User Reviews

Director G.W. Pabst uses sound well in this, his first sound film. There's the noise of continual bombardment, which adds to the visual realism. Moreover, sound serves continuity. Whistling continues from one scene to another in one transition; in another, the music of a band playing at a canteen turns into the drumbeat for marching soldiers. Also endearing of this antiwar statement is that it is not exciting, unlike other supposedly dovish pictures that end up romanticizing battle. There's the screaming Frenchman between trenches. An artillery firing line is too short, hitting patriot trenches. A return home on leave has a soldier discovering that his wife trades sex to get by.

The framing, editing and visual quality are adept, as one would expect from Pabst, if not from an early sound film. I especially liked the framing and fluidity of the staircase goodbye. There's a surveying moving camera, as there is in "All Quiet on the Western Front". The long battle sequence at the end is the climax of the salient film-making. There is a very long take from an unmoving position, as if the camera were a hidden soldier observing; it is unexciting, yet my attention was not discouraged.

Very much worth viewing. I caught it on Turner Classic Movies recently, and was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of this film.

This film transcends the limitations of the sensibilities of the time and the special effects available to movie makers. It makes no sweeping statements or judgments about war and aggression. It simply gives you a glimpse of what it was like to live and die in the trenches of The Great War.

Although not as intense as "All Quiet on the Western Front" (whose subject matter it shares), it has its moments of artistry. It is also more narrowly focused than "All Quiet..", but its story is compelling and riveting. Should be in anybody's serious list of worthy war movies.

This movie has an awful lot in common with another film that also debuted in 1930. Both this film and ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT are terrific World War I films that give an awful and realistic view of the war from the perspectives of ordinary German soldiers. As a result, both are also profoundly anti-war films that were later banned by the Nazi government that took power just a few years later. Of the two, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT is a slightly better film because it has an excellent back story (in other words, setting up the characters and giving them some depth). Instead, WESTFRONT 1918 is more like a hidden camera that just shows parts of the war--only towards the very end of WWI. Also, unlike ALL QUIET, this film only once follows one soldier home and shows life outside the battlefield. Mostly, the film is just one battle scene after another after another. Despite seeming a tiny bit out of context because of this, it is still a super effective and moving piece of film. A truly well-made and exceptional film with ultra-gritty realism. It is occasionally tough to watch, as there are corpses everywhere and the action is often up close and very personal.

As I said, this film isn't quite as perfect and profound as ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, though it actually is better than the exceptional French film, J'Accuse or THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK--two other terrific WWI films that emphasize the futility and waste of this stupid war.

This is the story of life in the trenches during World War 1 from the perspective of 4 German soldiers, one of them a Lieutenant. The fact that they are on the 'other' side makes no difference to the feel of the story or the film's message. War is bad.

There is no particular story to focus on. The film is a sequence of events during wartime and it just carries on after the film has ended, just like it was already in existence once the film had started. It does have dramatic segments, eg, the home visit granted to Gustav Diessl (Karl), the exploits involving Hans-Joachim Mobis (the student) and various battlefield situations, confrontations and realizations.

The film occasionally has slow segments but it is interesting from a social history perspective. What was the point of it all?

This is a movie that actually doesn't really have a main plot-line in terms of following one main character and have a clear beginning, middle part and end. Just like war there is no logic in it and things just happen within this movie as the movie moves along. It puts you right in the middle of things and shows you the madness of war.

It handles all different kinds of aspects from the war. It doesn't only show the situation from the viewpoint of the young soldiers but it also focuses on the family and girls back home. It doesn't do this by featuring it too prominently but picks out an handful of minor characters and just a couple of sequences to get the message across. This works out really well and it doesn't feel melodramatic or anything like that. Modern movies can really learn something from this.

But of course foremost the movie gets set in the trenches, somewhere in France. The movie is filled with some WW I battle sequences, which are all surprising good and authentic looking. Guess lots of materials and places from WW I were still around during the production of this movie so they did not have an hard time recreating the look and feeling of the battles fought out in the trenches.

It was the first sound movie from Georg Wilhelm Pabst and this shows. Nothing too major, it are just some little things showing you that 'talkies' hadn't been around yet for very long and Georg Wilhelm Pabst wasn't also too experienced with it yet. He pretty much shot this movie in the same way as he would had filmed a silent movie.

