The Longest Day

When you look back through history, certain dates hold a higher place in the history books. It can be someone's birth, someone's death, or just have an amazing historical significance in terms of impact on the world. High up on that list is June 6, 1944, the day Allied forces invaded Normandy, better known as D-Day. In the age of gigantic, sprawling epics, one of the best movies of the 1960s tackles the immense subject, 1962's The Longest Day.

A plot description wouldn't do this flick justice. It's just infeasible. The history will serve as a big enough jumping off point. After four-plus years of war, Allied forces had massed for months, all prepping for the invasion of Europe, hopefully taking back the continent from Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Third Reich. The invasion was months and years in planning, millions of men, millions of tons of equipment, thousands and thousands of ships, trucks, jeeps and tanks waiting to be unleashed at Normandy and in the French countryside. What was the mystery? The Allies tried desperately to keep the location of the invasion -- Normandy -- secret to help save lives and make the invasion smoother. The Germans similarly tried desperately to discover where the attack was coming. The war hung in the balance along with millions of lives, not just those taking part in the attack but all over the world. Not bad for historical significance, huh?

So tackling that premise in movie form seems a rather daunting task if you ask me. In the age of the epic, this one doesn't disappoint. At 178 minutes, 'Longest' covers a ridiculous amount of ground in a story that takes place over about a 36-hour time span. We see the Allies deciding the time is finally right after days of wavering while the Germans decide if this is the actual invasion or just a feint, a distraction to throw them off. Based on the book by Cornelius Ryan, it is told in docu-drama style as we meet all the participants from the high command to the soldiers, paratroopers to resistance fighters, townspeople to priests and everything and everyone in between. This isn't a movie about characters, but instead about the spectacle and immensity of what happened. If the Allied invasion on D-Day didn't work, who knows how the world would have changed?

Just a huge movie but one that never feels rushed or forced. The three-hour running time absolutely flies by. It was filmed in black and white, giving it an appropriately dated look. Maybe color takes away from what's on-screen, but the decision to film in black and white simply put, works. Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton and Bernhard Wicki combine to direct this behemoth epic and to handle it well. Technically speaking, it is a virtually flawless film. Some stock footage is sprinkled here and there, but many of the locations where the actual events took place were used as filming locations. Talk about authenticity, it can be downright eerie watching some of the scenes knowing the locations' history. The score from Maurice Jarre is used in appropriate doses with the main theme (listen HERE) a memorable piece of music that's always stuck with me.

As an epic though, one thing was required more than just about anything else. That requirement? A cast of seemingly thousands. Literally everyone in Hollywood and stars internationally were required to star in this movie. Okay, a slight exaggeration, but you get my point. Most of these parts were nothing more than cameos, but just as a taste of the ridiculous star power on display, we get John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, Edmond O'Brien, Rod Steiger, even a pre-James Bond Sean Connery. Many of those parts only required an on-screen appearance of a minute or two -- some for much more -- but their presence alone...just wowza. The scary part? That's only a somewhat small taste of the depth of the cast that truly brings an international flavor to the D-Day proceedings with German, French, British, American and many more brought together.

The Longest Day is an epic, plain and simple, but for every scene where the scope and scale impresses, I loved the quieter, personal and often times, terrifyingly real scenes just as effective and memorable. I loved Richard Todd as a paratrooper commander tasked with landing in France via glider and taking a key bridge and holding until reinforcements arrive...if they can. The scene where American paratroopers, including strung-up Red Buttons, overshoot their landing zone and land in a German town is tragic and moving. One paratrooper (Sal Mineo) making a tragic decision is surprising and intensely real. I especially liked the simplicity of a late scene between Burton's RAF pilot and Richard Beymer's American paratrooper discussing the necessary evil of the day but also the lunacy of it. I think the best, most iconic moment has Hans Christian Blech's German officer finally spotting the invasion force in the English Channel when the fog clears. His face drops and he mumbles 'Die invasion,' all set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Just a ton of great moments like this.

The other counter to those scenes are the BIG moments, and that's where the technical comes into play. One tremendous scene has a German fighter strafing the beaches, all of which we see from the perspective of the plane. Hundreds and thousands of extras scramble for cover underneath in a remarkable visual scene. The same later in 'Longest' when French commandos fight their way up a street in a French town, a helicopter (I think) filming all the action. As well, the scene of the paratroopers coming down on the German-held Sainte-Mere-Eglise is a horrifying scene that utilizes some very cool camerawork. Also look for a cool scene where American Rangers -- including Robert Wagner, George Segal, Paul Anka, Fabian, Tommy Sands -- scale the cliffs of Pointe de Huc, all trying to knock out a key German emplacement. Some especially memorable moments, not all of them action scenes.

