The Longest Day [Blu-ray]

A Unique Take on D-Day There's too much here for the film to hang together wholly well. But it's a very unique take on D-Day - a kind of panoramic view of the different parts of the operation and the men who bravely saw it through. Maybe the best aspect of the film for me ...

Format : AC-3, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen Publisher : 20th Century Fox Company : TCFHE List Price: $34.99 Our Price: $16.99 You Save: $18 (52%) Used Price : $13.99

Description

This special collector's commemorative edition has been issued in honor of the June 6, 1944 Allied invasion of France, which marked the beginning of the end of Nazi domination over Europe. The attack involved 3,000,000 men, 11,000 planes and 4,000 ships, comprising the largest armada the world has ever seen.

The Longest Day is a vivid, hour-by-hour recreation of this historic event. Featuring a stellar international cast, and told from the perspectives of both sides, it is a fascinating look at the massive preparations, mistakes, and random events that determined the outcome of one of the biggest battles in history. Winner of two 1962 OscarsÂ(r) (Special Effects and Cinematography), The Longest Day ranks as one of Hollywood's truly great war films.

Amazon.com

The Longest Day is Hollywood's definitive D-day movie. More modern accounts such as Saving Private Ryan are more vividly realistic, but producer Darryl F. Zanuck's epic 1962 account is the only one to attempt the daunting task of covering that fateful day from all perspectives. From the German high command and front-line officers to the French Resistance and all the key Allied participants, the screenplay by Cornelius Ryan, based on his own authoritative book, is as factually accurate as possible. The endless parade of stars (John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, and Richard Burton, to name a few) makes for an uneasy mix of verisimilitude and Hollywood star-power, however, and the film falls a little flat for too much of its three-hour running time. But the set-piece battles are still spectacular, and if the landings on Omaha Beach lack the graphic gore of Private Ryan they nonetheless show the sheer scale and audacity of the invasion. --Mark Walker

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Customer reviews

A Unique Take on D-Day by .. Up North ()
There's too much here for the film to hang together wholly well. But it's a very unique take on D-Day - a kind of panoramic view of the different parts of the operation and the men who bravely saw it through. Maybe the best aspect of the film for me is all the scenes where you see a few soliders interact in various ways, reflecting on life, death, and much in between, and how these interactions took on different resonances within the American, British, French, and German factions. That's what made this movie memorable and elevated it beyond an average war picture.

"The Longest Day" on DVD. 1962. by .. Dr. Feelgood (USA)
A well made WWII film, with an all-star cast, starring John Wayne, Richard Burton, Robert Wagner, Robert Mitchum, and a list of others as well. The Allied Invasion of Normady is depicted in the film, with quite realistic war scenes for a Hollywood film.

The Longest Day by .. K. Benedict (S. Dakota)
A wonderful classic, war movie. They don't make movies like this anymore nor do they have great actors like those in this movie. This is why I buy the older movies. Most remakes are horrid and the actors are worse.

One of the best war movies ever made, very realistic by .. Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States(cashbacher@yahoo.com))
Although there are many stars in this war movie, there is no star of the movie. It is also one of the best war movies ever made as it accurately chronicles the Allied invasion of France on D-Day. The German soldiers and officers speak German with English subtitles and are not depicted as bumbling clods that cannot shoot straight.
It opens with the depiction of the German officers trying to discern the Allied intentions as they read messages, debate the signals and oversee the work on the beach fortifications. On the Allied side there are the preparations for the invasion, the soldiers trying to alleviate their boredom and deal with the civilian side of their lives and the officers trying to make the decision as to when to cross the channel.
The movie stays very close to the definitive book "The Longest Day" by Cornelius Ryan, even down to the two Luftwaffe pilots that flew what should have been a suicidal attack against the Allied troops. Their strafing of the beach was the only appearance of the German Air Force during that entire day.
This movie is so realistic that there are times when you think you are witnessing actual combat footage. It is only the presence of a well-known actor that makes you realize that the action is artificially generated.

Great movie - inferior version by .. dspier ()
I gave four stars because I think the movie itself deserves five, but this DVD version only deserves three. This is a great classic for all the reasons mentioned in other reviews - Great performances, excellent script, and the engrossing telling of a many-faceted historical story in a coherent manner. This DVD version has its problems, however. On the plus side, I like it because the subtitles are below the actual film, thus not impacting the movie itself. On a TV, this means that you need to use the clearer (but smaller) 4/3 aspect instead of "zooming" or using "full screen" or you miss the sub-titles. This may bother some, but I found it an advantage. On the negative side, at times I found the picture too dark to clearly see what was going on. Also, there were no real special features except theatrical trailers. With such a big, detailed historical film, this is a big disappointment, as more background on both the events and the making of the film would be very helpful. I will probably eventually "trade up" to blu-ray.