All Quiet on the Western Front

The next few years would bring more books and films but also great sadness. When the war ended, Remarque published Arch of Triumph (1945), a major novel that depicted the struggles of pre-World War II exiles and was set in Remarque's beloved Paris. The novel highlighted the stoic, existential strength of Ravic, one of his most memorable protagonists. Later, in 1952, he would revisit his sister Elfriede's death in dedicating his next novel to her, a victim of Nazi vengeance. Spark of Life, describing concentration camps, was the first of Remarque's works to remain unfilmed. In the author's description, he wrote ". . . if it is a good book it will be widely read and through it, some people who did not understand before may be made to understand what the Nazis were like and what they did and what their kind will try to do again." During the years between these two novels, Remarque saw two more of his books made into film, the recently published Arch of Triumph and The Other Love. The latter was a 1947 movie about a melodramatic failed romance starring David Niven and Barbara Stanwyck. In 1948, Lewis Milestone again directed a Remarque title when Arch of Triumph was brought to the screen by United Artists. Starring Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Louis Calhern, and Charles Laughton, the teary pre-World War II reflection lost three and a half million dollars. However, like All Quiet, it would later be revived for television.