07 Mar The Longest Day
You remember it. Remember every bit of it, 'cause we are on the eve of a day that people are going to talk about long after we are dead and gone. (Destroyer Commander)
The Longest Day, WWII Movie with too many stars to name!
(1962) “The Longest Day” was June 6, 1944 … the Allied invasion of German-occupied France. The movie is based on the 1959 book of the same name by Irish author Cornelius Ryan. In 1941 Ryan became a war correspondent in London for The Daily Telegraph. When the war was over he began to gather details and stories on the Normandy landings. I found this article written in 2010 by a writer who has studied and been inspired by this book through the years.
The book and the movie both switch back and forth from the Americans to the Brits to the Germans and to the French. I loved being able to see what each group was thinking each step of the way.
There were two segments that stood out for me. The first was when Eisenhower was sitting with all his advisors and made that decision to do it! (I read that Eisenhower himself thought he should play himself, but it was decided that by that time he was too old. He would have been 72 years old.)
The second standout was when the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne parachuted into the town square of Sainte-Mère-Église. I won’t give away what happened but John Steele, the paratrooper played by Red Buttons, somehow survived.
There were so many well-known actors in this movie it was hard to keep up. (You will get an idea of how many if you watch the original trailer, link below.) Perhaps Robert Mitchum and John Wayne had the largest parts but no one was on screen for very long. Fabian, Paul Anka, Tommy Sands, Sal Mineo, Jeffrey Hunter, Robert Wagner … to appeal to the “younger set.” I was surprised to see, in that trailer, that the actress Irina Demick was highlighted at the very end. Well, she has allegedly having an affair with the producer, Darryl F. Zanuck. Guess that helped.
The Longest Day was the longest movie. 178 minutes, and that is 4 hours with commercials. It won two Academy Awards and was nominated for three others. Wikipedia directed me to this Life Magazine Article titled “The Longest Headache,” describing what happened behind the scenes.
This movie has been compared to a movie based on another Cornelius Ryan book, A Bridge Too Far. The book was published in 1974, the movie released in 1977. It was 176 minutes long and harder for me to follow than The Longest Day.
Both movies are like history lessons. Even if they aren’t 100% accurate they give us an excellent overview of what was happening.
On that Longest Day.
The Longest Day (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition) at amazon.com
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