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Currently showing on Netflix.  It's amazing in a brutal and shocking way

youtube.com/watch?v=qFqgmaO15x4&

It was one of the first books that bent my head a little bit.  I read it at a very young  age and remember assuming it was another goodies (us) vs baddies (germans) Hollywood war story, and then it slowly dawned on me as I got through it that it was written from the German point of view.

Here were young German teenagers, roused up by nationlistic pride and the desire for adventure and cameraderie getting shipped off to hell and then dying in their thousands in absolute terror.  It was the first time I realised that the world wasn't all black and white.  It's always stuck with me.

Would definately recommend if you have Neflix

Will give it a watch.

As a kid read a few Sven Hassel books, gave the german perspective.

Thanks for that, I remember 1979 version being excellent.

Currently coming to the end of my latest round of the 'Rona and on a similar note (but a different war) I found myself re-watching "Band of Brothers" yesterday. Blimey I'd forgotten how good that series was.

We watched the 1930 version at our school film club, made a lasting impression.

Its worth watching one of the better films this year... but I feel the ending was badly done.

The original film and book had quite different circumstances for the manner in which the protagonist's story ends. Ultimately its the same ending but I feel the delivery of the original ending is more profound.

Still a superb film though.

I'm a WW1 nerd and found it hard to fault  once I "got' that it isn't a scene by scene remake or adaptation of the book.  A couple of points resonated with me.

It focuses on the French front, and I think British audiences always underestimate the size of the French effort in WW1, so this goes a little way to reddress this.

Second is the brutality, messiness and fuility of it, it us the first film I've seen where the actors teeth look like those of a WW1 soldier and not a well scrubbed actor, and the smell of mildewed uniforms almost comes through the screen.

Overall, a very good production.

No butterfly at the end this time, but a thoroughly well made film. Far superior production compared to the recent film,  Nolan's 1917. The true horror of life? in the trenches has to be seen. Awful is too mild a word to attempt to describe it. Certainly not a feel good film, but real respect for all those who endured this nightmare.

I think it won the Oscar that year, or some such award. Again an excellent film for the time.

When I was a kid I remember an elderly man talking about holding a trench dug through a church graveyard, but I expect newer wartime corpses were worse. No idea if he was exaggerating. My grandad never talked about it but was supposedly a changed man after being wounded at the Somme.

I thought the butterfly was an addition to the book anyway?

I agree. I just finished the book before watching the movie and while I think the movie in general did a good job of capturing the essence and feel of the book, the end dragged on and it had a bit too much of a Hollywood flare to it.

Also the subplot with the negotiations was a bit unnecessary to me and they could have done better to include the leave/visiting home subplot. In the end the book is written very much like a personal diary after all. 

Yeh.... France with a population of 39 million mobilised 8 million troops and 1.3 million of them died. Just over 4% of the country's population 

UK & Ireland was 6 million troops for population of 46 million with 750k deaths

Don't know if it's intentional but your post comes across (to me) as criticising the British response as inadequate.

The main reason IMO for the disparity is simply geography, the war was fought largely in France. Big difference between fighting to defend your country and fighting to defend next door neighbour's country.

There were of course many other aspects of the British (and everyone else's) response that you could criticise.

It is however a staggering statistic, assuming 50/50 M/F split, that's 2 out of every 5 French men being soldiers. And when you consider that some M are too old or too young, it means that well over 50% of the male population of the necessary age were soldiers at some stage of a pretty pointless war.

Just incomprehensible to us today.

If you haven't read it - Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger is an amazing read. His personal account of fighting in the trenches is incredible and horrific in equal measure. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Storm-Steel-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141186917/...

I haven't seen the Netflix movie yet - but I have been watching SAS - Rogue Heroes on iplayer. It's a slick dramatisation of Ben Macintyre's book by the team behind Peaky Blinders, so we get an AC/DC and Motorhead soundtrack to 1941 African desert derring do shenanigans. Not sure how realistic it is, but I am enjoying it (mainly because my elderly neighbours father features prominently -Johnny Cooper)  

it wasn't critising anyone -other than posiible the skewed UK view- more comment on the fact that contrary to the UK's (recent) popular opinion the French did fight in large numbers.

As proportional did the Belgiums

Also interesting when you look at the Italian losses and the Isonzo Front - it can be argued that if it wasn't for the Italians tieing down the Austro-Hugarian Emprie so much that the Germans had to send massive reinforcements, of men and equipment, to their allies the out come of the Western front may well of been very different.

I'd wager it would have had the same outcome, only different casualty statistics. Maybe a few hundred meters give or take. 

It's worth seeking out the harder to find Copse 125 by Junger as well, it has a lot more of his philosopy in as well as vivid descriptions of fighting in the Northern Somme in 1918.  Junger is often cited as the guy who enjoyed WW1, but if you can find 'Field Guns in France' by Neil Fraser Tytler you'll find a rare account by an Englishman having the time of his life.

That's interesting. A retired military friend of mine has just posted on FB about how absolutely dreadful it is. Hopefully he'll be along soon he's a regular poster on here.

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I've been watching this too - it's very enjoyable, although as you say, its adherence to truth may be questioned. The documentary series of Macintyre's book is also available on iPlayer is good to watch by way of comparison. Beware - if watched in parallel, the documentary series does include some plot spoilers. 

I rather enjoyed it, regardless of any historical accuracy. Very obviously made by the Peaky Blinders team. 

