in the trenches on the screen.pdf

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With 8.5 million dead and 20 million injured, there was nothing great about the

Great War except the scale of destruction and despair. The defeat of Germany led

only to bitter memories, dead and injured relatives and friends, promises betrayed,

and, above all else, disillusion. Disillusion is part of what Samuel Hynes calls the

Myth of the War not a falsification of reality, but an imaginative version of

it, the story of the war that has evolved, and has come to be expected as true. This

generation of innocent young men, heads full of lofty ideals about Honor,

Glory, and England, went off to war to make the world safe for democracy. Headded that They were slaughtered in stupid battles planned by stupid generals.

Those who survived were shocked, disillusioned and embittered by their war

experiences, and saw that their real enemies were not the Germans, but the old

men at home who had lied to them, and concluded: They rejected the values of

the society that had sent them to war, and in doing so separated their own

generation from the past and from their cultural inheritance (1992, x).

Many things contributed to the making of the Myth, not least the culture of the

war poetry and prose, paintings and photographs, and, most of all, cinema, as

film during those years reached millions more people than any other art form. Far

more have seen Lewis Milestones film adaptation ofAll Quiet on the Western Front

(1930) than have read the book, even though it did sell 2.5 million copies within

15 months of publication.

Disillusion was the cinemas culminating view of the war in all countries, and

remains so today, nearly 100 years since 1914. The way that film helped create

and endorse this view is one of the remarkable things to have come out of the war

and its aftermath. The war also saw the decline of European and the rise of American

cinema, creating ultimately the predominance of Hollywood in world cinema.

IN THE TRENCHES,ON THE SCREENWorld War I on Film

Andrew Kelly

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The Wiley-Blackwell History of American Film, First Edition. Edited by Cynthia Lucia,

Roy Grundmann, and Art Simon.

2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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American Cinema and the War

If one looks at the relation between American cinema and the war, one can discern

five phases: Films of the first phase reflect the attitude of keeping America out of

the war, an attitude that was supported culturally by a strong peace movement

and, initially, by President Woodrow Wilson himself; films of the second phase

register the growing awareness of the need to be prepared for the war; films of the

third phase are marked by a tone of intervention, as commercial cinema became

part of the propaganda machine of government; during the fourth phase, after

1918, war is depicted as an adventure; finally, during the fifth phase in the

late 1920s and ever since there has been a tone of bitterness and disillusionment.

Postwar cinema was heavily influenced in this last period by the international

literature about the Lost Generation but although, initially, this view of the warwas disseminated through books, later, internationally, it was disseminated

through film.

There was considerable inconsistency among those who made films about the

war, but also in the way history has seen such films. Some American filmmakers

who adopted an antiwar position before 1917 became prowar filmmakers

afterwards, yet, after 1918, once again became supporters of the antiwar cause.

Producer Thomas Ince turned his antiwar Civilization (Raymond B. West, 1916)

into a prowar film within a year; D. W. Griffith, who made some of the finest films

commenting on the war, took a long time to make his f inal judgment; King Vidorthought The Big Parade(King Vidor, 1925) was antiwar on its release, but nearly

50 years later seemed to have changed his mind. Carl Laemmle, producer of

All Quiet on the Western Front, initially supported the pacifist effort; then in 1918 he

made one of the most notorious of the anti-German films, The Kaiser: Beast of

Berlin (Rupert Julian, 1918); after the war, he was an active supporter of relief

supplies to Germany; then he turned pacifist in 1930.

The first war film to have an impact in the United States was the Danish feature

Ned Med Vaabnene(Lay Down Your Arms, Holger-Madsen, 1914), based on the best-

selling book by Bertha von Suttner, prolific author and pacifist, and the inspirationbehind Alfred Nobels launching of his peace prize. Originally intended to have its

world premiere at the Twenty-First International Peace Congress in September

1914 in Vienna, the film was canceled due to the start of fighting. It was instead

released in the United States and used by reviewers and campaigners to endorse

Wilsons neutrality proclamation issued at the start of war.

Von SuttnersNed Med Vaabnenewas first published in 1889 and had appeared in

16 languages and 40 editions by 1914. Von Suttner became a leader of the European

peace movement, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905, and completed a

successful speaking tour of the United States in 1912. The film, based on an

imaginary conflict, was made by Nordisk Films Kompagni in 1914, one of theworlds leading film production companies, led by the idealistic Ole Olsen who


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thought his films could help stop the fighting. It was directed by the pacifist

Holger-Madsen. Reviewers praised the film, many saying it illustrated General

Shermans comments that war is hell. Varietycalled it a forcible reminder to a

country not involved and which doesnt want to be (1914, n.p.).

Though it would date quickly the carnage of the Western Front could not be

imagined in 1914 the film portrayed the battlefield bleakly and showed the

impact of the war at home, including an outbreak of cholera and the collapse of

the banks. At the heart of both book and film is the suffering of Martha, who loses

her first husband to war and then sees her second husband taken away to fight. She

travels to the front to search for him, but her joy at finding him alive is short-lived,

with the cholera epidemic killing her sister. At the end of the film, her father

rejects his own militaristic past, declaring on his death bed: Martha, I now think

like you: Down with arms!

