The period from 1927 to 1930 is one of the most interesting in film history. Beginning with the debut of The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length film with synchronized talking sequences, it saw the swift and almost complete obliteration of silent film as a popular moviemaking form. Even those of us who love silent film must admit this was inevitable. But there was certainly never a ‘clean break’ from the silent to sound eras. Into the 1930s, in many parts of the world, theatres still weren’t wired for sound. And of course, people in many parts of the world couldn’t understand English if they heard it. If one produced a full-talkie that one wished to have seen in many nations, one had to decide how to approach that situation.
And so it was that director Lewis Milestone made All Quiet on the Western Front, one of the finest silent films of all time—and one very few people know exists, because the sound version of it is so famous.