However, I think some of the characters portrayed genuinely were pretty off the wall in real life.

For example Paddy Mayne was an international rugby star and toured with the British & Irish Lions before going on to be one of the founding members of the SAS. It just sounds made up!

And here I am. I watched the first episode last night. It was dreadful. Caricatures of remarkable people, I found it ridiculous. An accurate portrayal of real events would have been more than enough! 

Don't forget that Britain also mobilised its colonies for war, too. Over 1 million Indian (including what is now Pakistan/ Bangladesh) soldiers fought for the British Empire in all sorts of theatres - Western Front/ East Africa/ Mesopotamia/ Thessalonica etc. Unfortunately, this programme is no longer available on iPlayer but it's really worth a watch if you get the chance at some point:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04dh242 

No doubt it has been sexed up for the sunday night drama audience. Once you take that into consideration and know it's not a documentary, it's pretty good I reckon. I like the soundtrack, it's beautifully filmed and there is a some humour in there as well. 

Thanks - I'll have a gander at that!

My mistake. I knew Nolan had done something similar recently.

In fact mobilised most of the Empire!

The smoke grenade on the billiard table was in reality a real grenade. So undersexed really!

For fascinating WW2 stories it’s worth reading “Eastern Approaches” by Fitzroy Maclean, the diplomat and soldier who was a very early member of the SAS and apparently the inspiration for James Bond. His pre-war travels in the USSR are equally hair raising. 

Thanks for that, will have a look. 

Throwing the thread on a tangent but another fascinating story is that of Hans-Joachim Marseille, outrageously talented Luftwaffe pilot and all-round nutcase.

This is a bit of a DIY documentary and I think some of the claims of his antics have been disputed, but the narrator spins a good yarn and it's full of footage and pics from the time.

youtube.com/watch?v=NWyfcgyHAKE&

(Yes I've had a wee bit too much time on my hands this week...)

Yes, I read these as a teenager. Certainly disabused any thoughts of war being ‘Hollywood’. From that point of view well worth the read.

Was going to recommend this myself, it's a superb read.

Same here, loved Sven Hassel as a young teenager. Visceral and sardonic, I think they had a pretty big impact on my view of war in general. I’m also really intrigued by Sven Hassel as an author, there’s a lot of controversy over who he was and where he got these stories from as the unit he claimed to be part of never existed and he may have been a Danish collaborator/pimp who overheard these stories from soldiers on leave All adds to the intrigue for me! 

I'm intending to watch it and despair at the state of modern dramatisation!  Having been brought up on 1960s and 1970s documentaries and interviews that's about all I can manage of enthusiasm.

Willi Heinrich anyone? Perhaps a bit less sensationalised than Sven H but still grim?

Used to enjoy HH Kirst as well, found him after watching the Peter O'Toole version of "Night of the Generals" which is still a good watch if in the crime genre.

Hadn’t heard of this guy, didn’t realise the Cross of Iron film was based on a book. Thanks for the link!

Superb book, read perhaps 50 years back! Better than the film. 

You have just put your finger on a couple of things that did bother me most about the film and stand out on rewatching.  The ending is quite flawed IMHO. The ending in the book and the two other films eloquently captured the ennui in the German army following the August 1918 battles and the fall back from the front lines. Paul was killed in a quiet sector on a quiet day, part of what the British called the 'natural wastage' of men through attrition.  His death slipped by unnoticed, the official communique was 'In the West - no news'.  His, and the dozens of others who will have died on that day,  death was not deemed worthy of any casualty report, and that is the central message of the book - war dehumanises and anonymises its participants and numbs others to the human cost.

This films ending was a bit too cliched, firstly, by Oct/Nov 1918 the trenches were far behind the front and the fighting was in open country, villages and towns.  I thought there was too much reliance in the final scenes on familiar tropes of mud and barbed wire.  Secondly it played the cliche of the lions led by donkeys.  The Germans were very much on the defensive in the final days of the war, there were a lot of senseless attacks and heavy fighting right up to the armistice but a lot of these were made by Americans with inexperienced commanders eager for action.  My point is that I thought the ending was at odds with the message of the book, - that war grinds men into mincemeat even when the battlefields are 'all quiet'.

Late comer to the thread, but a couple of thoughts.

I felt the balance of focus of the film had substantially shifted from that if the book, for the poorer.

The book is much more about the friendships, idealism of youth and the system that drew on that and then betrays it. The characters are drawn very deeply; in the film they are just quick sketches. 

Compressing the majority of the time so artificially into a few days right at the end gives a contrived feel, with major passages of the book appearing more as Easter egg style nods and references in the film.  For example, Tjaden is a beautifully drawn character in the book and his ending highlights the conflicting emotions about loyalty and pragmatism.  His boots don't even feature in the film.  Same with how Kat goes.

The book actually has much less of the blood and guts and much more of the people.  The film omitted some key passages too - the home leave and sense of hopeless dislocation being the biggest.

Cinematography was mostly beautiful (though the scenery was too obviously re used between the opening and a later scene), but I felt the directing was a bit ponderous - could have been 10' shorter.

But of a missed opportunity I felt overall.

Indeed.

Once had an interesting conversation about remberence day etc with some former work colleagues.  One's parents were Austrian with at least 1 grandfather being drafted into the SS.... The other was of Indian parentage (mixed Hindu & Muslim hence came to UK) who had grandfather on both sides fight in Europe & Middle East...... Though also thought had some distant relatives allying with the Japanese to force Britain out of India.