It did not take long for American filmmakers to release films about the war,encouraged by audiences that were hungry for news, often about the countries of

their birth or their heritage, where relatives still lived and might be fighting. Such

was the interest, and such were the fears of dissent, that the National Board of

Censors of Motion Pictures requested that producers precede newsreels with the

caption: In accordance with President Wilsons proclamation of neutrality,

patrons will please refrain from expressions of partisanship during this picture

(Soderbergh 1964, 512).

In September 1914, Powers Co-Universal released the short Be Neutral, in which

an argument about war leads to the destruction of property. Other shorts onreconciliation themes followed, along with three other antiwar films: One of

Millions(a woman goes mad at the death of her husband in war), Prince of Peace,

The Envoy Extraordinary or, The Worlds War(in which a conflict is prevented when

the declaration of war is destroyed), and A Victim of War(a film that culminates

with the spirits of unidentifiable heroes slain in an unidentified conflict rising to a

peaceful heaven).

In 1915, antiwar sentiment remained strong. In The War of Dreams, a poverty-

stricken inventor destroys the formula he has created for an explosive when he

realizes the destruction it will cause. He states that it is better to live in povertythan live in wealth stained by the blood of mankind. Another film, The Blood of

Our Brothers, has a pacifist killing his brother-in-law by mistake in the midst of a

war. Pro-German newsreels and documentaries were popular, including The

German Side of the War, produced by the Chicago Tribune in May 1915. Half the

proceeds from these films were donated to blind and crippled Allied soldiers.

A popular song in 1915, I Didnt Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier, was characteristic of

the prevailing mood but this was changing quickly. By December 1915, Selig had

released Im Glad My Son Grew Up to Be a Soldier(Frank Beal, 1915), a film skit on

the song. Four months earlier, J. Stuart Blackton released what he called in a later

lecture his propaganda for the United States to enter the war, his call for arms(quoted in Jacobs 1967, 251): The Battle Cry of Peace(Wilfred North, 1915), based on


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Hudson Maxims book Defenseless America, in which America is attacked and

New York destroyed. Thomas Dixons The Fall of a Nation, in which America is

invaded by the European Confederate Army led by the Germans, followed in June

1916. Dixon had previously written The Clansman, which D. W. Griffith had madeinto The Birth of a Nation(1915). The Fall of a Nation is an attack on pacifism in

which children and Civil War veterans are executed and women are tortured. It is

a civilian army, led by a prowar congressman and a suffragette (a recovering

pacifist), that defeats the invaders. The pacifists portrayed are caricatures of

William Jennings Bryan, formerly Wilsons Secretary of State, and Henry Ford,

whose peace ship set off in December 1915 in a much ridiculed attempt to stop the

war. American cinema was particularly cynical of Fords efforts in the cartoon

Keeping Up with the Joneses(1915) and inPerkins Peace Party(1916).

The critics did not treat these films well.Motion Picture Magazinesaid in February

1916 that the films ignored the cost of war, showing neither the millions ofwidows nor the millions of orphans that are the results of this conflict:

They have not proved to us the hopelessness, the despair, the hunger and suffering

that have been inevitable consequences of the War. [They] have not been logical

arguments in favor of Peace. They have been military they have been martial in the

extreme. (Quoted in Jacobs 1967, 253)

The year 1916 saw the last stand of antiwar sentiment with the release of two

significant films seen as, and even praised for, opposing war. But Civilization(Raymond B. West) and Intolerance (D. W. Griffith) also show how confused the

messages and messengers were becoming. Civilizationwas produced by creative

film pioneer Thomas Ince. Patriot rather than pacifist, known for making violent

films and obsessed with the bottom line, he exploited the mood of the times rather

than supporting it. He even filmed President Wilson praising the film and

incorporated the footage into later prints. Ince called Civilizationan allegorical

story about war it does not concern itself about which side is right or wrong, but

deals with those ranks which are paying the grim penalty the ranks of humanity

(ODell 1970, 109). He dedicated the film to the vast pitiful army whose tears havegirdled the universe The Mothers of the Dead. The films opening contrasts a

peaceable kingdom with a debate in parliament, where the kings advocacy of war

is supported by all but a few members. Meanwhile, Count Ferdinand, an inventor

and the creator of the kings powerful submarine, is converted to pacifism by his

girlfriend, a leading campaigner in the peace movement.

The war leads to many deaths and calls for more enlistment. Ferdinand is

commander of his submarine, but his opposition to war motivates his attempt to

stop the sinking of a cruise liner, killing his own crew when they try to overpower

him. Ferdinand also dies and, as his body is sent home, his spirit wanders until he

is ordered to return to earth and spread the pacifist message. He now leadsthe peace movement, but is captured and condemned to death. During a visit by


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the king, the spirit of Jesus leaves Ferdinands body and takes him on a tour of the

battlefields, where he finds many dead bodies, hospitals destroyed, and his own

name missing from a list of humanity. Following a massive demonstration by

women against the war, the king declares peace.

Though praised on its release the New York Times called Civilization an

excellently elaborate photo pageant on the physical horrors of war a leaf out

of the pacifists primer (1916, n.p.) opinion decades later has not been so kind.

Kevin Brownlow has condemned it as the most pretentious American pacifistfilm of the war a view of war of those who have never seen it (Brownlow

1979, 72, 7475). Ince, with an eye on greater profits, changed the title for the

British release to Civilization, What Every True Briton is Fighting For. He went on to

make among the most notorious and violent of war films with Behind the Door

(Irvin B Willat, 1919), in which Hobart Bosworth wreaks revenge on the U-Boat

commander who had seized his wife by skinning him alive with a razor.

