Review of The Longest Day (1962) by Ethan P — 10 Dec 2015
The Longest Day (1962), directed by Darryl Zanuck is the forerunner of the big-budget war movie, with one of the largest, most star-studded casts ever assembled, including John Wayne, Sean Connery, Richard Burton, Red Buttons, Paul Anka, and Eddie Albert, to name just a few of the forty cast members.
What makes The Longest Day significant is how it became a model for the war movies that followed, such as Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, and even 2015's critically-acclaimed Fury, but what makes this film great is its attention to history. The film details events leading up to the capture of a key German-held bridge during WWII, dubbed by the British as "Pegasus Bridge." The assault is led by Richard Todd's Major John Howard, a man who actually had fought at the Battle of Pegasus Bridge. Also, the film shows French Resistance fighters being air dropped into Normandy, three days before the famous American landing on D-Day, a historically correct and significant event that is often forgotten and not widely known, as well as a depiction of the scaling of the sea cliffs at Pointe Du Hoc at Normandy by Joseph Lowe who, 17 years earlier, had scaled the same cliffs as a member of 505th Army Division.
While this film was probably spectacular by the standards of 1962, the grandeur of the spectacle will not disappoint modern audiences. The battle scenes in this movie are fantastic for their time; the film used an actual army division as stand-ins for the Omaha Beach landing, as well as two working and historically accurate battleships: the Springfield and the Little Rock. The amount of explosions in this movie make it impressive even by today's standards, but with a movie budget of 7.4 million ($57,920,293.33 in 2015 dollars), they sure could afford it. This movie was the most expensive black and white movie made until 1993, and I'd say they budgeted very well; there was a lot put into this movie and it shows.
This movie is a must see to any history buff or war movie lover.
This review of The Longest Day (1962) was written by Ethan P on 10 Dec 2015.
The Longest Day has generally received very positive reviews.
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