The Great War Collection

Synopsis

All Quiet on the Western Front
A group of young German recruits in World War I through their passage from idealism to disillusionment. As the central character Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres) declares, “We live in the trenches and we fight. We try not to be killed—that’s all.” All Quiet is an anthology of now famous scenes: Ayres trapped in a shell crater with a man he has killed, the first meeting of the recruits and the veterans; infantrymen being mowed down to machine-gun visual rhythms, a moonlight swim with French farm girls, Ayres’ pacifist speech to his astonished schoolmates, and the final shot of the soldier’s hand reaching for a fatal butterfly.

The Great War
During the last days of the Great War, Lt. William Rivers leads a squad of U.S. troopers behind enemy lines to locate a missing platoon of African American “Buffalo” soldiers. Lt. Rivers must over come the horror’s of trench warfare and his own beliefs about the rights of African American soldiers. In order to complete his mission, Will must find a way to unite men of opposite skin colors and survive the last great battle of the great war.

Anzacs
Following the lives of a dozen Australian soldiers who served in the Anzacs (named for members of the all volunteer ANZAC army formations – The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) during World War I which follows them from the 1915 battle of Galipoli, to the brutal trenches of France during the 1916 Somme battles, the 1917 Arias and Vimy Ridge battles to the final 1918 German offensives and the final victory drive as well as the hardships, mid-adventures and the casualties of friends encountered at each one.