While Inces Civilization was a financial success (he made $800,000 on an

investment of $100,000), Griffiths Intolerancewas not. An attack on intolerance

through the ages, Griffiths film juxtaposes the crucifixion of Christ, the destruction

of Babylon, the St Bartholomews Day massacre of the Huguenots, and a modern

capital versus labor story. The film culminates in an epilogue highlighting the

intolerance at that time dividing Europe, showing the devastation that war brings,

with an imaginary bombing of New York and soldiers in combat. The ending

features angels in the sky with the title: And perfect love shall bring peace

forevermore.

Griffith was initially a supporter of the peace movement and felt that cinema

had a key role to play in convincing people of his case: If moving pictures properly

done of the horrors of war had been innoculated [sic] in all the nations of Europe,

he said, there would be no bodies of men lying on European battlefields (Silva1971, 98). Intolerancewas a masterwork, a valiant, eloquent, unique attempt to

13.1 Jesus returns to the

battlefield in Civilization(1916).


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promote peace and harmony. But Griffiths own stance toward the war was

ambivalent. He later supported intervention, saying, at the London premiere of

Intolerance, that he was proud his country would soon be joining Britain in this

great f ight for freedom (Schickel 1984, 344). Later, in 1918, he made Hearts of the

World for the British government, a film that combined some antiwar elements

with crude scenes showing German atrocities.

By now Griffith had visited the front and described modern war as in some

ways disappointing as a drama. War was neither romantic nor picturesque

Everyone is hidden away in ditches there is literally nothing that meets the eye

but an aching desolation of nothingness nothing but filth and dirt and the most

soul sickening smells It is too colossal to be dramatic (Schickel 1984, 354).

In London for the making of Hearts of the World, Griffith witnessed an attack on

a nursery school where children had been killed. He told Lillian Gish, This is what

war is. Not the parades and the conference tables but children killed, livesdestroyed (Gish 1988, 193). He returned to the pacifist position after the war,

embarrassed about making Hearts of the World, and made Isnt Life Wonderful

(1924), the story of a Polish family trying to survive in an inflation-ravaged postwar

Germany in 1924. A failure at the time, it is now highly regarded. Gish claimed this

was his apology to the German people.

The last of the great peace films made prior to Americas intervention was War

Brides(Herbert Brenon, 1916), starring Alla Nazimova, in which the women of an

unnamed European country rise up in protest when their king calls on them to

have more children to fight in war. They are led by a woman who has already losther husband and two relatives to war. An allegory, it showed that the German

people did not want to f ight. Financially successful and popular, it was nevertheless

too controversial for the censors, who insisted on a slide preceding each showing

that toned down its message.

Though opinion was divided on intervention, it was difficult for the United

States to remain neutral. Attacks on American citizens and on merchant ships with

American passengers (the most notorious being the sinking of the RMSLusitania

in May 1915 with 128 Americans killed), horror at the execution of Nurse Edith

Cavell, news of German atrocities in Belgium, a split peace movement, as well asthe clear economic benefits of the war and trade with Britain, saw demands for

intervention by influential politicians like Theodore Roosevelt, along with prepar-

edness parades in American cities.

By the middle of 1916, Wilson was pursuing preparedness with the aim of

armed neutrality and a personal initiative to end the war. He was reelected, but

revelations of the Zimmerman Telegram, in which Germany proposed an

alliance with Mexico if America entered the war, was the final straw. In his

support for the declaration of war, Wilson called for the necessity of making the

world safe for democracy. He said afterwards that his message was a message of

death for our young men. How strange it seems to applaud that (quoted inBrogan 1985, 491).


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anxious to help, he said, but because the government controlled the entire war

film production program, there were no great inspirational pictures made (quoted

in Soderbergh 1964, 514). However, Louella Parsons argued in September 1918

that the prowar films were important in promoting opposition to German

militarism:

If German vandalism could reach overseas, the Kaiser would order every moving

picture studio crushed to dust and every theatre blown to atoms. There has been no

more effective ammunition aimed at the Prussian empire than pictures of German

atrocities.

She continued, saying that cinemagoers were able to see for themselves how

German militarism is waged against civilization. They have seen the rape ofBelgium, the devastation of France and the evil designs against America. And

while these films have been raising the temperature of the Allies patriotism to a

blood heat, Germany has been gnashing its teeth. (Quoted in Jacobs 1967, 262263)

American Cinema and the War after 1918

The Armistice dealt a huge blow to Hollywood. Producers had invested heavily in

war films and hasty editing was needed to make the pictures palatable to an audi-ence that was now tired of the conflict. The war did not disappear altogether as a

subject, though it tended to be relegated to the background, and the commercial

failure of most films on the subject only endorsed the view that it was anathema

to audiences. Even the success of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse(Rex Ingram,

1921) failed to inspire producers, who knew that it was Rudolph Valentino who

attracted cinematographers, not the war scenes.

