War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's

founding right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased

its size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host james early welcome to a special episode of key battles of world war one i'm james early this is the first of a projected mini series of episodes in which a distinguished guest and I will discuss several of the best movies about World War I.

In today's episode, we will discuss the classic award-winning 1930 film, All Quiet on the Western Front.

My guest today is a fellow history fanatic in World War I and World War II buff Sean McIver.

Sean is a co-host of the excellent podcast Come and Take It. He's also a major movie buff and a friend

of mine and I'm excited to have him with me. Sean, how you doing? Doing well. All right. Well,

we're going to break this movie down. We're just going to run through it and we'll be doing kind of a summary of what happens in the movie. And then we'll talk about, like just give some commentary on it, talk about how it was received at the time, how it's stood the test of time, and what it says about not just the war itself,

but about the author and the times in which it was written. So we're going to have a great time.

This is a terrific movie based on a terrific book, and I'm really excited to be doing this.

All right, so we'll start with some introductory information. The movie came out, as I mentioned, in 1930.

It's based on the classic war novel, or you could say anti-war novel, all quiet on the Western Front, written by Eric Maria Remark.

The book came out in 1929, and the movie came out the year after that, 1930.

It's two hours and 32 minutes long, so it is not a short movie.

It's, of course, black and white, like every movie just pretty much back in the 1930s.

It was directed by the American director Lewis Milestone and it stars Lou Ayers and Lewis

Woolheim John Ray and several other people it if you look on Rotten Tomatoes it gets

very high ratings 98% from the critics, 89% from the audience.

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