All Quiet On The Western Front(1930) is a well told story that can keep a conservative like me immersed despite a strongly left wing message. It drags on a bit but it never loses it's charm throughout the whole thing, and, having read the book before I saw the movie I can say that it follows fairly closely (no Kaiser inspection scene though, that disapointed me) and brings it to life in a way that makes it all the stronger. No, it's not pretentious to pick a film from the black and white era.