It was in this difficult context that MGM launched its own film on the war in

1925. Industry fears were quickly dispelled when King Vidors The Big Parade

was critically acclaimed and commercially successful. The Big Parade, a transi-tion film between crude propaganda and the disillusionment films that were to

follow later in the decade, was greeted on release as antiwar, with its lack of

patriotic glorification markedly different from films of the war years. By 1925,

Vidor was a Hollywood veteran. He had made prowar films during the war. In

Buds Recruit (1918), a patriotic boy enlists his older brother by visiting the

recruiting station in disguise. His example awakens his brothers responsibility

and, rejecting his slacker past, he becomes a loyal soldier. The second prowar

film, Im a Man, also in 1918, had a German-American citizen accused of espio-

nage. His reputation is saved when his son unmasks the real spies and their plans

to destroy oil wells. Vidor wanted to be a second D. W. Griffith. He believed inpictures that carried a message to humanity and wanted to make films that


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would not just come to town for a few days and be forgotten (Greenberg 1968,

193). He suggested three themes to MGM head Irving Thalberg: war, wheat, or

steel. They chose war and began to look for a screenplay that did not glamorize

the conflict.

Thalberg saw What Price Glory?on Broadway, praised as one of the first honest

commentaries on the war. Cowritten by Laurence Stallings and Maxwell Anderson

(a pacifist who would contribute to the screenplay ofAll Quiet on the Western Front),

it focuses on a Marine veteran who had damaged a leg (later amputated) at Bellau

Wood. Stallings was ambivalent about the war despite his experiences, and his

writing tended to mix bittersweet memories with cynicism and horror. His semi-

autobiographical novelPlumes, about the difficult rehabilitation of a disabled war

veteran, had preceded What Price Glory?, in which the hero, despite a shattered

leg remained a patriot, albeit a troubled one, as Michael Isenberg has said of

the film (1979). In 1934, Stallingss bitter antiwar documentary, The First WorldWar, based on a picture history he had published the year before, was released.

(Given that World War II was six years off, this was a remarkably prophetic work.)

In the 1960s, he returned to his early ambiguous memories of the war with his

history of the American Expeditionary Force, The Doughboys.

Thalberg wanted What Price Glory?, but it was owned by Fox (the film was

released in 1926 in a version directed by Raoul Walsh). Instead, they got Stallings

to write The Big Parade. Vidor learned about the true nature of the war from

Stallings, from the 100 reels of Signals Corps footage he watched, from the help he

got from veterans and the US Army, and from some of his colleagues on theproduction who had combat experience. On release the film was praised for its

technical achievements, excellence of directing and action, and the realistic

portrayal of the conflict (in Britain there was criticism that it showed the Americans

winning the war; others, such as George Bernard Shaw, praised its pacifism).

Varietycalled it one of the greatest pieces of propaganda ever launched against

war (The Big Parade 1925, n.p.). InLifeRobert Sherwood said it was a spectacular,

harsh, raw-meaty and somewhat sardonic drama of that grim travesty, the Great

War The Big Paradeis eminently right. There are no heroic Red Cross nurses in

No mans Land, no scenes wherein the doughboys dash over the top carrying theAmerican flag (Sherwood 1925, 2425).

The film opens in spring 1917, in a peaceful, successful America. Jim Apperson

( John Gilbert) leads a life of leisure granted by family wealth. As noisy celebrations

herald the declaration of war, Jim tells his mother (Claire McDowell) that he will

not f ight. However, his sweetheart, Justyn (Claire Adams), declares how handsome

he will look in an officers uniform. Later, he enlists with his friends at a patriotic

parade. Unlike Jims mother, Mr Apperson (Hobart Bosworth) is proud when he

hears the news. Jim makes friends with Bull (Tom OBrien) and Slim (Karl Dane)

and they march together into France. In Champillon the tired soldiers are greeted

by cheering crowds but, instead of rest, they are forced to dig over a manure patch.The next day, Jim meets Melisande (Rene Adore) but is unsuccessful in his love


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making, as neither can speak the others language. They meet again the next night

at the weekly gathering of villagers to hear patriotic news from relatives at the

front. Eventually, they fall in love. One day Jim admits that he has a fiance and

Melisande walks away. Suddenly, mobilization orders arrive, and he and Melisande

are reunited in the confusion. Jim promises to return and throws her a necklace,

a bracelet, and a boot. As the big parade leaves for battle, Melisande is left on

a deserted road clutching her mementos. Near the front the soldiers are attacked

by German planes (Flying Fritzie), snipers, and machine guns as they advance

through a wood. Once through, they are met by artillery and gas. Slim and Bull are

killed. Jim, wounded, falls into a shell hole with an enemy soldier he has shot, but

he is unable to kill him. In the hospital, he discovers that Melisandes village has

been overrun and, despite his injuries, he leaves to find her. She has fled with the

others, however, and, as the village is attacked again, Jim is carried off by ambu-

lance shouting for her. One of Jims legs must be amputated and at wars end hereturns home. While Jim has been away, his brother Harry and Justyn have fallen

in love. Upon entering the house, Jim is embraced by Mrs Apperson but becomes

angry when his brother says that he looks great. When she learns about Melisande,

his mother encourages him to go and find her. Back in France, Melisande plows a

field. She pauses and pulls some gum from her mouth. Far away she sees a man. As

he gets closer she recognizes Jim, then she begins to run to him; reunited and

happy, they kiss.

