Movie Review: 'The Longest Day'
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| (C) 2008 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment |
(AKA: Darryl F. Zanuck's The Longest Day)
Directed by: Ken Annakin (British Exterior Episodes), Andrew Marton (American Exterior Episodes), Bernhard Wicki (German Episodes)
Written by: Cornelius Ryan (with additional material by James Jones, Romain Gary, David Pursall, and Jack Seddon)
Studio: 20th Century Fox and Darryl F. Zanuck Productions
Genre: War/Historical Epic
Year of Release: 1962
The Longest Day is a vivid recreation of the June 6, 1944 Allied invasion of France, which marked the beginning of the end of Nazi domination in Europe. Featuring a stellar international cast, and told from the perspective of both sides, this fascinating look at one of history's biggest battles ranks as one of Hollywood's truly great war films. - From the Blu-ray package blurb, The Longest Day (2008 edition)
Today, June 6, 2017, is the 73rd anniversary of D-Day, the first day of the Allied invasion of Normandy. And as is my usual custom, I plan to watch Darryl F. Zanuck's epic adaptation of Cornelius Ryan's international best-selling non-fiction book The Longest Day. This is something that I've tried to do on an annual basis ever since I bought the two-tape VHS edition of this 1962 classic back in 1985 to honor the veterans who, quite literally, helped save the world from Nazi domination on that long ago June of 1944.
The Longest Day premiered in the United States on October 4, 1962, a little over a week after its world premiere in Paris (as Le jour plus long), nearly 55 years ago. Many of its major stars (Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Sal Mineo, Irina Demick, Werner Hinz) have passed away, and most of the surviving cast members are either retired (Sean Connery) or semi-retired (Robert Wagner). I seriously doubt that many millennials who are not film buffs will recognize many of what 20th Century Fox billed as "48 international stars."
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Field Marshal Erwin
Rommel: Just look at it, gentlemen. How calm... how peaceful it is. A strip of
water between England and the continent... between the Allies and us. But
beyond that peaceful horizon... a monster waits. A coiled spring of men, ships,
and planes... straining to be released against us. But, gentlemen, not a single
Allied soldier shall reach the shore. Whenever and wherever this invasion may
come, gentlemen... I shall destroy the enemy there, at the water's edge.
Believe me, gentlemen, the first 24 hours of the invasion will be decisive. For
the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day... The longest
day.
Shot in black and white* in France, The Longest Day is presented as a docudrama about the first 24 hours of the invasion of Normandy. It is episodic in nature and follows various participants (American, British, Canadian, French, and German) through the last hours before the first stage of Operation Overlord up to the early evening hours of June 6, 1944.
As a result, The Longest Day does not follow a particular group of fighting men during the D-Day operations a la Saving Private Ryan. Instead, Zanuck's three-hour epic is a mosaic made up of seemingly isolated events that lead to what historian Stephen Ambrose would later call "the climactic battle of World War II."
As Bosley Crowther, the New York Times' film critic, wrote in his review nearly 55 years ago:
From the climactic concentration of Allied forces along the English coast, ready to launch the invasion in early June, 1944, to a few sample incidents at nightfall on D-Day, June 6, the immensity and sweep of the great battle to crack the Nazi's hold on France are portrayed.
******
No character stands
out particularly as more significant or heroic than anyone else. John Wayne is
notably rugged as Colonel Vandervoort, the dogged officer of the 82d who
hobbled through D-Day on a broken ankle, using a rifle as a crutch. Robert
Mitchum is tough as General Cota, who led his men of the 29th Division onto
Omaha Beach and then off it after a day of deadly pounding by forcing a breach
of the Vierville roadblock.
Red Buttons is very
effective as paratrooper John Steele, who watched the pitiful slaughter of many
of his buddies in the town square of Ste-Mère-Eglise while hanging from the
church steeple in the harness of his parachute. Richard Beymer does well as a
young soldier who wanders dazedly through the whole thing, never connecting
with his outfit and never firing a shot. And dozens of other actors are
convincing (and identifiable) in roles that call for infrequent appearances (or
only single shots) in the film.
Of course, Crowther wrote his laudatory comments at a time when war movies tended to depict battles where GIs often "died" on screen using grossly exaggerated "I'm hit!" gestures and onscreen bloodletting was kept to a bare minimum. Thus, to 21st Century audiences which have been accustomed to the gritty, wince-evoking bloody realism of war films such as Saving Private Ryan, Flags of Our Fathers, or Black Hawk Down, Crowther's closing comment that "it is hard to think of a
picture, aimed and constructed as this one was, doing any more or any better or
leaving one feeling any more exposed to the horror of war than this one does" seems to be charmingly antiquated.
The film's trio of credited directors (and an uncredited Darryl Zanuck, who filmed a few "pickup scenes himself) also allow some cinematic errors to creep in.
