Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

122 CELLULOID has sold over two million five hundred thousand copies throughout the world, a sale second only to that of the Bible. But Cecil B. de Mille had already bought that. It is precisely the sort of sensational gesture that is typically Universal in its theatricalism. When the information was received of Laemmle's new coup, there can have been very few critics who believed that the proposed film would contain any of the noble sentiments of the book. What we expected I am not quite certain; in all probability some gigantic medley on What Price Glory? lines, with moments of bathos, and a cast of two million. On the strength of Universale reputation, I deplored at the time that any American firm should attempt this Herculean task, and instanced the buying of the film rights of Remarque's book as a typical case of securing rights without regard to their filmable quality. I was wrong: because for once Hollywood did the exact opposite to what was expected. Universal belied all their time-honoured conventions of picture-sense. They apparently threw their love of sensationalism to the winds of chance, since it has been stated that Carl Laemmle gave his promise to Erich Maria Remarque that the film would adhere faithfully both in spirit and incident to the book. Whether it is due to Uncle Carl's pledge or to the supervision of Laemmle Junior or to the skilful direction of Lewis Milestone, there is no doubt that Universal have made a very remarkable film out of All Quiet on the Western Front. Not only is the direction of Milestone intelligent, but the pacifist and futility-of-war moral of the film goes even further