Does anyone feel like me? This movie is so much better then the overrated Saving Private Ryan!
This is the greatest war movie ever made! It's got some of the greatest actors of the 60s, some incredible, epic scenes, amasing music, and also, it's told from both sides perspective! It's one of my all time favorites, and it will probably remain so until the day i die!
Well it was more inclusive that SPR but it DOES have the drawback of being made in 1961-62; Had the censors been more lenient it could have looked like 'Bridge Too Far'---which for it's day, had violence was was QUITE hair-raising.
NM
I think it's much better than SPR. It's much more realistic.
share??? how so???
Omaha Beach looks like a picnic in longest day.
That was the movie censor's fault; TLD showed the width & breadth of the entire operation is all...
NM
I guess I also found Cornelius Ryan's book to be far more compelling and informative than the film.
I was a Cornelius Ryan nut in high school - loved his books! Then later on, Stephen Ambrose. I also enjoyed Studs Terkel's The Good War.
This positively infantile preoccupation with bosoms!Terry-Thomas about US 1963.Hasnt changed much!
What, a book being able to go into greater depth than a two hour movie?!
shareActually Omaha scene in SPR was considered little too much still in 1998. What do you think would´ve happened in 1962? R-Rated and heavy cuts.
´´This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time´´
There were no R ratings until '68.
shareAre you old enough the remember the fuss when the Wild Bunch came out - the first film, I believe, to use squibs to show the blood produced by bullet impacts. SPR would have been classed as a video nasty, and banned.
shareVery tough comparison to make. SPR is an "interior" epic, much more reliant on characterization.
Longest Day is epic filmaking at a very high level, with a massive international sweep that's old-time Hollywood at it's best. Zanuck knew how to make a war movie, period.
Spielberg's film is much more personal, each time a member of the squad gets killed, it goes right down to your soul, very emotional and telling of the life of a footsoldier. Makes you realise that each death of a soldier involves amazing personal sacrifice.
In my book, they are about even.
You guys have gotta be kidding me. The Longest Day portrays D-Day as if every boat reached the shore unharmed, as if nobody got shot until they made it across the beach and as if dozens of Frenchmen were running up to everybody with bottles of champagne. In short, The Longest Day makes D-Day look like fun.
"What I don't understand is how we're going to stay alive this winter."
We gotta consider the limitations of special effects & pyrotechnics of the day...in ANY case the French Civilians are on the record as having occurred at the British & Canadian Beaches.
But about your comments of things looking 'fun': I watched "Bridge Too Far" with My Parents when it first came out on TV...I did comment that the 'liberation' scenes with the happy civvies & kids riding on the shoulders of the 30Corp soldiers DID look like an exciting time...My father(who DID live thru the occupation of Greece) cautioned me that that "fun" was being bought at a VERY high price.
NM
It's interesting that most of the consultants on The Longest Day were high ranking officers. Makes you wonder how many of them really knew what was going on at a micro level. Which is why the sweeping, panoramic sequences are pretty jaw dropping while the up-close, ground level stuff is somewhat simplistic. The most damaging shot for me was seeing Robert Mitchum come out of the water on to Omaha Beach, look around casually and take shelter behind one of the giant logs/hedgehogs lining the beach. The first quarter of the film setting up the characters were kind of 60's Hollywood brand of clunky.
But one the film settled down, I liked the documented, historical aspect of The Longest Day a lot. Also liked a lot of the action sequences. And that one non-stop aerial sequence when the French army liberates the town of Ouistreham...WOW!
I think Saving Private Ryan is an entirely different animal. The first 20 odd minutes feel so authentic that TLD's Omaha landing is bound to lose out. But I was never a fan of the whole "this woman has lost 5 sons we're not going to let her lose another one" storyline. It felt a tad hokey for the times we live in. The treatment and most of the performances were so authentic, but the SPR screenplay always felt too Hollywood. I think "Band of Brothers" really showed up SPR's flaws big time. Now there's a true work of genius, flawless in every aspect.
Love both films though. I'd say they're even.
"But I was never a fan of the whole "this woman has lost 5 sons we're not going to let her lose another one" storyline. It felt a tad hokey for the times we live in."
But it was fact for the times of WWII. After all five of the Sullivan brothers died in the loss of the USS Juneau off Guadalcanal, the military decided never again would an entire family's future be decimated by losing all of it's sons.
