First off, I am not a film student and was not forced to watch this for a class. I'm a regular Joe (a combat veteran as well), who may have a different take on this film from the other reviewers I have read here (probably a lot cruder as well than the other posts). I watched this on TCM USA and was glad I did. Westfront 1918 is clearly a pioneering war film and would have received a 10 from me except that films of it's contemporary are so superior (All Quiet On The Western Front which in my opinion is in the top 100 films of all time). I enjoyed it more from the technical aspects than so much the war film aspect. I couldn't help comparing it to AQOTWF, which is probably a disservice to Westfront but I have seen the former so many times that I couldn't help it. On the plus side, it was great to watch a pre Nazi war film from Germany, it's amazing the changes that occurred to that nation in a short 5 years isn't it? The use of tanks at the end surprised me as I was thinking to myself that up to that point there had been no tanks (as in all of AQOTWF), and I was thinking that was shortcoming of both films but to it's credit it does have some tanks in it (though no aircraft or observation balloons). I also liked the story overall with the home-front and all the drama involved, although I don't think many in real life would have been as cold as Karl had been for so long to take that bitterness with him back to the front. The show that was put on for the troops was actually entertaining to watch even though it seemed excessively long. This film also would have been edited heavily by the censors for profanity and adult situations which for any movie made in 1930 I give credit to. So take those positive comments of mine and enjoy the film or if you want my whole opinion read on. Westfront to me seemed very crude, done on way too big a scale to be effective as a truly great film. I'll start with the captions on the version I saw. The captions were incomplete, this movie had a lot of singing in it both by the soldiers and in a long show put on for them. There are no captions for these moments so you have about 10-15 minutes of scenes that are not captioned, that seemed like a drawback to me. I started to get more into the technical aspects of the film because the battle scenes seemed totally disjointed and unrealistic. There are dozens and dozens of grenades tossed around in this film, that alone is to me unrealistic as those weigh a good bit and soldiers can only carry a few with them, but than when they are thrown they don't explode. The scenes also drone on forever, this film needed a better editor. Will I watch this film again (a mark of a film I truly enjoyed), probably not. After being pampered to the excellently made All Quiet On The Western Front, as I have, you may reach the same opinion of Westfront 1918; but I am happy I watched this little shown early pioneering war film. Recommended 7 of 10.
Review of Westfront 1918