I've already mentioned the infamous Oh, they got me clutching-of-wounds techniques that look fake even to young movie watchers born in the post-Saving Private Ryan era. But Zanuck and company also depict American paratroopers jumping into Normandy from British planes (they actually jumped from U.S, Army Air Force C-47 transports). Other historical inaccuracies include:
- The real "Rupert" dummies used to simulate Allied paratroopers dropped far from the actual landing zones as a distraction were far less elaborate than the ones seen in the movie
- The Allied infantry that waded ashore and fought its way up the beaches did NOT charge against German positions en masse and yelling like banshees. The men were too seasick to run and shout like banshees, and large groups of soldiers were juicy targets for German mortar and small-arms fire
- Although some of the U.S. warships seen in the movie were of World War II vintage, they were still in service with the Sixth Fleet in 1961-62. Careful observers, especially Navy veterans, can tell that the ships were (then) modernized for Cold War service
- Irina Demick, who plays a French Resistance fighter in The Longest Day, has a hair style that was in fashion in 1962 but was not used in 1944. She was also Darryl Zanuck's French mistress!
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| Irina Demick in The Longest Day. She got the role because she was a hottie. She was also the boss's girlfriend. Oh, and the hairstyle was tres chic in 1962, but it was not in style in Occupied France. (C) 1962 Darryl F. Zanuck Productions and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation |
Nevertheless, The Longest Day remains one of American cinema's true war epics. Yes, it is a Hollywood extravaganza; its all-star cast and visual design made the Normandy invasion look glamorous and not as horrific as the actual event truly was. Yet, for all its flaws (such as a much-too-old John Wayne playing a lieutenant colonel in the 82nd Airborne Division who was actually 27 years old on D-Day) and historical inaccuracies, The Longest Day is still the definitive account of the big picture of June 6, 1944 from various perspectives, including French civilians caught in the cross-fire between the Allied forces of liberation and the occupying German forces.
(Another case of casting gone wrong was when Robert Ryan, then 55, was chosen to play the 82nd Airborne's assistant division commander, Brigadier Gen. James M. Gavin. Not only did Ryan look much older, but he's also wearing - incorrectly - Infantry branch collar insignia on his Class A uniform jacket, which no general officer wore at the time.)
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| The "reel" Brigadier Gen. James M. Gavin, as played by Robert Ryan....(C) 1962 Darryl F. Zanuck Productions and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation |
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| The real James Gavin, seen here after his promotion to Major General in 1944 (U.S. Army photo) |
Interestingly, some of the actors and extras (most of them French and American soldiers - 23,000 of them, in fact) were themselves veterans of D-Day. British actor Richard Todd was a young captain in the 7th (Light) Parachute Battalion on June 6, 1944; he was asked if he could play himself. According to the Internet Database (IMDb), Todd "was offered the chance to play himself but joked, ‘I don't
think at this stage of my acting career I could accept a part that small.’ He played the commander of
the actual bridge assault itself, Maj. John Howard, instead.”
Another veteran who had climbed up the cliff at Point Du Hoc as a Ranger, Joseph Lowe, repeated the feat nearly 18 years later as "U.S. Army Ranger Sparrow."
The Longest Day was one of the first war movies to attempt to give audiences of the time a touch of cinema verite by using a "documentary-style" visual style and having French and German characters deliver their lines in their own languages - with English subtitles added, of course. This technique is highly effective and adds authenticity to a film that is trying to recreate an epic battle without giving viewers a serious case of battle fatigue (or, as we call it nowadays, post-traumatic stress disorder).
The Longest Day also tried hard to bring the reporting of Cornelius Ryan's book to life as best it could, even though it uses artistic license in several places. Events that happened in real life to American participants are depicted in the movie as happening to British characters, and in some cases, fictional characters are added to the wide array of real-life persons. Richard Burton's "Flight Officer David Campbell" of the RAF is one, and the role of the private played by Roddy McDowell was created for the actor during a long and boring lull in the Cleopatra shoot.
Nevertheless, Zanuck (himself a D-Day veteran; he was a Lieutenant Colonel with the Army Signal Corps and assigned to its combat cameramen unit) strove to tell the stories of Ryan's now-classic book as best as he could at the time. And, for the most part, he succeeded. Considering the times in which both the book and movie were created, The Longest Day is still a moving tribute to the men (and a few women) who fought to liberate Western Europe from Adolf Hitler's tyrannical New Order.
That's why I'll be watching The Longest Day today.
* The Longest Day, with its $7.5 million budget (some sources say $10 million) in 1961-62 dollars, was the most expensive black and white film shot in Hollywood history until Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (with a budget of $22 million in 1992 dollars).
Extra Features
Disc 1: Blu-ray (Feature Film)
Blu-ray Specifications (2008 Blu-ray/DVD Set)
Disc 1: Blu-ray (Feature Film)
- Historical commentary with Mary Corey
- Film commentary with Ken Annakin
Disc 2: DVD (Extra Features Only)
- A Day to Remember featurette
- Longest Day: A Salute to Courage featurette
- AMC BACKSTORY: The Longest Day
- D-Day Revisited Documentary
- Richard Zanuck on The Longest Day Featurette
- Still Gallery
- Original Theatrical Trailer
Blu-ray Specifications (2008 Blu-ray/DVD Set)
Video
- Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (23.40 Mbps)
- Resolution: 1080p
- Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
- Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
- English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
- English: Dolby Digital 4.0 (Original)
- French: Dolby Digital Mono
- Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles
- English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin (Traditional)
Discs
- Blu-ray Disc
- Two-disc set (1 BD-50, 1 DVD)
Playback
- Region A
Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F03E6DA1F3CE63ABC4D53DFB6678389679EDE
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056197/trivia
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