Rating 3 out of 4 stars (good)
by Peter C. Bowen
Runtime 180 minutes
Directed by: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marten, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl Zanuck (uncredited)
Starring: Everybody

In honor of the anniversary of D-Day we watched The Longest Day, which was an enormous international production depicting the events of D-Day from the British, American, and German perspectives. Everybody who was anybody appeared in this comprehensive account of the fateful day of June 6, 1944. John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Eddie Albert, Paul Anka (this guy’s an actor?), Robert Ryan and Rod Steiger all have parts and that’s just some of the Americans. The Brits contribute heavyweights like Richard Burton, Sean Connery and Peter Lawford along with way too many others to mention. I won’t even begin to try and remember all the Germans here.

The set up section of The Longest Day is a bit slow but they’ve got 300 characters to introduce, so it was bound to burn up minutes. The scale of the film somewhat necessitates this many people in order to put a face to all the different battles. It covers the airborne paratroopers of the U.S. and U.K. attack behind the lines and the attack on the beaches of Normandy, as well as the headquarters of the Brits, Americans and Germans.

Peter Lawford plays Lord Lovet who leads British troops landing behind enemy lines in gliders. They are tasked with finding a bridge held by the Germans and taking it before they can blow it up. Once the Brits do this, they must hold the bridge until relieved. Of course, if the beach invasions don’t go right, Lovet and his men will be surrounded by Germans in a less than ideal place for defense. Lord Lovet and his men carry out their assignment with the typical British stiff upper lip. Richard Burton also turns in an admirable performance as RAF Flying Officer David Campbell. Burton is surprisingly good and playing tough guys (see also Desert Rats) and shows better sense as a young man than later in life when he takes on the role of Mr. Elizabeth Taylor.

One highlight of the paratroopers’ adventures was the rubber dummies loaded with firecrackers. I don’t know if the British actually dropped these guys named Rupert, but it sounds like a great idea. The way it worked was that these 1/3 scale “invaders” dropped in full view of the Germans and upon impact with the ground let loose their “gunfire” to draw the Germans into attacking the Ruperts, thus distracting them from the actual paratroopers.

On the American side, John Wayne brings his usual “Dukeness” to his role as Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort of the 82nd Airborne. He breaks an ankle on landing but won’t let it stop him from getting his men on their way to their destination. Also, Robert Mitchum as Brig. Gen. Norman Cota is another of the many great performances turned in. There are so many different battles and personal conflicts in this movie that I could go on for pages trying to recount them all. Suffice it to say that even though The Longest Day clocks in at a whopping 180 minutes, there is enough content jammed in there that you won’t feel like it’s really The Longest Movie.

One of the great things about The Longest Day, honestly, is the time period from which it came. The film came out in 1962 and is unabashedly patriotic. One doesn’t at all get the impression that the filmmakers were conflicted about the events they are portraying. They achieve this without being jingoistic or unfair to the Germans either. There are idiots and heroes on both sides but the Allies are unambiguously the good guys. Actually for the most part politics do not enter into the movie. It is a straightforward telling of the courage of the soldiers and hardships they endure on one of the bloodiest days of battle in the entire war.

The Longest Day is a classic and certainly part of the canon of WWII movies. If nothing else, it wins for having the most big time stars of its era in a film. The fact that all of these high powered stars are playing real people in real events gives the film a sense of respect for the subject matter that is refreshing given the cynicism of many of the films coming out today.

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