The Longest Day (1962)
(On Blu Ray, September 2018) I often complain about excessively long movies, but even at nearly three hours, I found The Longest Day riveting throughout. A meticulously detailed overview of the Allied landing in Normandy during World War II, this film takes a maximalist approach to the event: It features dozens of speaking roles in three languages, as it tries to explain what happened from the American, British, French and German perspective. Character development gets short thrift, but that doesn’t matter as much as you’d think if you consider the event as world-sweeping history featuring four nations. An all-star ensemble cast helps propel the story forward with some sympathy, as the personas of John Wayne, Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery (in a very funny pre-Bond role), Sal Mineo and may others guide us through the war. The black-and-white cinematography is gorgeous, and hits anthology levels with a sweeping minutes-long uninterrupted shot of urban warfare. (There’s also a great camera movement early in the film that shows the beach landing and many of the 23,000 soldiers used during filming.) While Saving Private Ryan has eclipsed The Longest Day as the definitive portrayal of D-Day, this 1962 production remains important as a historical document in itself: Many cast and crew had been in Normandy twenty years later, to the point where some actors were portraying people close to them when it happened. (Richard Todd was offered his own role and ended up taking that of his then-superior officer, and ends up speaking “to himself” during the movie.) Visually, the movie remains spectacular even fifty-five years later, and it gets better the more early-1960s stars you can spot. (This also works for historical figures—Omar Bradley is instantly recognizable in a one-shot role.) It’s an exceptional tribute to the events of June 6, 1944, a thrilling adventure story and its relatively bloodless nature doesn’t undercut its portrayal of war as being hell where anyone can die at any time. It’s quite a rewarding film, and it’s even better when you can understand more than one of the three spoken languages.