Because I don't want to forget anyone but don't want to overdo it describing EVERY character, also look for Eddie Albert, Irina Demick, Mel Ferrer, Steve Forest, Gert Frobe, Leo Genn, Jeffrey Hunter, Curd Jurgens, Peter Lawford, Christian Marquand,  Roddy McDowall, Kenneth More, Wolfgang Preiss, Ron Randell, Jean Servais, Norman Rossington, Tom Tryon, Peter van Eyck and Stuart Whitman. Okay, I'll take a breath now.

The Longest Day isn't the best war movie around, but it's one of my favorites. It tries to accomplish a ton and succeeds on just about every level. The history, the scale, the spectacle, the gigantic cast, the moments that resonate amongst all the epic qualities. It also serves as an excellent companion piece to the more recent Saving Private Ryan. Nowhere near as violent, but a more far-reaching story. A gem from the age of epics.

The Longest Day (1962): ****/****

The Long and the Short and the Tall

So I'm kinda slow sometimes. I'm not the most tech-oriented of people so I just kinda assumed iTunes just offered music downloads and rentals of new movies. Yeah...nope. There's hundreds and thousands of movies available to rent and/or buy!!! You'd think I would have realized this years ago, but anyhoo, here we sit. I found a flick I've long sought out, 1961's The Long and the Short and the Tall.

During the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942, a small, seven-man patrol commanded by Sgt. Mitchem (Richard Todd) is deep in the jungle miles away from their base camp. Their mission? Record sounds of troop movements and vehicles moving through the jungle that will be used to trick Japanese troops into thinking they're facing more opposition than they really are. With his right-hand man, Corporal Johnstone (Richard Harris), at his side, Mitchem is trying to keep things in line with inexperienced soldiers making up the patrol. As they prepare to wrap up the mission, the patrol begins to have radio issues, and the men begin to question if something is up. Several are convinced they've been cut off by Japanese troops, and they're now on their own deep in the jungle. Can they make it back to the camp? Their situation is muddled even more when a lone Japanese soldier walks into their camp. Now they're alone and isolated and also have to decide what to do with their prisoner.

Talk about a dark, anti-war flick. This is your movie if you're looking for one. Director Leslie Norman helms this British film that's based off a play and doesn't have much of a reputation built up over the years. It's surprising in that sense because 'Long' is quite the quality movie. Sure, it has flaws but it tries things that movies weren't even thinking of trying, much less attempting yet. Filmed in a stark black and white, the story was filmed on indoor sets in England. Rather than film in real jungles, the decision works. The plants and vegetation permeate the screen to give things quite the claustrophobic feel that hangs in the air. The Japanese troops could be anywhere, but we just can't see them. Music is kept to a minimum with very little taking away from the ever-developing story.

For both good and bad, one of the most interesting things in 'Long' is the dialogue. Based off a play, this is movie dependent on an abundance of dialogue. Why does it work? It feels authentic...when I could understand it. The patrol is made up of soldiers from all over Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland so we get all sorts of thick brogues and cockney accents. This is a movie dependent on getting to know the soldiers through these conversations. We learn little about them in terms of background, but we start to see their personalities, their dynamics, their rivalries, their hatreds. At times, it gets to be a little much because it just wears on your ears, 90-plus minutes of soldiers bitching and moaning at each other.

So in terms of reality, 'Long' gets big points. These aren't heroic, gung-ho soldiers seeking glory. They just want to stay alive. Todd and Harris are good together as the only two veterans among the group. There's also Laurence Harvey as Bamforth, an annoying motormouth from London, Ronald Fraser as MacLeish, the wishy-washy Scotsman, David McCallum as Whitaker, the mousy radioman, John Meillon as Smith, the most intelligent among the group but simply looking to follow orders, and John Rees as Evans, Bamforth's friend and a bit of a follower. There isn't a likable man in the bunch, just less despicable individuals. This isn't an anti-war movie made about Vietnam. This was made in the early 1960s and is already beginning to reflect how the world felt about war and violence and so-called bravery and heroism. Quite a cast, all of them playing humans, not robotic killing machines. Harvey especially hams it up, pushing buttons left and right to the point he's unbearable as a character. Quite the performance if you think of it that way.

It's in the last half that things really take a turn for the dark when the patrol takes a prisoner (Kenji Takaki) and must decide what to do about him. Take him along? Leave him behind to possibly talk? Or the most uncomfortable option...kill him in cold-blood?  The story blends morality, ethics, survival, the rules of war, right and wrong, all of it as the situation gets harrier and harrier. The finale takes some interesting turns, some of them more predictable than others, but they work. Overall, it's a really good movie that's missing that special something. I really recommend it, but it's more of a quality movie than an entertaining movie. Still worth chasing it down but know what you're getting into here.

