Several members of the cast and crew were actual military veterans. Director Lewis Milestone served in the U.S. Army during World War I while author Erich Maria Remarque was conscripted into the German Army and was wounded in combat; Remarque based the novel on his experiences on the Western Front. Actor Raymond Griffith served in the Navy prior to WWI while Louis Wolheim and G. Pat Collins were in the Army during the war; Collins then re-enlisted when the US entered World War II. Dialogue director George Cukor was also a WWI veteran, serving in the Army; Cukor later produced training and instructional films for the Army Signal Corps during the Second World War. Technical advisor Sterling Campbell was in the Canadian Army during the First World War; he then re-enlisted during WWII but was discharged to work on American films for the war effort. Actors Lew Ayres, Owen Davis Jr., William Bakewell, Russell Gleason and Jack McHugh all served in the Army during WWII, while Arthur Gardner served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces. Milestone also cast several WWI German Army veterans to play the officers in the film, and had them drill the extras playing German troops (the scene where they are laying communication wire in the forward trenches was led by a former German soldier whose job during the war was to do exactly that).

Film

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