The Longest Day — A Film
Hollywood doesn’t always get history right, in fact it often gets it wrong. But when it does get it right it can often outshine the rest of the world’s film industry, as was the case with producer Darryl F. Zanuck’s masterpiece, The Longest Day.
The film was released in 1962, only 18 years after the actual Allied landings on France’s Normandy beaches on June 6th, 1944; consequently the realities of that day were still clear in the minds of veterans, most of whom, in 1962, were only in their late 30s and early 40s. The film had to try and get it right for their sakes if no one else’s. And the film does get it right (with one exception), due in no small way to the chief screenwriter, military historian Cornelius Ryan, allowed to adapt his own book pretty much unhindered, although his finished script was beefed-up here and there by experienced script writers, Roman Gary, Jack Seddon, and ex-GI novelist, James Jones.
Zanuck then employed three world-renowned directors to tackle the various national areas of concern, as well as directing some smaller scenes himself.
Veteran British director Ken Annakin (who died in 2009) concentrated on the British and French sequences, with his re-telling of the British Airborne landings in the early hours of June 6th, and the French commando attack on the casino at Ouistreham (two of the best scenes in the film) are…