The movie is of course also original with the fact that it tells the story from the German point of view. While watching this movie you don't actually ever give you the feeling you're watching the movie from the 'evil' and bad point of view. All parties are more or less victims within a war and things are not as black & white as they always seem.

Simply a real good and effective WW I production, especially when considering that it got shot way back in 1930.

8/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Invariably any piece of art banned by the Nazis as degenerate or in this case "cowardly defeatism" has something to offer. G.W Pabst crafts a powerful antiwar film by simply showing so many of its truisms - the senseless, horrific death of course, but also many other subversive elements, e.g. the possibility of friendly fire, the idiotic decisions made by leaders who are out of harm's way being served posh courses of food, one's wife or girlfriend being unfaithful, and the psychological trauma. At his best he simply leaves the camera stationary in longshot while men scurry about and kill one another for no good reason, letting the viewer draw their own conclusion about the madness they're witnessing.

I have to say though, the impact of it all was a little lessened because the images and concepts weren't as novel for me 90 years later, as unfair to the film as that might be. It lags as well when it's off the battlefield, showing among other things an uninteresting (and long) performance at a canteen, and the confrontation with the wife in bed with another man. I think it was trying to balance out the warfare and build up characters so that we were invested in them, but I struggled to stay interested (this and the bleakness of the thing make it one I wouldn't reach for again). Kudos to Pabst for making it, and I loved the way he closes it with "The End?!", certainly well aware of growing militarism and possibility for another devastating war.

In this German WW1 movie from director G. W. Pabst, the film follows a small group of German infantrymen during the waning days of the war. The "Student" (Hans-Joachim Moebis), a young eager soldier, volunteers for dangerous messenger duty in order to grab time with a nearby village girl (Jackie Monnier). Karl (Gustav Diessl) pines for his wife back home, but a trip back during leave doesn't bring the desired results. And all around them rains death and destruction. Also featuring Claus Clausen.

This makes for an interesting companion piece to this same year's All Quiet on the Western Front. This movie is a bit rawer, with some minor fondling and cursing that wouldn't have made it into a US film, even during the pre-code era. The performances are all good, and I especially liked the turn by Clausen as an intense lieutenant in over his head. There's a section in a beerhall with a USO-type show featuring musicians, a raunchy singer, and a clown, that goes on a bit too long. The last 15 minutes or so are some of the most devastating war scenes in film. Highly recommended. .

My husband and I just finished seeing this movie. We hadn't heard of it before. We were quite impressed. It's an old movie. It was made just at that time when overacted stage conventions were being abandoned for the more subtle gestures of film. Taking that into account, this movie for us packed quite a wallop.

This is a movie about people attempting to fight a war as a group of small-towners who get to know each other and build a society as they go. Although they don't like the war, they are willing to go and do their part. But can these deep relationships endure in the face of an impersonal war machine? And whose fault is it if they can't? Who is responsible for the situation?

There's a fairly slow start, during which the movie establishes relationships, etc. Then there is a decisive battle. Somehow there isn't another trench warfare movie I can think of which really gets the nuances and habits of the people who were in the trenches in World War I, on either side. We don't have anything like it now. And yet it's not gruesome, so don't be worried about that. I'd definitely recommend this movie, especially in mid-2006 in the U.S. This movie asks all the right questions, subtly but effectively.

Although this covers the same broad subject matter as "All Quiet", there is a different and welcome perspective and the film making is very definitely more European in style, harder edged and more matter of fact, which I have to say I prefer. For the English speaking audience it does suffer in that it has not been cared for and restored in the same way as "All Quiet". The version I saw had some rather jarring (at least to my English ears) subtitles, which showed that the UK and the USA are indeed two countries divided by a common language. I'm not sure what German words translate as "What in tarnation". Having said that the film was powerful, innovative and quite startling in its use of sound, which we should bear in mind had only been in use for 3 years or so. If someone knows where there is a restored version for the English speaking audience (preferably on DVD) I will be first in the queue

Georg Wilhelm Pabst's movie on the war in the trenches was published the same year as All Quiet on the Western Front (director Lewis Milestone) - like the latter one, Westfront 1918, also belongs in my opinion to the best movies made on the subject of WWI. I like All Quiet more, but without any doubt, if you are interested in (anti)war movies, and especially in WWI, Westfront 1918 belongs on your watch list.

