In his delightfully cranky 1991 volume BAD or The Dumbing of America, World War II soldier Paul Fussell wrote of veterans' disdain for war movies, noting fellow servicemen "were especially contemptuous of those in which artillery and mortar shells went whooosssh when they went off with big showy gouts of oil-produced flame instead of the authentic (but nonvisual) deafening " A silent version of 1930's All Quiet On The Western Front was shot simultaneously, but audio is essential for the still-deafening sound of mortar shells whistling through the air. The film easily passes the Fussell Verisimilitude Test.
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