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No .
That which does not Kill me makes me Stranger . . .
The beach-scene in SPR is better, it's really, really good! But the rest of the film? Meh. The Longest Day is the far superior film, with shots like that really long one, where it follows a group of soldiers, seemlessly moving over the river. Amazing! And, most importantly, it tells the story of what happened, focusing on the fates of many different people, rather than one single group, on a rather unbelievable mission.
Is this stuff sterile? I want to kill him, not some secondary infection.
The truth is, both movies bring something important to the table.
I've loved The Longest Day from the first time I saw it, as a kid. It has an authenticity that was new in war movies. It ignored the good-guy/bad-guy approach that had dominated movie making up until then and told a comprehensive story about an event that now has begun to fade from living memory.
What it did not--and could not--show was the true face of battle. People bleed in battle. They get parts of their faces blown away. They lose arms and go into shock. Saving Private Ryan showed this. I am not a combat veteran, but those who are tell me that this approaches the experience. If Omaha Beach as depicted in Saving Private Ryan had been part of The Longest Day you would have had the single greatest war movie ever made.
Well, renorris, if you jump ahead 14-15 years to another star studded movie based on a book by Cornelius Ryan, you'll get your wish: In 'Bridge Too Far' you'll find another movie that was pretty 'unflinching' in it portrayal of battle: Shrieks, screams, groans, torn flesh, spilled entrails, blood and suffering....TLD was hindered by the censorship of the day while BTF was not.
NM
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Sadly, TLD seems to have become more of a curiosity for its all-star casting than its actual cinematic merits IMO.
To be fair, the film is nearly 50 years old, which is a definite handicap for contemporary viewers. It attempts to be the apex of war films but is full of cliched characters -- the callous young gambler; the iron-jawed commanders; the wisecracking subordinates, etc. And God forbid anyone should show some real emotion. With the exception of Burton's moody scene in a pub, they're all just nervously waiting for the big game to begin. Nobody seems to have any real concern for their safety. With their lack of flaws, the British and Americans are more cardboard than characters. (The Germans, who are allowed to have faults, come off as more interesting.)
Contrast this with "The Battle of the Bulge" made 3 years later by some of the same people: the American brass who won't believe Henry Fonda's intelligence officer; Fonda showing he isn't afraid of hitting below the belt to get what he needs; or Charles Bronson giving voice to our darker side - those who felt we should wipe Germany clean, "not even leaving 2 stones together." Granted, "Bulge" is far less historically accurate, but it also involves the audience more.
"The Longest Day" isn't even the best war film of 1962 ! (That honor would go to "Lawrence of Arabia.")
Although TLD has its moments (some of the stock footage, the "two clicks" and the Burton scenes), for me its flaws outweigh them. Maybe if I first saw it at a more impressionable age, I could overlook Henry Fonda having a leisurely confab on Utah Beach or Robert Mitchum striding around Omaha. I fear today's audiences will consider TLD more laughable than laudable tribute to "the Greatest Generation."
Although you're entitled to your cinematic preferences, of course, I think you will find you're in an ever-increasing minority with your opinion.
BTW, if you're interested in a great war film, which has terrific acting (and cast them based on their RESEMBLANCE to historical figures rather than their box office value), incredible, epic scenes, amazing music, and is told from both sides perspective, I recommend the epic "Tora, Tora, Tora."
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The Longest Day was intended to, and did achieve, coverage of the breadth of the event's importance. What was particularly clever in putting the film together was that not only did the film include, with the appropriate languages, the viewpoint/experiences of, respectively, the Americans, British/Canadians, French and Germans. It was also clever for having different directors for different parts. The German scenes were shot with a German director, for example. Somehow the experience works even better, as if the separate segments were put together from different perspectives. Well, they literally were.
Of course part of the reason this approach was chosen was to allow production on different parts of the film to proceed simultaneously, as could not have been possible with a single director and production. But the net result is enhanced.
Seeing the film now, one does note how it is devoid of the blood spattering graphic images one associates with such films as Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line. But that element is not necessary, as the subject matter is somewhat different. The film is less impressionistic than later war film efforts, and treats its subject as a historical examination rather than say the existentialist focus that the Thin Red Line had. In that respect it is not really better, just different.
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