I prefer to watch a movie in the original language now and then and don't mind at all reading subtitles (though like anyone else, I can be lazy) and it's the subtitles alone that cause me to give a 9, not a 10. One less for the lazy folks like me.

OK, that's out of the way. This movie, Westfront 1918 is very well done. I didn't find it ridiculously melodramatic and filth was everywhere. I've never understood war movies where everyone is clean. I could sense the fear, the anger, the casualness of it all. At one point a member of the main core of characters his out in no man's land dead, and though no one is happy about it, the 'what are you going to do?' attitude is just so believable.

Now and then it's a tad corny, but it WAS made in 1930, you have to expect it. I felt for the characters and their situation, even Karl's wife and that's all I can say about that.

I love war movies. I love the excitement and films depicting people at the best (and even worst) when life is literally on the line. This movie does that and does it very well. It holds it's own even after 84 years.

Filmed the same year as the American "All Quiet on the Western Front" this is NOT another 'nice boys learn the horrors of war." It is 1918 and this men are long serving vets with few illusions left. The effects are stunning and (one must assume) realistic. The impact of a big screen and large speakers must have shocked contemporary audiences.

Many scenes do seem to run on a bit--but no more than other films of the period. As one who does not speak German, I would have wished for more subtitles. If the songs were worth including, they are worth translating.

If only for the fact that it was one of the first films banned by the Nazis, it's worth a viewing.

It is incredible that the U.S. and Germany, in between two Great World Wars, would simultaneously produce two very similarly-themed films - this one, and "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930). The sounds of war are eerily alike - relentless, disturbing, horrifying… "Westfront 1918" is less drama, and more documentary-style than its cousin. The war scenes are remarkable; but so is an interlude when Gustav Diessl (as Karl) goes on leave, expertly directed by G.W. Pabst. This part is slightly better than the Lew Ayres (as Paul) leave in "All Quiet on the Western Front"; and, it is more realistic. However, "Westfront 1918" is less memorable in its final "emotion grabbing" scene (and, overall). Still, it's an excellent film.

******** Westfront 1918 (1930) G.W. Pabst ~ Gustav Diessl, Fritz Kampers, Hans-Joachim Moebis

"Westernfront 1918" is a German movie about the Great War aka WWI. It follows a small unit of Germans fighting the French. There is a little focus on two characters, Karl (Gustav Diesel) and The Student (Hans-Joachim Mobis), with most of the focus on the fighting itself.

The set is wonderful. It is incredibly realistic. It easily rivals battle sets of later years such as "Saving Private Ryan," "Fury," or "1917." The pyrotechnics, sound effects, and other special effects can't compare to today, but it I would say that it was advanced for 1930.

If you like war movies, this is a good one to add to your list.

HBOMax.

The very interesting director, GW Pabst directs a war movie in his first movie with sound, and he uses it to amazing effect. There hardly is a story, just the usual Some Nice Kids Go To War And Find Out That, Gee! War Is Hell! Hokum. The movie is nothing but a sensory experience. The war scenes in this movie are very frighteningly realistic. TO be honest, I have NO idea how he achieved some of the explosion shots. They looked like they were exploding very close to the actors in some scenes. I guess they didn't have actor's unions in those days. LOL..

Film can overextend its welcome, but it depends on what you're looking for, I guess.

There are some fine WW1 films about, the king of them being 'All Quiet on the Western Font' (released in the same year as this) and there are many powerful films centered around war in general. GW Pabst, here in his first sound film so this was a first for him and the viewer, was a great director, very influential in the silent film era and in German cinema and especially good when it came to editing, his direction of his actresses and the realism of the stories. They were my main reasons for seeing.

'Westfront 1918' is not one of my favourite war films, while not having much inherently wrong with it as such. It is also not one of Pabst's very finest or one of his most important or a major influence in cinema. 'Westfront 1918' is still very good and is very well made and powerful, Pabst does not have a misfire here and he is not off form (far from it), he's just done even better which says a lot for how brilliant he was at his very best.

Story-wise, 'Westfront 1918' is quite slight and very simple.

