| Running time | 150 minutes |
| Country | USA / UK |
| Language | English |
All Quiet on the Western Front is a television movie produced by ITC Entertainment, released on November 14, 1979, starring actors Richard Thomas from The Waltons fame as Paul Baumer, and Ernest Borgnine as Katczinsky. It is based on the book of the same title by Erich Maria Remarque.
The 1979 film was directed by Delbert Mann; though the acting of some of the performers was praised, the general opinion of most movie fans is it failed to equal the 1930 film directed by Lewis Milestone. Nevertheless, the film has its share of tension and death, and in the spirit of the novel, manages to convey a sense of desolation, hardship, and waste. Late in the film, the turmoil and wretchedness of the main character, Paul Baumer, is manifest in his extreme disassociation while home on furlough.
Most of the movie was filmed in Czechoslovakia in what was one of the first US/UK produced films to be shot in a Communist Bloc country.
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The film follows young Paul Baumer, who during World War I enlists in the Imperial German Army with many of his high school friends, after being indoctrinated by their teacher (Donald Pleasance) as to the glory and superiority of German culture. After surviving training camp under the sadistic Corporal Himmelstoss (Ian Holm), the enthusiastic young men board a troop train bound for the front lines. Ominously, at the same moment, they notice another train arriving in town loaded with wounded returning soldiers, who are carried off on stretchers. Once at the front lines, they are placed under the supervision of a pragmatic, yet good-natured older soldier, Stanislaus Katzinsky, called "Kat" (Ernest Borgnine). Kat teaches them how to best take cover, how to catch game for food, and other survival skills.
The film focuses on the suffering and tragedy caused by war, particularly the horrors endured by the young men serving in it. At the beginning, the French and German armies are shown attacking each other repeatedly over a few hundred yards of torn, corpse-strewn land. Paul's weak friend Franz Kemmerich is wounded, and soon dies in a crowded army hospital attended by nuns, which is shown in the film. In spite of being distraught by his friend's death, Paul returns to the trenches with his troop. When a French soldier falls into a crater Paul is hiding in, Paul stabs the man in the stomach with his bayonet, then after spending the night with him, tries to bandage the dying soldier's wounds, after which he dies. Paul escapes the crater feeling terrible for what he has done, and it reflects on the meaninglessness of the war. Another comrade, after falling into a pit of poison gas, is carried off by the medics to a slow, suffering death; the medics had appeared before Kat could give him mercy. The troop's panicked horses, terrified, shriek hysterically as they are surrounded by burning buildings, and artillery fire.
When Paul and his battalion return to a French town for a rest week, they see the new recruits have grown younger and younger. To their delight, the leader of these new recruits is their recently demoted training officer, Himmelstoss. When Himmelstoss tries to make them obey him, they stand up to him, leaving him frustrated. Later in the trenches, while the Germans are launching an offensive attack, he sees a squad cowering in a crater, which includes Himmelstoss. Paul pushes Himmelstoss to force him to keep on the offensive.
Although at one point, Paul and two of his friends do have their first experience of sex (with some accommodating French peasant girls), the vast majority of all the young men's experiences are horrific. One by one, practically all of Paul's other schoolmate friends die, one way or another. A haughty, stiff Kaiser Wilhelm II visits their camp to ceremoniously pin medals on heroic soldiers, which includes Himmelstoss.
Paul's squad is attacked in a French Town close to the front, where one of his friends dies and another is severely wounded. Paul, who is also wounded, is granted leave. When home on furlough, Paul is told by his sister that their bedridden mother (Patricia Neal), is dying of cancer. In visits to a beer garden and his former classroom, Paul realizes that his town's older men, in their enthusiasm for war, have no sense of the horrors they have sent their youth to. He also visits Kemmerich's mother and lies to her that he didnt suffer. Just before the end of the film, Kat is wounded by an artillery burst and Paul carries his larger, heavier, older friend many miles to a field hospital (in a bomb-shattered, very small, derelict church). There he finds out that Kat is dead, having been killed by a shell fragment to the head while Paul was carrying him, a few miles before he reached the church.
The film ends with Paul writing a letter to his friend (the sole survivor of their class), who is now an amputee. He reveals the fate of all of his classmates, some are dead, some are missing, one was caught after deserting, one is mad and he and Paul are the only ones left. When he finishes, he goes to check on the drastically underage replacements (none of whom look older than fifteen), guarding the trench, taking the position of the most experienced man on the battlefield, like Kat was before him. He spots a bird and begins to sketch it, and when the bird starts to fly away Paul stands up more, to see where it went, exposing himself above the trench parapet. A lone sniper's shot rings out, killing him. A telegram with the film's title is shown to the viewer, revealing an infamous segment from a report issued by the German High Command. It also shows how close Baumer had come to surviving the conflict.
The film won a Golden Globe Award in the category Best Motion Picture Made for TV as well as an Emmy Award for Outstanding Film Editing for a Limited Series or a Special.[1]
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