The Longest Day (1962)

We resourceful Rusters have various ways of getting though the festive period, mine was the film The Longest Day.

I had seen the 1962 movie but it was some time ago. Various attractions  led me  to select it from the World War 2 section of my DVD box.

The first was the cast: virtually every major American actor since that war appeared (John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Rod Steiger) – only Kirk Douglas was not there.

For the British appeared Richard Burton and Sean Connery.

For the French Arletty who was tried for Colloboration Horizontale and Jean Louis Barrault.

For the Germans Curt Jurgens and Gert Frobe who two years later was to reunite with Sean Connery in Goldfinger. 

Second, the film showed the German military and not as sadistic dolts but  an intelligent and resourceful high command.

As in the US Civil War, the Wehrmacht with its superior generals and audacious tactic – like the Confederacy – made the early running.

Yet when defeat, after the disastrous Russian campaign, was inevitable they still fought on burdened with Hitler’s crazy tactics and remoteness in Berechtesgaren.

Field Marshal Kesselring held up the Allied Italian thrust whilst Irwin Rommel organised the French Normandy and Pas de Calais defences.

Third, the film is in documentary form with the actual time of day marked.

It was a mammoth effort by producer Darryl Zanuck with a huge cast, outside locations and a budget estimated of $30 million.

It’s a much better representation than Band of Brothers. 

Amongst all the fatalities, there was one which especially saddened me and he was not in the film.

My closest friend at uni watched the film at his dying mother’s bedside.

He observed to me afterwards what a fine ending it had with Robert Mitchum hailing a jeep and saying to its  young driver “Run me up the hill, boy …”

It was classic Mitchum acting, understated, authoritative, memorable.

Sadly my friend passed at the beginning of the year but I thought of him as I watched this scene.