''Hell on Earth'' (german: Niemandsland, lit=''No Man's Land'') is a 1931 German anti-war film directed by

Victor Trivas Victor Trivas (July 9, 1896 – April 12, 1970) was a Russian-JewishSiegbert Salomon Prawer, ''Between Two Worlds: The Jewish Presence in German and Austrian Film, 1910-1933'', Berghahn Books (2007), p. 211 screenwriter and film director. He was nom ...

. In

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, The film is also known as ''No Man's Land''.

Plot summary

The film is mainly set in a dugout, formed from a

basement A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...

, in the

no man's land No man's land is waste or unowned land or an uninhabited or desolate area that may be under dispute between parties who leave it unoccupied out of fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define a contested territory or a dump ...

between the

trenches A trench is a type of excavation or in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a wider gully, or ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or pit). In geology, trenches result from eros ...

and

front line A front line (alternatively front-line or frontline) in military terminology is the position(s) closest to the area of conflict of an armed force's personnel and equipment, usually referring to land forces. When a front (an intentional or uninte ...

s during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. A ruined house is entered by a soldier stranded between the lines who then discovers an injured man trapped beneath a heavy beam in the basement. The man has no uniform and is rescued by him and another man who we finally realise are on different sides. The injured man cannot speak and is helped out by the other two. They try to leave and return to their own lines but are fired upon by both sides and so return to the safety of the basement. More soldiers find the safe haven in between all the firing and death, with the credits listing the characters as The Englishman, The Frenchman, The Russian Jew, The Vaudevillian and The German. The storyline follows arguments and discussions between them and ends with them marching out together with a final commentary declaring the sentiment of peace "Marching forward. Defying their common enemy - WAR."

Cast

Soundtrack

Ernst Busch's version of " Der heimliche Aufmarsch" (The Secret Deployment) by Erich Weinert (poem) and Hanns Eisler (music) is played at the end of the film.

References

External links

* * 1931 films 1931 war films Films of the Weimar Republic German war films German black-and-white films 1930s German-language films 1930s French-language films Yiddish-language films Western Front (World War I) films Anti-war films about World War I 1930s English-language films English-language German films 1931 multilingual films German multilingual films 1930s German films {{1930s-Germany-film-stub