Review by Sam Moffitt
With Memorial Day, Fourth of July and most importantly, another June 6th, (the 70th anniversary of the landing in Normandy called Operation Overlord but always referred to as D-Day) approaching, I thought it appropriate to shine a light on one of the greatest war movies ever made, if not the greatest, which details the invasion of Europe, step by step; Darryl F Zanuck’s super production The Longest Day.
Firstly I have to say, as I’ve said before, I am against war, being a practicing Nicheren Buddhist , a member of the Soka Gakkai International, I do not believe war is necessary. But even before taking up the practice of Buddhism I have questioned every war the United States has become involved in since Vietnam. Yet I also served four years in the US Navy, in peacetime, true, but I did serve my time and was honorably discharged. But if ever there was a war that needed to be fought and won, decisively, with unconditional surrender by the nations who started that war, World War Two is it.
I also have to state The Longest Day is not entirely accurate as to the events that transpired that long ago June 6th 1944. Steven Spielberg’s film Saving Private Ryan is much more accurate about what happened on Omaha and Utah beach. Spielberg decided, and rightfully so, to show what mechanized, armed combat really looks like. The Longest Day belongs to an earlier generation of War movies, many produced while the war was going on, wherein death on the battlefield was shown “tastefully.”
You won’t see the kind of grisly carnage on display in Spielberg’s film or the war movies produced after that game changer was released, films like Windtalkers or Thin Red Line or Tae Guk Gi or Band of Brothers. But the events are still horrifying for many reasons, not least of which is that we get to know these guys, some of them very well, only to see them die on that expensive piece of real estate on the Normandy coast.
First, I have to say, Darryl F Zanuck is a problematic figure in film history. If you have ever researched Hollywood history you may find that Zanuck often could be a son of a bitch, hated by many people who worked in the production of motion pictures he never the less has his name on many classic films, not least of which is The Longest Day.
Twentieth Century Fox released a bare bones edition of The Longest Day back in the 90s, then this deluxe two disc set, packed with extras, and the film has now been released on Blu Ray. Hopefully the excellent set of extras on this edition are included on the Blu ray.
The Longest Day is correctly letterboxed and the black and white images are astonishingly beautiful for a movie that deals with the ugliness of war. All of the actors are essentially doing extended cameos, there is no lead actor. As pointed out in an informative commentary by Professor of History Mary Corey, the real star of The Longest Day is the event itself. D-Day is the main actor and all the stars and soon to be stars, are in service to that event.
For instance John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda and Richard Burton all play key roles, but The Longest Day is never thought of as a “John Wayne movie” or a “Richard Burton vehicle.” And all through the movie you can play spot the star. A soldier scrambles up a sand dune and takes out a German machine gun emplacement; we realize with a shock that it is Roddy McDowall! And we never see him again. Robert Wagner leads the group of Army Rangers who climbed up Pont Du Hoc using rope and grappling hooks. One of the soldiers, fighting for his life turns to the camera, and it is George Segal! And once the Rangers get to the supposed gun emplacements, and find no weapons, we never see him again either! In one particularly British moment one of their soldiers is a painfully young Sean Connery, marveling at the oh so British eccentricity of Kenneth More, and his bull dog!
In fact there are so many name actors in The Longest Day I literally cannot list them all, look it up on the internet, you’ll be glad you did. In fact many of the actors were in the middle of other projects and went to Zanuck’s production on a day or two off and did a quick scene and then went back to work elsewhere.
