The Longest Day (1962) - film review

June, 1944.  Thousands of Allied troops assembled in the south of England impatiently await the go-ahead for a full-scale invasion of France, the one military manoeuvre that will decisively crush the resolve of the Axis powers and hasten the end of the war.  On the other side of the Channel, high-ranking German officers anticipate the Allied invasion but are confident that it will not take place whilst the weather remains bad.  But on June 5th, the decision is taken by President Eisenhower.  D-Day has arrived.  Not only will 6th June 1944 be one of the most important days in history, it will also be the longest, and not everyone who goes into battle on this auspicious day will live to savour the hard-won victory...

Darryl F. Zanuck’s insanely ambitious tribute to the men who fought and died in the Allied invasion of France is a war film of monolithic proportions.  At a cost of 10 million dollars, it was the most expensive black and white film to be made (eventually overtaken by Steven Spielberg’s Schindler's List thirty years later) and required the services of three directors (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki), 42 big name actors (most of whom are on screen for just a few seconds) and thousands of unnamed extras.  The film broke new ground with its epic scale, apocalyptic battle scenes and by having non-English-speaking characters talk in their own language (French and German) with subtitles.  The film is also unusual in that it tells the story of the Allied invasion from several different perspectives, including the German side.   Adapted from Cornelius Ryan’s authoritative book of the same title, The Longest Day offers a thorough and highly accurate account of what is arguably the single most important episode in the Second World War.

Although the film has great educational value and is a worthy tribute to those who participated in the events shown, it would be dishonest to describe it as a great piece of cinema entertainment.  At three hours, The Longest Day is overlong and struggles to maintain its momentum.   The differing styles employed by the three directors make the film feel painfully disjointed and robs it of any sense of cohesion.  None of the characters is on screen long enough for the spectator to engage with his or her personal drama, and those sequences where an attempt is made to interest us in a character prove to be tedious distractions from the main thrust of the film.  You wonder why Zanuck was prepared to pay John Wayne a quarter of a million dollars (for four days’ work) when he adds so little to the film, whilst other more talented actors (Richard Burton, Henry Fonda and Jean-Louis Barrault) get hardly more than a look-in.  The film often looks like what it is - a Hollywood mogul’s pet project which has got completely out of hand.

It’s not all bad, though.  After a monotonously slow build-up, the film suddenly wakes up at around the mid-point (like a hyper-active teenager surfacing after a long lie-in) and redeems itself with a surprising vigour in its last hour.  Whilst it may have none of the gut-wrenching visceral realism that is offered by Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998), the beach landing sequence is stunningly realised and brings home the sheer scale of the offensive, and its staggering cost in human life.  The spectacle of hundreds of Allied soldiers falling under the relentless onslaught of German artillery is one that leaves a lasting impression and makes the spectator genuinely appreciate the sacrifice that was made on that cold and frenzied day in June 1944.   The Longest Day may be a slog to get through but it is worth the effort for its graphic action scenes, which provide a palpable reminder of the debt that we owe to those who braved Nazi bombs and bullets to preserve the freedoms that we in the West now take for granted.

© Alex Sullivan 2010

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