All Quiet on the Western Front: 1930 Best Picture

The winner of the third Best Picture Oscar was Universal’s “All Quiet on the Western Front,” a 1930 American war film based on the Erich Maria Remarque novel, “Im Westen nichts Neues”. The literal translation of the title is “In the West Nothing New,” Australian war hero and translator, Arthur Wesley Wheen’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” came into the vernacular as an expression meaning there is nothing to report. The “All Quiet” part, at least appeared in the title of a Civil War poem, “All Quiet along the Potomac.”

In addition to Best Picture, Lewis Milestone won the Best Director award. Screenwriters, George Abbott, Maxwell Anderson and Del Andrews were nominated for Besting Writing and Arthur Edeson was nominated for Best Cinematography.

The film was banned in Germany by Nazi Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick on the grounds that it represented Germans as cowards. In Poland, it was banned for being “pro-German.” In Italy, it was banned until 1956.

There are a ton of Jeopardy clues on both the book and the movie, some recycled, as you will see:

OSCAR BEST PICTURE PARTIAL MARQUEES $5,000 (Daily Double): The third Best-Picture winner
20th CENTURY LITERARY DECADES $600: “All Quiet on the Western Front” & “This Side of Paradise”
BANNED! $400: One of the first books banned by the Nazis was this 1929 antiwar novel made into a 1930 movie
WAR STORIES $1200: “All Quiet on the Western Front”
A NOVEL CATEGORY $400: Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” was originally published in this language
6 CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR $2,000 (Daily Double): Paul Baumer, a young German soldier
PROSE $1600: This 1929 novel follows 4 German youths into WWI; the silence is permanent for 3 of them
WORDS ON THE QWERTY ROW $400: Silence! I need this on the set & the Western Front, please!
GERMAN LITERATURE $3,000 (Daily Double): During World War I he fought on the Western Front & was wounded several times; he later wrote a 1929 novel about it
“WESTERN” $1200: Things were not “All Quiet” here when Gen. Ludendorff attacked near Saint-Quentin, France in Aug. 1914
SERENITY NOW! $600: It described “The Western Front” in a 1929 novel title
MILITARY MOVIES $400: 1930: World War I trench warfare seen from the German perspective
LITERARY LOCALES $600: In an Erich Maria Remarque novel, “the army report confined itself to a single sentence” –this, the book’s title
NOVELS BEFORE & AFTER $1200: Erich Maria Remarque’s WW1 classic about a silent veranda
WORDS AGAINST WAR $400: In this Remarque novel, Paul Baumer spends the night seeking forgiveness from a soldier he killed
NOVEL SYNOPSES $1000: Paul & friends join the German army in WWI. The Kaiser visits the front. Paul is killed
LITERATURE IN THE JAZZ AGE $800: Erich Maria Remarque was working as a sportswriter in Germany when he wrote this novel about WWI
LITERARY TRANSLATIONS $400: An antiwar novel: “Im Westen nichts Neues”
COMPLETES THE FILM TITLE $400: 1930: “All Quiet…”
BESTSELLERS BY DECADE $1000: “Elmer Gantry” & “All Quiet on the Western Front”
BIG SCREEN COMPASS BEARINGS $4,000 (Daily Double): Eloquent pacifist World War I film about German boys in the trenches
THE “WEST” IS THE BEST $1000: Paul Baumer is the literary narrator of this classic novel of World War I
GOOD TOMES $600: This 1929 antiwar novel begins, “We are at rest five miles behind the front”
LITERARY LOCALES $300: In an Erich Maria Remarque novel, “The army report confined itself to a single sentence”–this, the book’s title
THE END $800: Hit by a stray bullet, Paul Baumer dies at the end of this Erich Maria Remarque novel
OBVIOUS ANSWERS $500: Milestones in this director’s career include “All Quiet on the Western Front” & “A Walk in the Sun”
WAR STORIES $300: “The Enormous Room”, “All Quiet on the Western Front”
WAR STORIES $300: Paul Baumer is a raw 18-year-old recruit at the beginning of this Erich Maria Remarque novel
CLIFFS NOTES $500: German soldier goes to fight in World War I; gets killed; end of story
BOOKS OF THE ’20s $300: He was working as a sportswriter in Germany when he published “All Quiet on the Western Front”
WORLD WAR I $100: The battles on this front ran from Liege in 1914 to the 2nd battle of the Marne in 1918; it was rarely quiet
THE THIRD $400: Based on an Erich Maria Remarque novel, it was the third film to win a Best Picture Oscar
FICTIONAL CHARACTERS $1000: Paul Baumer is the German narrator of this Remarqueable tale
WAR STORIES $200: “The Road Back” is sequel to this famous novel of WWI by Erich Remarque
1930s MOVIES: This film that originally hit the big screen in 1930 was re-released soon after the German invasion of Poland

There is only one clue for Lew Ayres, the actor who played Paul Baumer, and it concerns another role he became well-known for:

SOUNDS LIKE AN IRISH COUNTY $800: Young doctor played by Lew Ayres & Richard Chamberlain

List of Best Picture Oscars (20s-40s)