Zanuck made the incredible decision to film The Longest Day almost as an experimental art film. All the American scenes were directed by Andrew Marton (King Solomon’s Mines), the British scenes were directed by Ken Annakin (Battle of the Bulge) and the German scenes by Bernhard Wicki (The Bridge). And as fine as all the actors are I have to mention how wonderful the Germans are! By turns arrogant, idiotic or just plain stupid all the German actors shine! Gert Frobe,( Goldfinger himself), is wonderful as a Sergeant Schultz type of complete idiot. Peter Van Eyck is also terrific as one of the Germans who was in deep denial about what was happening that day but it is Kurt (or Kurd) Jurgens who really stands out. Jurgens made a career out of playing the German officer who is fed up with Nazism, sick and tired of Hitler and more than ready to see the war end. He does his usual thing here but it is his character who gets to ruminate on how the history books will tell of the German Panzer divisions that were held back because Hitler took a dose of heroin in order to sleep and no one dared wake him to get his permission to send those armored divisions to the front! Wonderful! One of the high points in a wonderful film.
The Longest Day takes us from the middle of June 5th through to the late afternoon of the 6th. I have always been fascinated with Operation Overlord, the biggest military operation in human history. Three major countries were allied in their efforts to defeat Germany: Great Britain, the United States and Canada. But mixed in with the troops that went ashore on D-Day were troops from every country in Central and South America. There were Mexican rifle companies, entire divisions of Brazilian infantry, and volunteers from every other Latin American country. They are not mentioned in The Longest Day but they were there, and they were needed, Brazil’s Army in particular distinguished themselves. Consider that for a moment, Brazil and Mexico had our back at Utah and Omaha beach. The coordination of all these different countries and different operations all going off at once has always amazed me.
In the The Longest Day we see the paratroops and glider troops who went in first to secure certain towns, bridges and rail heads that were crucial and could not be lost to German sabotage once the invasion got rolling. Gliders in particular were an insane concept, many Brits, Americans and Canadians died because those gliders were a bitch to land. Yet enough of them survived to do the task they were assigned. Richard Todd in particular is excellent as an officer of British Commandos, and well he should be, Todd really was a commando during the war. In fact a great many of the actors actually served during the war, which brings even more credibility to the project.
There were other problems, many paratroops landed miles from where they were supposed to be, a lot of troops got lost, an entire division landed on the wrong beach. General Teddy Roosevelt Jr. their commander made the famous statement, “We’ll start the war from here!” Considering the number of men and material involved it is amazing there weren’t more foul ups.
And as you would expect the extras on this deluxe version are excellent. Besides the commentary by historian Mary Corey, Ken Annakin does a separate commentary on his contributions to the project. Even though Annakin is in his 90s he recalls minute details of the production. Both commentaries are well worth listening to
On the second disc, among other special features are a History Channel documentary on the real event and the movie. Several featurettes on the making of The Longest Day, which repeat many clips and comments among them. Surprisingly few actors have any comments about the production, although Red Buttons is a stand out. He played a real guy who got stuck on the roof of a church in St. Mari Eglaise and had to listen to the church bells all night until he went temporarily deaf. He actually got to the meet the paratroop he was portraying, a great example of how a professional actor does his homework.
We learn for instance, that Zanuck had to fight to shoot the film in black and white, and not so the production could use newsreel footage, there is very little actual footage from WWII. Incredibly a lot of the shots of the channel crossing were done with real ships and real soldiers from several different European countries who got to pick up an extra paycheck playing Americans, Germans and British soldiers. We also learn about the logistical problems of an incredible helicopter shot near the end of the movie. French commandos are taking a town back from the Germans, the camera follows dozens of soldiers, through gun fire, explosions and falling buildings, in a single shot. Literally jaw dropping stuff, the production had only one chance at getting it right.
So come Memorial Day and June 6th visit a Memorial Service and if you see any Veteran’s, and you will, thank them, please. Especially if you see any of the few remaining Veteran’s of WWII, soon those guys will be gone. We still enjoy a great deal of freedom in this country, despite the best efforts of both our political parties and the corporate welfare state to change that. We have that freedom due to the sacrifice the Greatest Generation made, especially on June 6th 1944. I don’t even like to think about what the world would be like if Germany and Japan had won WWII. And then take a look at The Longest Day, or Saving Private Ryan, or 30 Seconds Over Tokyo or Wake Island or The Thin Red Line and just try to imagine what it was like, just for a moment, it’s the least you can do.