Initially Jim is an idler, but the experience of death and injury leads him to reject

the lifestyle he had previously enjoyed. Having been howled into war, as PaulRotha (1967, 192) has expressed it, Jims patriotism on enlisting is not shared by his

mother, as noted, and fails to be rekindled by his fathers pride. He is just confused.

Joining up with Slim and Bull, Jim experiences the war as a class leveler. He f inds

his real romance with Melisande. Despite the language difficulties, they fall in love

and their parting, in the rush and confusion of mobilization for the front, is justly

claimed as one of the greatest scenes in cinema history.

For a time at the front, war is an adventure, but all this changes when Jim goes

into battle. The turning point is the advance through the woods. Here, Jim walks

slowly with Slim and Bull at his side. He is apprehensive, nervous, wide-eyed. Hesees men fall dead and injured around him. When they are trapped in a shell hole,

the war becomes hell, and the death of Slim and Bull shows Jim that it means the

murder of his friends. He becomes a manic fighting machine as he rushes toward

the German positions: They got him! God damn their souls! and You got my

buddy, you b s! This is not done for patriotism or glory. A subtitle reads:

Parades when we left and when we get back! Who the hell cares after this?

Jim soon avenges Slims death but is wounded and lies in a shell hole with the

German soldier he has shot. He thrusts his bayonet at him but, repulsed by his

action, he is unable to deliver the final blow. Vidor shows that it is easier to kill

from the relative anonymity of the trenches than when face to face with a humanbeing, even if that person is the enemy. Jim gives the German his last cigarette,


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but after the German dies, he smokes it himself. The scene was important for

Vidor, as it said that there is little enmity between the ordinary men on either side:

Theres not going to be any animosity directed towards some young German

fellow just because he happened to be born in Germany and then was drafted. He

might be a school teacher, an accountant, or even a screen actor. He added that,

You cant put animosity down to two individuals facing each other. Thats

what the picture says. Up until this picture, that type of scene never happened

(Dowd & Shepard 1988, 67).

Jims return to the United States is low-key. There is no victory parade and the

household is subdued. His father can look only with distaste at Jims body during

the journey home. His brother Harry, full of false bonhomie and praise, welcomes

him back, to which Jim reacts with anger. It is only his mother who understands.

As noted, she tells him to find Melisande, as she knows that this will secure his

future happiness.Is The Big Parade an antiwar film? Critics claim that it fails to question both

American participation and the war aims of the Allies and that it is similar to prowar

propaganda with its emphasis on the virtues of commitment, duty, heroism, and

sacrifice (Isenberg 1979). But it was very different from the war films that had

preceded it. There is no romance of war. Flag-waving is confined to the initial

parade and the troops initial reception in France. The battle scenes demonstrated

how far-fetched previous films had been. Long after its release, Vidor said that the

film was antiwar, but at the time he was more circumspect: In the Great War

many were wondering why in an enlightened age we should have to battle, hesaid. I do not wish to appear to be taking any stand about war. I certainly do not

favour it, but I would not set up a preachment against it (Vidor, November 1925,

quoted in Durgnat & Simmon 1988, 30). Fifty years later, he said: I dont like it

much At the time I really believed it was an anti-war movie (Isenberg 1979, 30).

The Big Paradewas the first silent film to show no-mans-land and shell-hole life

realistically. For audiences used to the crude propaganda films, the night battle

scenes must have been a revelation, a realism enhanced by the adroit use of sound

in cinema to simulate real battle noise. The film also showed the impact of the war

on those left behind, particularly the women of America and France. Jims motherdid not want him to go to war: She knew how it would end. Justyn is nave and full

of the romanticism of the battlefield. Finally, there is the title. Although it refers

mainly to the great mobilization sequence of men and machines of war, there is

more than one big parade. That scene, and the patriotic gathering at the rally,

contrasts starkly with the long parade of ambulances carrying the victims of war

(Another Big Parade) and the retreat from Champillon by the people of the

village. The end of war is summarized in one subtitle: The last guns had thundered!

The fields of France were stilled in peace! The Apperson home knew its greatest

hour! Jim was coming back! Although there were great parades up Fifth Avenue,

for Vidor the end of war is symbolized not by patriotic speeches, rallies, medals,and tickertape, but by the return of a soldier absent a leg and his friends.


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Iris Barry, reviewing the film in The Spectator, said that The Big Paradewreathes

machine guns in roses (Barry 1926, 946947). Forty years later Peter Soderbergh

wrote that it gave the public what it wanted a kind of perfect neutrality

which fit comfortably between embarrassing flagwaving and noxious despair

(Soderbergh 1964, 518). The Big Paradereflected neutrality; many other films of

the late 1920s stressed the war as an adventure. Aviation dramas were especially

popular: Life in the trenches may have been awful; but life in the air was

romantic. The top brass might have expected the impossible, but there was a job

to do. Any pain was offset by the community of pilots and the adrenaline rush

of fighting in the air. Underpinning this was a public that had embraced flight

enthusiastically, especially since Lindberghs transatlantic journey in May 1927.

The success of The Big Paradeled to more big-budget Hollywood features with

Wings(William Wellman, 1927), the first of the aviation combat films in 1927,

followed by Hells Angels(Howard Hughes, 1930) and The Dawn Patrol(HowardHawks, 1930).

