CIVIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1053, 18 August 1930, Page 15

CIVIC

“ALL QUIET” '• Devastating 1 and relentless in its int dictment of war, “All Quiet on the Western Front” must be regarded as | the nvpst disturbing book of recent j years. But now, shorn of all those supposed indecencies which led to the book’s undoing, comes the talking picture at the Civic Theatre, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” terribly, eloquently, effective in its frank statement of war’s uselessness and hopelessness. The producer has used the book simply aa an excuse. Remarque’s story, if such it can be called, rambles discursively through a welter of mud, blood, filth, humour, and death. His characters serve only to illustrate his incidents, most of which are disreputable. The film goes beyond all that. Here are a number of young students, carefully nurtured sons of solid German stock, fired by the cry “Nach Paris!” (“To Paris!”) —eager and ready to die for their fatherland. During the four years of horror, most of them are killed, several lose their legs, one is shot for desertion, while still another ends his days in a madhouse. One sees them gradually coarsen under the stress of war. The weight-guessing competition for the “Paramount on Parade” birthday cake made by John Stormont and Sons, will be concluded on Wednesday evening, when the cake will bo weighed and presented to the winner. i •