The Long and the Short and the Tall (1961): ** 1/2 /****

Stage Fright

Directing as early as the 1920s, Alfred Hitchcock continued to work through the 1930s-1970s, making over 40 films. While I've yet to find a Hitchcock film I didn't at least partially like, my favorites from the director started in the late 1940s and continued into the 1950s, films like North by Northwest, Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo and several others. Always trying to see more of his films, I recently added 1950's Stage Fright to the list.

A struggling young actress looking to make a name for herself in post-WWII London, Eve Gill (Jane Wyman) is in love with Jonathan Cooper (Richard Todd), but Mr. Cooper is currently involved in an affair with acclaimed stage actor, Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich). Now, Cooper is in trouble though, on the run for suspicion of killing Charlotte's jealous wife. Wanting to help him out, Eve agrees to hide him at her father's farm in the country, but while he's away, Eve hopes to figure out what was really going on. Blackmailing her way into the position, Eve gets a job as Charlotte's assistant, and she intends to figure out what actually happened and who really killed Charlotte's husband.

The film master of suspense and thrills, Hitchcock makes it look almost effortless at times. At the time -- and even watching it recently in 2012 -- it created an uproar over a storytelling device that infuriated audiences. I can understand that objection too because it certainly threw me off. Is it a major deal? I suppose it will depend on the viewer. I did feel slightly duped as if Hitchcock assuredly enjoyed pulling a fast one on the viewing audience. He filmed partially on-location in London, and as was his usual, kept the focus fairly pointed on a handful of key characters and situations rather than expanding to something bigger and far more unnecessary.

With some of Hitchcock's lesser works, I had some of the same issues here in 'Fright.' His stories at their best were dripping with tension, always kept the momentum heading forward, and for the most part were incredibly serious. Yet he sometimes felt the need to throw this out-of-place light side and humor into the story which I've never understood. A quick detour here has Eve's father, Commodore Gill (Alastair Sim), trying to win a prize at a carnival shooting game from carnie Joyce Grenfell. It feels forced and out of sorts as the story looks for some laughs. The same goes for Eve's plan; posing as an assistant where both sides know her as someone else. These overdone interactions should be serious, but instead they're played for laughs.

A year removed from winning an Oscar for her part in Johnny Belinda, Wyman is the right mix of precocious innocence and stupid decisions in playing Eve. She thinks she loves Todd's Jonathan but realizes he doesn't feel the same way toward her. Dietrich is Dietrich, bigger than life as always and even given a chance to sing (watch it HERE). Her performance as the mysterious and possibly murdering Charlotte is the film's best performance. Todd is all right as Jonathan, but his part requires him to disappear for long stretches. Michael Wilding is the requisite very British character, Smith, the police officer investigating the murder who gets caught up in one web after another. Sim is a big positive too as Commodore Gil, always looking for trouble and building it up to be more than it actually is.

As he was prone to do -- good most of the time, bad the rest -- Hitchcock is able to pull a few tricks from his sleeve toward the end of the movie. Thanks to that already mentioned storytelling device, you as a viewer believe you know what's going on. The last 10 minutes provide quite a good twist, making up for some of the slower portions it took to get to the end. Not a classic Hitchcock film, but one I did enjoy enough to give a mild recommendation.

Stage Fright <---TCM trailer/clips (1950): ** 1/2 /****

The Hasty Heart

A war is ending, and after months and possibly years of fighting, the light can be seen at the end of the tunnel. I can only imagine soldiers being so close to getting back home, only trying to make it through to the end safe and unscathed. What about those soldiers wounded and even killed in the closing days of a war? That would be the jumping off point for 1949's The Hasty Heart.

Serving in Burma in WWII with his Scottish regiment, Corporal Lachlan MacLachlan (Richard Todd) is wounded while on patrol and sent to a military hospital in the jungle. Shrapnel has torn up his kidney forcing doctors to remove it, but now his second kidney is showing signs of failure. Doctors only give him a few weeks to live but decide not to tell him. Instead, he's moved to another ward, this one run by Nurse Margaret Parker (Patricia Neal) with five international patients, soldiers from around the world, including Yank (Ronald Reagan).  The ward is asked to be kind and friendly to Lachlan, hopefully making the most of his last few weeks alive. Not knowing why his orders home are being held up, Lachlan isn't going to make it easy.

