ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT
Tit. it.: “All’ovest niente di nuovo”; Scen.: George Abbott, dal romanzo di Erich Maria Remarque; Adattamento e dialoghi: Maxwell Anderson; Dialoghi aggiunti: Del Andrews; F.: Arthur Edeson, Karl Freund (non accr.); M.: Edgar Adams, Edward L. Cahn (non accr.), Milton Carruth (non accr.); Superv. M.: Maurice Pivar; Scgf.: Charles D. Hall, William R. Schmidt; Mu.: David Broekman, Sam Perry (non accr.), Heinz Roemheld (versione “muta”, non accr.); Su.: C. Roy Hunter; Ass. R.: Nate Watt; Int.: Louis Wolheim (Katczinsky), Lew Ayres (Paul Bäumer), John Wray (Himmelstoss, postino/sergente), Arnold Lucy (Kantorek), Ben Alexander (Franz Kemmerich), Scott Kolk (Leer), Owen Davis Jr. (Peter), Walter Browne Rogers (Behm), William Bakewell (Albert), Russell Gleason (Müller), Richard Alexander (Westhus), Harold Goodwin (Detering), “Slim” Summerville (Tjaden), G. Pat Collins (Tenente Bertinck), Beryl Mercer (Frau Bäumer), ZaSu Pitts (Frau Bäumer nella versione muta), Edmund Breese (Herr Meyer), Fred Zinnemann (soldato, non accr.); Prod.: Universal Pictures; 35mm. D.: 132’ a 24 f/s.
Film Notes
The synchronized silent version of All Quiet on the Western Front was preserved by the Library of Congress – Motion Picture Conservation Center in Dayton, Ohio, from a nitrate lavander master picture positive and track. It is the complete foreign version, assembled prior to numerous censor cuts that shortened the film dramatically. It also features some minor sync dialogue in French that was deleted from the US version. Director Lewis Milestone delivered to Universal a seventeen reel version of the film, which the studio shortened to fourteen reels for the sound release. However, Milestone assistant Milton Carruth was given the task of assembling the silent version, and in many ways his cut is more faithful to Milestone’s original vision, with more fluid camera movements and the inclusion of several shots deleted from the sound version for time.
Mike Mashon
Milestone’s film was not the first to examine the Great War from the German point of view, but it was one of the few to do so with impartiality. The locale was totally convincing, unlike many later efforts, and the script wisely chose to concentrate upon the effects of war on individual characters, instead of making wordy statements about the nature of war. All Quiet on the Western Front avoids all the “blood and guts through hell to glory” clichés by taking a starkly realistic look at death-meted out by shelling, shrapnel, bayonets, barbed wire and a sniper’s bullett.
Kingsley Canham, Lewis Milestone, London, Tantivy Press, 1974