However, other films were offering a bleaker view. Barbed Wire(Rowland Lee,

1927) showed the enormous hatred directed toward a young woman and the

German prisoner of war with whom she falls in love. Although its location was

changed from the Isle of Man to France, as was the bitter conclusion of the book

from which it was adapted, in which the two leads commit suicide, it was, according

to Kevin Brownlow, a minor masterpiece, a powerful statement on war by the

men who lived through it (1979, 11). The following year, Four Sons (John Ford,

1928) had a Bavarian mother losing three of her sons in the war, with the fourthson fighting for the Americans. The same year, The Enemy(Fred Niblo, 1928) was

released, in which Lillian Gish played a young Austrian bride who loses her husband

and baby to the war.

By 1930, the mood had darkened and there were international calls for peace;

the League of Nations was popular, and there were plans for an international

disarmament conference. There were still prowar films being made, but the films

that represented the spirit of the times and the more realistic view of the Great

War were the antiwar films of the 1930s and beyond. There were not all that

many and not all were American but two of the three greatest came fromHollywood:All Quiet on the Western FrontandPaths of Glory(Stanley Kubrick, 1957).

The third was French: the humanitarian La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937).

There could not have been antiwar films without antiwar literature. Between 1928

and 1930, books by veterans (it took 10 years for most to come to terms with what

they had been through) included Frederic Mannings Her Privates We, Arnold

Zweigs The Case of Sergeant Grischa, Ernest HemingwaysA Farewell to Arms, and

Siegfried Sassoons Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. These built on earlier books by

e. e. cummings and John Dos Passos, but the sheer number produced at this time,

and their quality, made the greatest impression.

The mid-to-late 1920s and early 1930s also saw filmmakers who had beeninvolved in the war making films: William Wellman, who had served in the


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Lafayette Flying Corps in France and had been awarded the Croix de Guerre, had

direct combat experience that went into the making of Wingsand later Heroes for

Sale(1933); Lewis Milestone had reviewed thousands of feet of battlefield footage

as part of his work for the Signals Corps; James Whale, who madeJourneys Endin

1930, had been an officer in the British Army and had served time in a German

prisoner of war camp. R. C. Sheriff, who had written the stage play of Journeys

End, had also served.

Greatest of all of the war stories was Erich Maria Remarques novelAll Quiet on

the Western Front, which sold in millions to an eager German and international

audience and was turned into what has been widely acclaimed as the greatest film

of the war, made by Universal Pictures and directed by Lewis Milestone in 1930

which itself was a remarkable year for antiwar cinema, withJourneys Endshowing

the English side of trench warfare and Westfront 1918(G. W. Pabst, 1930) showing

the German side. Remarque had also served at the front. The film starts, as did thebook, with a statement: This story is 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 its shells, were destroyed by the war.

Paul Bumer (played by the pacifist Lew Ayres) and his classmates are enthusi-

astically encouraged to go and fight by their teacher. They join up, only to find the

romantic pursuit promised them is betrayed, first by the harsh treatment of their

drill sergeant, who used to be their postman, and then by the reality of trench

warfare. The boys who signed up die until only Bumer and his close friend, AlbertKropp (William Bakewell), are left. Kropp loses a leg. Bumer, on leave at home,

finds that, despite the depression the war has caused, his father and his fathers

friends are still enthusiastically fighting from their kitchens and beer halls, and his

old teacher is still exhorting young men to enlist. He is even accused of cowardice

by the students when he tells them the truth about the war. He returns to the

front. His comrade, Katczinsky (Louis Wolheim), the veteran who took him under

his wing when he first arrived at the front, dies, followed by Paul. Remarque wrote

that Bumer died: on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the

army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.Remarque continued: He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleep-

ing. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an

expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.

The film has Bumer in the trenches, on a quiet day, reaching out for a butterfly

that has landed nearby. He is shot as he stands at the trench. The film ends as the

ghosts of the dead soldiers march toward heaven.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a study of the waste of a nations youth. It

highlights the patriotism that sent men to fight and the demoralization that results

in those who were able to return. It shows that those behind the lines whether

they are cooks, teachers, or fathers fail to see, or do not wish to see, the realitiesof war. It says that whilst war leads to bitterness, it can also, for a short while, make


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monsters out of normally mild men. The film rejects romanticism, and its brutal

battle scenes which still rank among the greatest ever filmed show that war

results in destruction, injury, and death, not glory. The film provided the first

realistic portrayal of life in the trenches. Although most people would have known

by 1930 that the war was not the glamorous pursuit the patriotic films and journals

had said, they would have been appalled to see the cold, squalid, rat-infested

trenches that had been home for many soldiers.

A key point is the betrayal on the part of those who sent the young men to fight,

whether the teacher who tells them about the romance of battle or the fathers

who fight the war at home. The film opens in the classroom where Kantorek

(Arnold Lucy), the teacher, is speaking. Now, my beloved class, this is what we

must do, he says:

Strike with all our power, use every ounce of strength to win victory before the end

of the year You are the life of the Fatherland You are the iron men of Germany.

You are the gay heroes who will repulse the enemy It is not for me to suggest that

any of you should stand up and offer to defend his country. But I wonder if such a

thing is going through your heads? I know that in one of the schools the boys have

risen up in the classroom and enlisted in a mass and, of course, if such a thing should

happen here, you would not blame me for a feeling of pride.

