MovieChat Forums > All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Discussion > Bon ami! Bon camarade!

Bon ami! Bon camarade!

posted 15 years ago by Blahahahaha
6 replies | jump to latest

What a great film.

Bon ami! Bon camarade! ... they say while banging his "panne" and his "sausage" on the door of the house shared by the maidens. "I'll remember you always du jour." Oh if you could only know how different this is from the type of women we soldiers meet... She responds: it's "le guerre, ce terrible guerre"... He: "It's you, that's what I am talking about. It seems like all war and terror and grossness has fallen away from me, like a mirror, like something I never believed."

How did they get this by the contemporary censors?

In this example from 1930, Germans were not yet fascists and not yet universally demonised. It is so interesting to see a Hollywood movie demonstrate the humanity of the opponent. In this sense it is a bit like "Letters from Iwo Jima."

This is a wonderful film.

[–] jdrusk 14 years ago

Three Points:

1)"All Quiet on the Western Front" was an international bestseller. Certain elements had to appear to satisfy a knowledgeable audience.

2) A spate of soldiers' writing had made the anti-war theme the acceptable interpretation. Have you ever read a pro-war book or seen a pro-war movie about the Great War? They stopped writing and filming those about 1916.

3) Young women who lived anywhere within 25 miles of the front lines would have known what horny soldiers wanted.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Pythe 14 years ago

...okay.

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"It was night. I could tell because it was getting dark."

[–] gayspiritwarrior 14 years ago

"We need more pro-war books. But done in a realistic way both to promote nationalism and to promote service to the nation as a whole in such a way as to promote the general character. Show the dangers and reality of war, and also demonstrate that there are reasons to fight."

Sorry, no, you're absolutely wrong. "Nationalism" breeds war. As a Vietnam veteran I tell you there is no good war.

"The value of an idea has nothing to do with the honesty of the man expressing it."--Oscar Wilde

[–] Leonidas808 14 years ago

Have you ever read a pro-war book or seen a pro-war movie about the Great War?

Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger, which is a better book than All Quiet on the Western Front.

[–] Chris398 13 years ago

There were no censors until 1934