Also some may find the point of view from the characters, especially with the universal brotherhood, on the naive side, but that is not an invalid point of view as quite a number of soldiers went into war not knowing what they were letting themselves in for.

However, Pabst does admirably on the directing front. Inexperience with sound shows at times (other silent film directors fared a lot worse though, DW Griffith with 'Abraham Lincoln' anyone?), but he shows clear command and understanding of the material, the point of view is not unfocused and technically this is typically accomplished work. 'Westfront 1918' is a fantastic looking film, the low tracking shots in the war scenes being hugely atmospheric and the editing is typically seamless for a Pabst film. The music is suitably haunting and the film is written with sincerity.

Despite the story not being perfect, it is still emotionally moving, especially at the end, and has a lot of power and the anti-war sentiment with resonate with everybody feeling exactly the same. The war scenes are gut-wrenching. The acting is very good in well defined roles.

Overall, very good. 8/10

I just finished watching a fantastic film by G.W. Pabst titled Westfront 1918. I was surprised at how open and vulnerable, and just true to reality this German filmmaker was, especially back in 1930! There was no hurrah or praising the war or the Germans. It was not fun or exciting, like 1917 or Midway or what Michael Bay wanted Pearl Harbor to be for some reason. I wasn't rooting for one side to win or lose, I was just in this moment with these people. And they were so real! They weren't characters who were destined to have arcs or anything, it was just a diverse crowd of German soldiers, citizens, and romantics.

The film has some exemplary deep focus photos. There is one point toward the end of the film where the camera is just static and soldiers and tanks rush right to left across this battlefield and we watch the world before us fall apart, unable to do anything. These long shots and multidirectional movements within a still frame are clearly what Pabst was skilled at. His actors are great too, they own their emotions and are surprisingly real for 1930. I can't speak German, however, and did notice some signing from the era, but overall it felt quite real.

A great contributor to its real feeling is the writing. It doesn't feel forced or too focused on plot and objective. It's just snippets of this time German history and we choose to focus on these four individuals simply because they get around on all the action, some more than others.

Lastly, I'd like to praise this film on its depiction of shell shocked soldiers. The year is 1930. before John Wayne was even a thing. The end of the film shows soldiers crying in horror and the travesty of war. It shows the consequences and negative impact war has; consequences which I feel are mostly glossed over today.

I recommend Westfront 1918 to anyone studying the history of film, especially around the transition to the sound era, and German cinema. I look forward to seeing Pabst's other work, such as Pandora's Box. and Diary of a Lost Girl

