ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930): The “Silent” Version

I first encountered the 1930 ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT in 1970 when I was a freshman at the University of South Carolina. They had an excellent film series there that offeredd a different movie to students every day. I was already a fan of older movies by that time and had read about the film in a couple of reference books. While the visual look of ALL QUIET was very impressive for a movie of that vintage (and it still is impressive today), the one thing that bothered me was the dialogue. Director Lewis Milestone shot the movie as a silent film which enabled the mobile camera movement during the shots in the trenches and then added the sound in post-production. However much of the dialogue delivery is stilted and the vocal quality of the actors is inadequate.

At the same time an “International Sound Version” was prepared for European markets which kept the music and sound effects tracks but eliminated the dialogue. This way silent intertitles in the native language could be inserted for whatever country the movie was sent to. Since many movie theaters in 1930 had still not installed sound equipment, an English-titled version was released for the American and British markets. After its initial run, this version was sent to the Library of Congress for copyright purposes where it then languished for over 75 years. Rediscovered and then restored along with the original sound release, this ISV or silent version is the best way to view the film today as you still get all the realistic battle sounds and background music but you create the voices of the characters.

The book follows the exploits of Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres) who starts out as an enthusiastic, patriotic young student who willingly enlists and winds up a hardened, embittered veteran. He is mentored by an older Polish cobbler (Louis Wolheim) who becomes his best friend while his old classmates and fellow comrades continue to die around him. When given a leave, he returns home and tells his parents and teachers that there is no glory in war “We live in the trenches. We fight. We try not to be killed but sometimes we are. That’s it.” He cuts short his leave and returns to the Front as he no longer knows how to do anything else but fight and survive. The movie concludes with a shot of Paul and his fellow students superimposed over a military cemetary of hundreds of crosses.

ALL QUIET’s two main performances by Ayres and Wolheim are powerful and believable and their voices fit their characters. The rest of the large ensemble cast are more memorable for their faces which is why the silent version is more effective. The recreations of trench warfare done on Universal’s backlot are uncannily real and the cinematography remains a wonder to behold. The sound effects are disturbingly realistic. The movie cost Universal a staggering $1 million in 1930 ($20 million today) and this was during the Depression but it grossed over 3 million worldwide and won the Best Picture Oscar for that year. The original running time was 152 minutes but it was cut down on re-releases to 110 minutes. This restored edition clocks in at 133 minutes (for both versions) and both are currently available on the movie’s Wikipedia page.

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT has been remade twice. Once as a 1978 TV movie with Richard Thomas (fresh from THE WALTONS) and Ernest Borgnine which won a Golden Globe Award and more recently there was a German version made in 2022 which expanded the novel by adding subplots. It won a number of awards including 4 Oscars. Nonetheless it is the 1930 original that still remains the most realistic as it was only 12 years removed from the end of World War I and many of its extras were German soldiers who had actually fought in the war. Also all of the effects were genuinely staged and not restricted by a TV movie budget or created through the use of CGI. The 1930 footage was so realistic that for years it cropped up in World War I documentaries.