Longest Day, The

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Timing is everything. It was crucial to the success of Operation Overlord--better known as D-Day--and it's always been important in the movie industry. Some very good films managed nothing but Oscar snubs because they had the misfortune to be released the same year as an even better film.

That's what happened in 1962, when David Lean's epic tale of "Lawrence of Arabia" swept past Darryl F. Zanuck's equally epic story of the D-Day Invasion. "Lawrence" received 10 nominations and took home seven statues, while "The Longest Day" won two Oscars out of five nominations. What they had in common, though, was that each won for Best Cinematography. Jean Bourgoin and Walter Wottitz were honored for the black-and-white camerawork they did for "The Longest Day," while Freddie Young earned Best Cinematography, Color for his work on "Lawrence."

At the time, these two sprawling films about monumental figures and moments in the history of nations and warfare were among the most hyped pictures moviegoers had ever seen--possibly even more than "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben-Hur." But they lived up to the hype, and the paying public walked away impressed by both films. So did critics, who mostly pronounced them four-star successes.

Both films are still powerful, though the color cinematography and focus on biography has made "Lawrence" weather the sands of time a little better. For a war film, "The Longest Day" will seem a little tame to audiences accustomed to more graphic violence--especially when a film like "Saving Private Ryan" deliberately seeks to realistically and accurately depict the confusion and messy carnage of the landing at Omaha Beach. But "The Longest Day" remains the best dramatized historical account of the entire D-Day invasion.

Zanuck was part of a camera crew that landed on the Normandy beaches a day after the invasion, while writer Cornelius Ryan was there on June 6th, working as a war correspondent. Ryan based his book (and then screenplay) on personal accounts that he solicited from men who participated in the largest invasion the world had ever seen. Some 2700 ships dropped 156,000 Americans, British, French, and Canadian soldiers onto a 60-mile beachfront in a battle that everyone knew would determine the outcome of World War II. And Ryan tells the story from all angles. That was one of the things that made this film distinctive, and it's still one of the things that gives it heft. The cameras go into the war rooms of the Allies and the Germans, but we also get the individual stories of soldiers on both sides who are just doing their duty. It's one thing to hear an American officer telling his superior he doesn't like the drop zone because if they overshoot they'll land right in town and be "sitting ducks." But it's quite another thing (and one of the most memorable scenes in the film) to see the parachute of Private John Steele (Red Buttons) snag on a steeple and leave him hanging there to witness the rest of his unit mowed down by German machine gunners. As he holds his breath, wondering what to do, so do we. Rather than the bloody violence we get in a film like "Saving Private Ryan," it's moments like that, interwoven with tactical sessions, that give "The Longest Day" its emotional weight.

The film boasts an international cast and "48 stars," but not one of those stars earned an Oscar nomination. Not John Wayne as Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort, not Rod Steiger as a destroyer commander, not Robert Ryan as Brig. Gen. James M. Gavin, not Eddie Albert as Col. Thompson, nor Richard Burton as Flight Officer David Campbell. Not Sean Connery as a jocular Pvt. Flanagan, nor Henry Fonda as Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr., or Curt Jurgens as Maj. Gen. Gunther Blumentritt. The stars are completely dwarfed by the magnitude of the story, as were the real men who took part in the invasion. Like "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (1970), which dramatized behind-the-scenes strategies and blunders related to Pearl Harbor, "The Longest Day" is a narrative patchwork that uses subtitles and supertitles to introduce us to various characters and situations, and incorporates native languages with subtitles. The Germans speak German, the French speak French, and it all adds to a sweeping sense of realism.

It was almost unheard of, but Zanuck used three directors to simultaneously shoot the film in France, with the British narrative episodes directed by Ken Annakin, the American exterior episodes handled by Andrew Marton, and the German episodes shot under the auspices of Bernhard Wicki. Structured similarly to Ryan's book, the film shows us the soldiers on all sides who wait, knowing something big is about to happen, then the nighttime aerial assault with paratroopers leading the way, then the landings on five different Normandy beaches at daylight. And at 178 minutes, it all feels like real time. "The Longest Day" is still an absorbing story, which explains why it outsold "Lawrence of Arabia" at the box office. Though WWII veterans will scoff at some of the Hollywoodized moments, it's still a moving and thorough account of one of the biggest battles the world has ever known, and a compelling entertainment.

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