YOUTH IN WAR

Evening Star, Issue 20591, 17 September 1930, Page 7

YOUTH IN WAR

• ALL QUIET 1 FOR THE EMPIRE ‘All Quiet on the Western Front,’ the Universal picturisation of Erich Maria Remarque’s masterpiece, is primarily the story of youth—the youth of all nations—in war. Even in the , midst of war, youth does not forget romance. So in the masterpiece of ' Remarque there is romance. It is one ot the great passages of the book, and I Universal has put the book on the screen exactly us the author wrote it. There is not a scene in the picture which is not in the book. Readers of the book—and there have | been ten millions of them—will recall \ the canal-swimming incident, when the schoolboy soldiers swim across to the laughing girls on the other side , for a midnight rendezvous, and Paul Banmer, the hero, believes himself actually in love. The sequence in the picture has been filmed by Universal with all the care and effort which went into the making of the other sequences in this superproduction. The scones were made at Venice, California. A canal half a mile in length, 40ft wide, and loft deep, crossed by a stone bridge patrolled by sentries and surrounded with typical French cottages and a village settlement, was built. Tin’s portion of the picture, which shows the lighter side of war, is declared to ii'j one of the most delightful romantic interludes over seen on the screen. ‘ All Quiet on the AVestern Front,’ which comes to the Empire Theatre on Friday, numbers in its east a remarkable array of players. Louis AVolheim, Lewis Ayres, and John AVray bond the ' featured players, among whom also are Raymond Griffith, George “ Slim ” Summerville, AA illiam Bakcwell, Wa 1ter Browne Rogers, Russell Gleason, Scott Kolk, Ben Alexander, and Owen , Davis, jnn. In the romantic canal- | swimming scenes the French girls are portrayed by Yola D’Avril, Renee Damonde, and Ponpee A adroit.