All Quiet on the Western Front. 1930. USA. Directed by Lewis Milestone. Screenplay by George Abbott, Maxwell Anderson, Del Andrews, based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque. With Lew Ayres, Slim Summerville, Louis Wilheim. 35mm. 129 min.
“Speech which in earlier talkies had been carried on continuously occurs in All Quiet only in intimate scenes, which in silent films were punctuated with dialogue in the form of printed subtitles. Spacious scenes of action are accompanied only by sounds—the screech of shells and the din of warfare. What was remarkable about All Quiet on the Western Front at the time it was made was that not only did it employ spectacle and the moving camera, but it also was cut almost as freely as a silent film.”