The Longest Day

Multiple Directors
1962

This would make nice (albeit tedious) companion viewing to "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), to show that despite the stark realism of Spielberg's gore-soaked Omaha Beach, the former movie proves itself more complete and immersive a portrait of the war's most important day, while the latter, in contrast, comes off as just another hunk of Hollywood fluff. Shot in B & W when color was beginning to become standard, producer Zanuck wanted to emulate the newsreel footage people saw during the war in order to make it more "real" to 1960's eyes. The ambitious epic boasts an enormous cast with several plot threads on both sides of the conflict. It's remarkable that while the film contains so many stars (Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum), they generally blend seamlessly into the film's tension and chaos. The great exception to this of course is John Wayne, and while I'll be a Wayne fan to the bitter end I was a little disappointed that his characteristic hamminess was allowed to run rampant while others toned it down for the team. There's plenty of memorable "war is hell" moments on hand and one gets the impression that the film is vehemently historically accurate.