DVDs

All Quiet on the Western Front

Region 1

Region 4

By Richard Moore

More than 20 years after seeing the original 1930 version of All Quiet on the Western Front I can still picture the shattering last scene.

Based upon the book by Erich-Maria Remarque, the movie was the first anti-war film ever made and won huge praise - and two academy awards - for its portrayal of young German soldiers during World War I.

The hero, Paul Baumer was played by Lew Ayres, and you witnessed the horrors of war as you followed him and his schoolfriends through their initial patriotism and adventure-seeking through to disillusionment and then a complete disregard about death.

In 1979, a TV movie of All Quiet on the Western Front was released and the producers courageously went for Richard Thomas, of The Waltons fame, as the lead character.

It was a risk, but the gamble paid off in spades as Thomas gives one of his best on-camera performances as the young soldier.

And the story does lend itself to him as he begins as a fresh-faced John Walton-ish lad and ends up by being a hard, cynical trooper grieving for the losses of his friends and comrades.

To balance the youth of Thomas, a seriously good batch of elder film statesmen also joined the cast in the likes of Ernest Borgnine (Kat), Ian Holm (Corporal Himmelstoss) and Donald Pleasance as the schoolmaster who encourages his class to join up.

And among those youngsters you will see many faces of actors who at the time were not well known but you will easily recognise them now.

The plot is pretty brutal, but gives you a little taste of what the poor devils in the trenches had to endure. Bombardments, attacks into the teeth of machine gun nests, gas warfare, friends dying ...

The video transfer of this movie is up and down with a fair few glitches that will have some viewers pretty annoyed. There are regular examples of artifacts and aliasing - and the images are quite soft - although the colour is good. Sound-wise it's fine for a made-for-TV effort.

This version of All Quiet on the Western Front is well above average and if you haven't seen the original, then this is well worth taking the time to look at.

Conclusion:

Movie: 80%

DVD Extras: 20%