The Longest Day (1962)
Country: US
Technical: bw/scope 169m
Director: Andrew Marton, Ken Annakin, Bernhard Wicki
Cast: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, etc.
Synopsis:
The events of the sixth of June, 1944 as told from the German, French and Allied perspectives.
Review:
An enormous undertaking and a fragmented production, resulting in some uncomfortable lurches of tone: after the iconic opening shot the sequences that follow directed by Wicki strike the right note of strategic concern, and there are other excellent sequences (the British glider commando assault to secure the bridge, the French attack on the Ouistreham casino) but lapses of taste like the Frenchman jumping for joy while being shelled in his house, or the jokey moments such as the two patrols passing each other on either side of a wall, have dated badly. Some of the star turns appear to be there merely as set dressing, witness Steiger's embarrassing scene waxing portentous about the coming action, though Burton is great value in his two scenes and gets more or less the last word in a nicely modulated reflection on the very different experiences of everyone involved. The semi-documentary reconstruction approach works well enough in disguising the episodic nature of the narrative, but the film has a habit of leaving actions in medias res, resulting in some unexplained discontinuities (Red Button's survival from the church tower, Christian Marquand's miraculous commandeering of a tank).
Country: US
Technical: bw/scope 169m
Director: Andrew Marton, Ken Annakin, Bernhard Wicki
Cast: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, etc.
Synopsis:
The events of the sixth of June, 1944 as told from the German, French and Allied perspectives.
Review:
An enormous undertaking and a fragmented production, resulting in some uncomfortable lurches of tone: after the iconic opening shot the sequences that follow directed by Wicki strike the right note of strategic concern, and there are other excellent sequences (the British glider commando assault to secure the bridge, the French attack on the Ouistreham casino) but lapses of taste like the Frenchman jumping for joy while being shelled in his house, or the jokey moments such as the two patrols passing each other on either side of a wall, have dated badly. Some of the star turns appear to be there merely as set dressing, witness Steiger's embarrassing scene waxing portentous about the coming action, though Burton is great value in his two scenes and gets more or less the last word in a nicely modulated reflection on the very different experiences of everyone involved. The semi-documentary reconstruction approach works well enough in disguising the episodic nature of the narrative, but the film has a habit of leaving actions in medias res, resulting in some unexplained discontinuities (Red Button's survival from the church tower, Christian Marquand's miraculous commandeering of a tank).
Country: US
Technical: bw/scope 169m
Director: Andrew Marton, Ken Annakin, Bernhard Wicki
Cast: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, etc.
Synopsis:
The events of the sixth of June, 1944 as told from the German, French and Allied perspectives.
Review:
An enormous undertaking and a fragmented production, resulting in some uncomfortable lurches of tone: after the iconic opening shot the sequences that follow directed by Wicki strike the right note of strategic concern, and there are other excellent sequences (the British glider commando assault to secure the bridge, the French attack on the Ouistreham casino) but lapses of taste like the Frenchman jumping for joy while being shelled in his house, or the jokey moments such as the two patrols passing each other on either side of a wall, have dated badly. Some of the star turns appear to be there merely as set dressing, witness Steiger's embarrassing scene waxing portentous about the coming action, though Burton is great value in his two scenes and gets more or less the last word in a nicely modulated reflection on the very different experiences of everyone involved. The semi-documentary reconstruction approach works well enough in disguising the episodic nature of the narrative, but the film has a habit of leaving actions in medias res, resulting in some unexplained discontinuities (Red Button's survival from the church tower, Christian Marquand's miraculous commandeering of a tank).