He continues:

I believe it will be a quick war, that there will be few losses, but if losses there must

be, then let us remember the Latin phrase which must have come to the lips of many

a Roman when he stood embattled in a foreign land, Dulce et decorum est pro

patria mori. Sweet and fitting it is to die for the Fatherland.

The young men all join up. Later, after many of his classmates have been killed,

Paul returns home. As he walks near his old school, he hears Kantorek again, talk-

ing to even younger children:

From the farms they have gone. From the schools, from the factories. They have

gone, bravely, nobly, ever forward realising that there is no other duty now but to

save the Fatherland. The age of enlistment is now 16 years, and though you are

barely men, your country needs you for the greatest service a citizen can give.

Kantorek notices Paul and brings him into the class:

As if to prove all I have said, here is one of the first to go a lad who sat before me

on these very benches, who gave up all to serve in the first year of the war; one of

the Iron Youth who have made Germany invincible in the field. Look at him, sturdy

and bronzed and clear-eyed. The kind of soldier every one of you should envy.


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The children shout at him when he responds: We live in the trenches out there.

We fight and try not to be killed; but sometimes we are. Thats all. He then turns

on Kantorek:

I heard you in here reciting that same old stuff. Making more iron men. More young

heroes. You still think its beautiful and sweet to die for your country Well, we

used to think you knew; but the first bombardment taught us better! Its dirty and

painful to die for your country. When it comes to dying for your country, its better

not to die at all.

Above all else,All Quiet on the Western Frontshowed as The Big Paradedid that

there was little that divided the common soldiers on either side. Bumer is trapped

in a shell hole in no-mans-land for two days with the French soldier Duval, whom

he has killed. He goes from initial panic through despair to remorse. As Duval

slowly dies, Bumer pleads for his forgiveness:

when you jumped in here, you were my enemy. And I was afraid of you. But youre

just a man like me. And I killed you. Forgive me, comrade. Say that for me. Say youforgive me. No, no. Youre dead. Youre better off than I am. Youre through. They

cant do any more to you now. Oh, God! Why did they do this to us? We only wanted

to live you and I why should they send us out to f ight each other? If we threw

away these rifles and these uniforms you could be my brother just like Kat and

Albert. You have to forgive me, comrade. Ill do all I can. Ill write to your parents

Ill write to your wife I promise shell not want for anything. And Ill help her and

your parents too. Only forgive me. Forgive me.

Much of the success of the film was due to Lewis Milestone. Tired of the

restrictions that sound had brought to motion pictures and influenced by Russiandirector Sergei Eisenstein, Milestone freed the camera, allowing fast and fluid shots

13.2 Paul Bumer (Lew Ayres)

comforts the dying French

soldier Duval inAll Quiet on the

Western Front(1930).


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of the battlefield, creating some of the most realistic and horrific battle scenes in

cinema history, ones deemed so realistic that they have sometimes been mistaken

for newsreel. In silent films the camera had created the highest artistic standards,

but sound had consigned noisy cameras to operate inside static boxes. Milestone

was aided by Arthur Edeson as cinematographer, who had invented the barney

a padded bag placed over the camera to keep it quiet but still mobile.

Realism was essential for Milestone. He had seen many battlefield films when

he was employed by the US Signal Corps, and had seen the results of war when he

had to preserve, catalog, and photograph limbs sent back from the front. Also to

capture realistic detail, the cast members were taught the goose step by Otto Biber,

a German war veteran, and other German veterans were employed as advisers.

Considerable care was taken with the battlefield sets, the trenches, and the German

village, which was based in Universal Village and can still be seen today on the

studio tour. The studio bought genuine uniforms and battlefield accessories; thesoldiers were drilled by the advisers, and veterans from all armies served as extras.

The battle scenes were filmed at Irvine Ranch. A contemporaneous account in

Universal Weeklyindicates how much work had gone into making the set as realistic

as possible:

The shell holes pock-marking No Mans land are real, made by blasts of dynamite,

and are filled with muddy rain water. Near one of these is a rusting tomato can.

Here are the German advance trenches, shallow and shell torn. For twenty-five yards

in front of them is the barbed-wire work and on the barbs caught there are bits ofcloth, or uniforms. They hang there to show where men have died Back further are

the line trenches, where the soldiers live. The walls are braced with branches of trees

and saplings. Rain-soaked sandbags a terrible slimy grey offer protection. (86)

Commencing production at 11:00 in the morning on November 11, 1929 a press

gag it was not an easy production. Sound films were still in their infancy, and most

war films had been silent. The soundof war and death had to be present with the

sightof war and death a new experience for the audience. Milestone brought to

the screen the hissing of the bullets, the rattle of the machine guns, the barrage, the

howling and screaming of the injured and the frightened. No film up to that time

had shown the brutality of trench combat: One scene has an advancing soldier

stumble onto barbed wire and then an explosion. All that is left are two severed

hands grasping the wire. The invasion of the enemy trenches showed the horrific

nature of face-to-face combat, with small shovels used to beat other soldiers.

As an experienced editor, Milestone was able to cut the scene as he wanted it.

