So this is where films were going before the Hays Production Code? Now I'm even more irritated by that. This is a brutal movie. More brutal than I expected for 1930. I enjoy several of the films from the 1940s and 1950s but they have the feeling of succeeding with one arm tied behind their backs. They are good despite the Hays code. Just imagine what filmmakers in that era could've done with actual freedom to make films how they wanted to. Then again, there's probably a decent argument that the Hays code made it easier to enforce the studio system, and a healthy studio system gave the film industry the steady foundation that allowed for things like the New Hollywood in the 70s and the modern independent movie scenes to exist. I haven't looked into it enough to say. All I know is that films definitely took a step back because of the code.
I had a realization while watch this that I'm having trouble explaining. I'm used to "War Movie" meaning WWII, Vietnam, or something so old that it might as well be a fantasy period film. All Quiet on the Western Front is a war movie made without knowledge of WWII. I find that fascinating. There's no threat or mention of Hitler. "The War to End All Wars" is treated like that, not like a prologue to WWII. I think WWI is the much more interesting military conflict, but WWII gets all the attention. That makes the perspective of this film fairly unique. I mean, it follows German soldiers as the protagonists without a trace of irony. That just doesn't happen anymore. There was only a small window of time between when filmmaking had come far enough to be made at this scale and when WWII sucked all the attention away.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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