The 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme yesterday seemed to be an appropriate time to view WESTFRONT 1918. This German film of the trench warfare of 1918 is possibly the most realistic depiction we have of the First World War. The film is justly famous to those who are interested in cinema history and in the work of one of Germany's most talented directors, G. W. Pabst. The action is set in the trenches of Eastern France, and the film commences in Besancon, where the German soldiers are billeted. The story is based upon a novel by the German author Ernst Johannsen (1898-1977), entitled VIER VON DER INFANTRIE: IHRE LETZTEN TAGE AN DER WESTFRONT 1918 (FOUR INFANTRYMEN AND THEIR LAST DAYS ON THE WESTERN FRONT, 1918), published in 1929. The book was also published in French in 1929 as QUATRE DE L'INFANTERIE-FRONT OUEST 1918, published in England in 1930 as FOUR INFANTRYMEN ON THE WESTERN FRONT and also in America in 1930 as THE FOUR INFANTRYMEN. IMDb is in error in its references to Ernst Johannsen. however. It claims that this novel was also the basis for a 'TV short' of 1938 entitled BRIGADE-EXCHANGE. In fact, the 1938 production was not a filmed production but a radio play, which was broadcast by the BBC and was based upon a radio play by Johannsen entitled BRIGADE-VERMITTLUNG (BRIGADE-EXCHANGE). BBC Television did not even exist in 1938! IMDb please note this correction. Johannsen himself fought in the First World War and took part in the Battle of Verdun. His writings on the subject are wholly authentic. It is important to remember that this film was made only 12 years after the end of the War, and the sets and atmosphere portrayed were based upon personal knowledge and memory. The story is ostensibly about four individual soldiers, but the film spreads the attention to a larger cast as well. We see the return home to Germany on leave of one of the soldiers, named Karl. He arrives at his flat, full of joy at the prospect of seeing his beloved wife again. He has been away for more than a year and a half. He enters quietly, lays down his rifle, takes off his gear, and hears his wife giggling in the bedroom. He enters and finds her in bed with another man. He goes and gets his rifle and considers shooting them, but changes his mind. The wife cowers and cringes and can only say: 'I couldn't help it,' so that her 'apology' amounts only to whingeing self pity because he had deserted her to go to war. Karl is glad to leave and get back to the sanity of the trenches. Another of the four soldiers, 'the kid' or 'the student', has an affair with a French girl in Besancon, and they decide they want to marry. However, bombardments force her evacuation and she never even learns that he has been killed. The continual bombardments have become so commonplace to the soldiers that when they go to sleep, they say to the one on watch: 'Wake me up when you get the signal (to attack).' The explosions crashing down over their heads without cease are no longer even noticed, and do not interfere with their exhausted sleep. The only thing missing from the film is the plague of rats. Otherwise, we see them encrusted with mud which they have long since ceased to try to remove, and how they are continually rushing from shelter to shelter to avoid the locations where the artillery shells are falling thickest. At one point, their own artillery is decimating them in a friendly fire fiasco. The phone lines have collapsed and the messenger dog sent with a message tied round his neck to Divisional Headquarters (a miserable half-buried shack) fails to get through and is killed by a shell. But a man does, and the artillery extends its range and stops killing the German soldiers by mistake. The latter part of the film is based upon the chapter of the novel called 'Inferno', and it shows the most incredibly detailed prolonged staging of a battle situation where the French troops storm the German trenches, assisted by the quaint little battle tanks of that era, with men hiding behind them in their advance for cover. The carnage is immense, and nearly everyone on both sides gets killed. This part of the film lasts about 15 or 20 minutes. It is possible that this is the most authentic portrayal in a feature film of First World War trench warfare and its indescribable, incessant horrors. Cinéastes and war historians will wish to compare these scenes with Lewis Milestone's film ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, based upon Erich Maria Remarque's novel IM WESTEN NICHTS NEUES, which was also made in 1930. The most famous German war novels were IN STAHLGEWITTERN (1920, English title STORM OF STEEL) and a sequel dealing with the trench warfare of 1918, DAS WAELDCHEN 125 (1925, English title COPSE 125), both written by a German military hero of the First World War, Ernst Juenger. However, these have never been filmed. WESTFRONT 1918 has the end credit: 'ENDE ?!', which means 'THE END?!' Since the film was released only three years before Hitler came to power, its prophecy of more war ahead was obvious to everyone. It is no surprise that the film was banned and heavily criticised by the Nazis. The last thing they wanted was anti-war propaganda, as they prepared their future wars. But Pabst's message had already been delivered: war was a monstrous nightmare in which everyone loses, everyone starves, everyone dies. But the problem is that not enough of the German public were listening to such warnings, and those that were soon would find themselves rounded up and executed or sent to camps. The jackboot was well and truly on the front foot, and the world would pay.

Inevitable Comparison to the Great American WWI Movie Filmed the same Year, All Quiet on the Western Front, the Lewis Milestone Film is Decidedly Better on just about Every Level. But that Movie is One of the Greatest Ever Made and Director Pabst Version is a Fine Film but not the Complete Composite and Lacks the Grand Scope of the Other.

It is Very Interesting for American Audiences though, as it was Made in Germany and from the Defeated Countries Point of View and In Fact it was Labeled Defeatist by the Right Wing there and was Criticized for it. But it is more a Film about the Devastation of War on All Soldiers and Their Respective Countries. Not from a Nationalistic Point of View Per Se.

It is a Bleak and Bombastic Movie as One would Expect from the Fine Filmmaker. The Realism is Striking and it is a Down and Dirty Account of a Very Dirty War. What with Trench Warfare and Chemical Bombs.

Pabst doesn't Shy Away from any of that and is in Fact Part of the Gut-Wrenching "Charm" and Message of this Movie that was Banned as soon as Hitler came to Power (what wasn't?).

Worth a Watch for Film and Military Historians and should be Given a Go even from those not Friendly to Subtitles. The Dialog is Sparse and there is much Social Concern and the Civilian Drama Works as Well as the Military Melodrama.