Oscar-tipped movie 1917 captures the horror of World War One. Here, MARION McMULLEN looks at film classics which brought home the cost of conflict
‘THE death of one is a tragedy, the death of a million is just a statistic.” German author Erich Maria Remarque’s stark observation was based on his own first-hand experiences as a soldier in World War One.
His novel, All Quiet On The Western Front, was published in 1929 and was followed the next year by the film of the same name.
The movie went on to win two Oscars – the best film and the best director trophies for Lewis Milestone.
He deliberately made the film without a music soundtrack so it would not detract from the seriousness of the scenes on screen and also used cameras mounted on wooden tracks to make the action more realistic. Around 2,000 extras were used for the battle scenes, many of them Germans who had moved to America after World War One.
The movie looked at the war through the eyes of a young German soldier and opened with the words: “This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face-to-face with it. It will try, simply, to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.”
The sombre tone did not stop one producer from demanding a happy ending for the movie.
Milestone telephoned him and said: “I’ve got your happy ending. We’ll let the Germans win the war.”
All Quiet On The Western Front also proved actor Lew Ayres big acting break and its anti-war message led to him becoming a conscientious objector during World War Two. Instead of fighting, he served in the Medical Corp in the South Pacific and as a chaplain’s aid in New Guinea and the Philippines and said: “To me, war was the greatest sin. I couldn’t bring myself to kill other men.”
A Farewell To Arms was released in 1932 and was based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway about the relationship between an ambulance driver and a nurse set against the backdrop of the First
World War. The film won two Oscars, but Hemingway himself considered it too romantic.
He once said: “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
The movie did lead to him becoming friends with the film’s male lead Gary Cooper... although they never talked about the cinema release.
Hemingway also hated the 1957 remake starring Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones and walked out of a screening after 35 minutes.
It was Gone With The Wind producer David O Selznick’s final movie and he and Jennifer Jones later went to Pamplona in Spain to see the traditional bull run when Hemingway was also there. The author reacted by saying: “I’m going to kill that S.O.B. He ruined my book.”
Stanley Kubrick co-wrote and directed the 1957 movie Paths Of Glory, which starred Kirk Douglas as a French army commander defending his men against mutiny charges in court.
Kirk later called it “a truly great film with a truly great theme – the insanity and brutality of war”, before adding “as I predicted, it made no money”.
British prime minister Winston Churchill praised the film for being a highly accurate depiction of trench warfare, but the movie was banned in Spain under Franco’s rule because of its anti-military message. It was finally released in Spain in 1986 – 11 years after the dictator’s death.
Six hundred German policemen were drafted in as extras to play the French troops in the film, which was based on the novel by Humphrey Cobb. A 60-strong crew spent three weeks creating the trenches and shell holes of a World War One battleground on pasture land rented from a German farmer.
Actor Richard Anderson, who played Major Saint-Auban in the movie, later said: “The trench was gruesome. It just reeked, and then the weather was so lousy. It was cold, it was freezing and overcast and grey. We were all sick. We all had colds. We were all sick from the first week. We all looked awful, but it certainly added to the movie.”
Sir Richard Attenborough made his directing debut with Oh, What A Lovely War and legend has it that he secured $6 million financial backing by singing and dancing his way through the entire score for Paramount Pictures’ head Charlie Bluhdorn.
The 1969 film, based on the stage musical of the same name, went on to win five Baftas including the best supporting actor trophy for Laurence Olivier. He was part of an all-star cast list which also included John Gielgud, Maggie Smith, John Mills, Kenneth
Moore, Dirk Bogarde, Edward Fox and Susannah York.
The final scene was filmed on the Sussex Downs against a haunting backdrop of more than 16,000 individual crosses.
Ralph Richardson appeared as Sir Edward Grey who sadly pronounces as war breaks out: “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We will not see them lit again in our lifetime”.