He said:

You know how [in] trench warfare they used to send over wave after wave in the

attack came five oclock in the morning, over the top, first wave, then the second

wave and the third and so on I discovered the central idea for this should be


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that, when a machine gun shoots, the man ought to drop with the same rapidity as

the bullets leave the machine. And I thought if I keep that up, as wave after wave

comes over, you have six, seven frames of the machine gun shooting and then imme-

diately show the guys dropping, and they drop with the same impersonal, unemo-

tional thing as the machine gun spitting bullets. That became the central idea

(Authors unpublished interview with Kevin Brownlow, 1970).

The filmAll Quiet on the Western Frontwas received in the same way as the novel

from which it was adapted had been: massive audiences, enthusiastic critics, great

controversy. Even though Universal had exercised the usual caution when it came

to making controversial films, the film was cut everywhere it was released, suffer-

ing minor changes in some territories, but censored heavily in some countries. In

yet others, it was banned, particularly in Germany and Austria, where the release

was greeted by violent demonstrations and government intervention.Initial reviews were enthusiastic. Variety called it a harrowing, gruesome,

morbid tale of war, so compelling in its realism, bigness and repulsiveness

Nothing passed up for the niceties; nothing glossed over for the women. Here

exhibited is war as it is, butchery. It recommended that the League of Nations

should distribute it in every language to be shown every year until the word war

shall have been taken out of the dictionaries (1930, n.p.). The Nation, though

preferringJourneys End, called it a terrifying document that reveals the carnage of

war with staggering force [and which] surpasses [all previous battle scenes on

film] in the stark horror and madness of the business of fighting (1930, n.p.).It won the Academy Award for best picture and best direction in 1930.

Various cuts were made in the United States profanities and suggestive

dialogue were cut, as were the fraternization scenes between the soldiers and the

French women. American fascists protested against the film. Major Frank Pease of

the right-wing Hollywood United Technical Directors Association feared that

its continued uncensored exhibition especially before juveniles will go far to raise

a race of yellow streaks, slackers and disloyalists,1but this was nothing compared

to what the political right achieved in Europe, where the release was used to

destabilize elected governments.Given the controversy over the book, Universal knew that there would be

problems. The German market was a profitable one, though, and the studio took

care to make the film palatable with a specially prepared dubbed version that cut

out some of the more overt aspects of German militarism, including the discussion

among the soldiers about the causes of war (where the Kaiser is blamed) and the

end of Bumers speech to the classroom. This failed to satisfy the right-wing

press, which remained opposed to the politics of the film and the book, seeing

both as an attack on the German soldier and a portrayal of defeat and cowardice.

By the time of the premiere in December 1930, the Nazis were in their

ascendancy. Goebbels disrupted the event and led a march of thousands outsidethe cinema. After five more days of protests the censor banned the film, which, in


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turn, led to protests from the left and liberal press. The German ban was lifted in

September 1931, but the film was banned again when Hitler took power in 1933.

That year, Goebbels condemned Remarques book to the flames: Down with the

literary betrayal of the soldiers of the world war! In the name of educating our

people in the spirit of valour, I commit the writings of Erich Maria Remarque to

the flames (New York Times, quoted in Drinkwater 1931, 262).

The film was also cut in Britain, Canada, and Australia. France cut the scene

with the French women, and it was banned in late 1939. It was also banned, at

times, in China, New Zealand, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Mussolini, though he liked

the film, banned it in Italy. Successive cuts on re-release saw the film reduced to a

pale imitation of the glorious release version of 1930. It was only reconstructed

in 2003. Despite this, the film has retained its power. In 1964, Lewis Milestone

was glad to report that the picture proved to have a longer life than many a

politician and is still going strong in spite of brutal cutting, stupid censors, andbigoted politicos.2

Remarque wanted to write All Quiet on the Western Frontto escape the despair

that had affected him throughout the 1920s. He was never to escape it and its

aftermath. He wrote two sequels: The Road Back (James Whale, 1931) and Three

Comrades (Frank Borzage, 1937), both of which were filmed and both of which

were censored heavily at the demand of the German consul in Los Angeles.

A final theme to emerge in the 1930s was the forgotten man. The Depression led

to much suffering, especially for many veterans: Hoovervilles shanty towns

named after the then president and the march on Washington by the Bonus Armyin March 1932, which highlighted the existence of a Lost Generation of people

who had fought for their country but had been forgotten. Crime films like I Am a

Fugitive from a Chain Gang (Mervyn LeRoy, 1932) used the war as a background,

with the veteran bitter that he fought when others stayed at home and got rich

forced to pawn his medals (with others doing the same and making them virtually

worthless) and then spend a life on the run. In 1933, William Wellmans Heroes for

Saletold the story of an injured soldier, hooked on morphine, trying to make his

way in postwar America. After a conviction for a crime he did not commit, he

ends as a tramp but sees great hope in a new America rising from Rooseveltsinauguration speech. In the same year, Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933)

said it all. The song,My Forgotten Man, culminating the film, had the following chorus:

Remember my forgotten man

You put a rifle in his hand

You sent him far away

You shouted Hip Hooray

But look at him today

It was a theme that went through the 1930s with They Gave Him a Gun(W. S. VanDyke II, 1937) and The Roaring Twenties(Raoul Walsh, 1939) taking the story to the

brink of another world war.


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Notes

1 Telegram dated April 28, 1930 from Pease to various politicians and others.

2 Letter to Jim Sheehan dated April 6, 1964.

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Ned Med Vaabnene. (1914). Review. Variety, September 14, n.p.

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