Erich Maria Remarque wrote in the preface to his novel, "It will try simply to tell of a generation who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war." Lewis Milestone's film remains one of the boldest statements ever made about the cruelty and futility of war, lacking as it does any conciliation to patriotism or glory, any exploitation of spectacle or slaughter. In Germany, 1917, seven enthusiastic schoolboys leave their village to enlist in the army. Brutalized and disillusioned in training, they are posted to the French front, where further horrors await them. Then, further disillusionments: when one soldier is sent home on leave, he finds himself a stranger to his former way of life. Begun as a silent and completed with sound, the film retains the visual fluidity of the late silents, including Milestone's extraordinary tracking shots.