All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Paul Bäumer: And our bodies are earth. And our thoughts are clay. And we sleep and eat with death.

---

Albert Kropp: Ah, the French certainly deserve to be punished for starting this war.
Detering: Everybody says it's somebody else.
Tjaden: Well. how do they start a war?
Albert Kropp: Well, one country offends another.
Tjaden: How could one country offend another? You mean there's a mountain over in Germany gets mad at a field over in France?
[Everyone laughs]
Albert Kropp: Well, stupid, one people offends another.
Tjaden: Oh, well, if that's it, I shouldn't be here at all. I don't feel offended.
Katczinsky: It don't apply to tramps like you.
Tjaden: Good. Then I could be goin' home right away.
Paul Bäumer: Ah, you just try it.

---

Paul Bäumer: [somber] Glad to see you, Professor.
Professor Kantorek: You've come at the right moment, Baumer! Just at the right moment!
[to students]
Professor Kantorek: And 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 bronze and clear-eyed! The kind of soldier every one of you should envy! Paul, lad, you must speak to them. You must tell them what it means to serve your fatherland.
Paul Bäumer: No no, I can't tell them anything.
Paul Bäumer: You must, Paul. Just a word. Just tell them how much they're needed out there. Tell them why you went, and what it meant to you.
Paul Bäumer: I can't say anything.
Professor Kantorek: If you remember some deed of heroism, some touch of humility, tell about it.
[encouraging murmurs from the students]
Paul Bäumer: I can't tell you anything you don't know. We live in the trenches out there, we fight, we try not to be killed; and sometimes we are. That's all.
[students fidget, disappointed]
Professor Kantorek: No, no Paul!
Paul Bäumer: [angry] I've been there! I know what it's like!
Professor Kantorek: That's not what one dwells on, Paul!
Paul Bäumer: [bitterly] I heard you in here, reciting that same old stuff. Making more iron men, more young heroes. You still think it's beautiful and sweet to die for your country, don't you?
[Kantorek nods firmly]
Paul Bäumer: We used to think you knew. The first bombardment taught us better. It's dirty and painful to die for your country. When it comes to dying for your country it's better not to die at all! There are millions out there dying for their countries, and what good is it?

---

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Lewis Milestone's attention to detail - and desire to be as authentic as possible - was such that the chief sanitary inspector of Orange County, California, insisted that production be halted while he check on the sanitary conditions of the trenches built for the film.
Made for the then considerable sum of $1.25 million, the production utilized over 2,000 extras. The knowledge that production began only a few months after the 1929 stock market crash puts into perspective the enormous gamble taken by Universal Pictures in making this film.
The Greek writing on the blackboard in the schoolroom is the beginning of Homer's "Odyssey": "Tell me Oh Muse of that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide".
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