Westfront 1918
A group of German infantrymen of the First World War live out their lives in the trenches of France. They find brief entertainment and relief in a village behind the lines, but primarily terror fills their lives as the attacks on and from the French army ebb and flow. One of the men, Karl, goes home on leave only to discover the degradation forced on his family by wartime poverty. He returns to the lines in time to face an enormous attack by French tanks.
From the archive
Westfront 1918 is a German war film, set mostly in the trenches of the Western Front during World War I. It was directed in 1930 by G. W. Pabst, from a screenplay by Ladislaus Vajda based on the novel Vier von der Infanterie by Ernst Johannsen. The film shows the effect of the war on a group of infantrymen portrayed by an ensemble cast led by screen veterans Fritz Kampers and Gustav Diessl. The film bears a very strong resemblance to its close contemporary All Quiet on the Western Front, an American production, although it has a much bleaker tone, consistent with Pabst's New Objectivity work through the late 1920s.
Why this is free to watch
Westfront 1918 (1930) is hosted by the Internet Archive as a public-domain or openly licensed work, which means its copyright has expired, lapsed, or was released by the rights holder. The uploader declared an explicit licence, linked in the source panel. Nitrate streams the file directly from the Archive and hosts no video itself.
- Director
- G.W. Pabst
- Starring
- Fritz Kampers, Gustav Diessl, Hans-Joachim Moebis, Claus Clausen, Gustav Püttjer, Vladimir Sokoloff, Jackie Monnier, Hanna Hoessrich
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