Based off a play from writer John Patrick, 'Hasty' is a great example of a play making the successful jump to film effortlessly. With a few quick departures outdoors, the entire movie -- at 102 minutes -- is set in the one ward occupied by Nurse Parker, Yank and four other recovering soldiers. It's easy to see this being a stage-based play. The story is a good one no matter whether it is a play or a film. Director Vincent Sherman personalizes the story as much as possible, bringing to life all the different characters and seeing their predicament. A little sappy, a little too sentimental at times maybe, but this isn't a cynical, world-weary look at the closing days and subsequent months following WWII. It is instead a story of the people involved, and the effect the war has had on them.

Earning a Best Actor nomination for the 1949 Oscars was an achievement in itself for actor Richard Todd, the only nomination he would get in an underrated career. Other performances from that year? Broderick Crawford in All the King's Men, Kirk Douglas in Champion, John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima, and Gregory Peck in Twelve O'Clock High. Not bad, huh? In just his third credited role as an actor, Todd leaves his mark. His Lachie comes from a tough background where he's always dealt with ridicule and scorn, fighting for everything he's earned. When these other patients warm up to him -- despite everything he throws at them -- he's thrown for a loop. It is a beautiful performance, especially when he does open up to his fellow prisoners. Todd makes this character human where it wasn't human just minutes before. He didn't win the Oscar, losing to Crawford's much showier part, but it is a well deserved nomination.

What struck me as odd with the nomination is that Todd received third billing behind both Reagan and Neal in the cast. It is a leading performance, but one of three 'Hasty' offers. Any one of the three offers a performance that could carry a movie on its own. The future 40th President of the United States, Reagan takes his chance to act here and runs with it. He was in a lot of B-movies that didn't always offer him a chance to act. He was just himself, but his part as Yank, an American soldier recovering from a bout with malaria, the unofficial leader of the ward is a solid one and layered. Like the other patients, he's genuinely trying to befriend Lachie only to meet roadblock after roadblock. Neal is Neal, easily one of the most underrated actresses of her generation. Her Nurse Parker is the epitome of what a nurse should be. She's thoughtful, caring and willing to work at helping her patients even when they want nothing to do with her.

The other patients are an international group that reflect the wide-ranging melting pot that were the soldiers fighting in Burma in 1944 and 1945. The group includes Tommy (Howard Marion-Crawford), an overweight Brit who jokes about his weight, Kiwi (Ralph Michael), a New Zealander who wants to get home and see his newborn baby, Digger (John Sherman), the quiet Aussie, and Blossom (Orlando Martins), the African soldier who can't understand a word of English. I liked the dynamic among the group. It reflects a group that's been with each other for awhile now, friendships quickly forming in a trying situation. Anthony Nicholls plays Lt. Colonel Dunn, the commander of the hospital who makes the decision to not tell MacLachlan the news.

I wasn't sure how they were going to wrap up 'Hasty' with several options available. Do you show Lachie's death? Do you hold back and leave it up to us as an audience to imagine it? Or the worst option, do you swoop in at the end and save him, offering a kidney transplant? On that subject, the movie says it can't be done, but I thought you could transplant a kidney. Eh, what do I know, I'm writing movie reviews. The important point is that Sherman chooses the right option...whatever that might be. Sorry, no spoilers. It's a fitting, very moving ending, especially a simple gesture Reagan's Yank makes to the Scotsman. A great movie on the whole.

The Hasty Heart <---TCM clips (1949): ****/****

Operation Crossbow

Most of the war movies I watch are depictions of front-line action or at least the generals/headquarters making the decisions that affect the front-line soldiers.  But what about the Intelligence agencies doing their damnedest to help the war effort through espionage, gaining information and sabotage behind enemy lines.  So goes 1965's Operation Crossbow, a British-Italian production telling the true story of British efforts to slow down Germany's rocket/technological advances as WWII reaches its middle years.

As much as WWII was about one Allied soldier facing one Axis soldier, there was a race at home to be the first country to develop the atom bomb.  On less destructive levels, both sides tried to create weapons technology that could cause more death and destruction than the average grenade or artillery shell.  Obviously, these advances were kept as top secret as possible, but that doesn't mean each side wasn't trying to one-up their enemy by playing a little defense courtesy of the Intelligence community doing a little sabotage.

It's midway through 1943, and the Germans have developed a new flying bomb that they plan to unleash on London and other English cities.  The Allies are aware of the new development, and do their best to slow down the advances by consistently bombing German work sites where they believe the bombs to be built and launched.  But as dangerous as the bombs are, the Germans have a new weapon in the late stages of development; the V-2 rocket, that could drastically change the course of the war, including the D-Day invasion.  Facing such a huge game changer, Allied Intelligence is forced to use a desperate plan; send Allied agents into Germany disguised as engineers who will help develop the rockets.

You might have noticed there's not a single actor/actress listed in the plot description.  Basically, it would have taken too long to include them and make that paragraph a behemoth to read.  Like other big budget war movies, 'Crossbow' utilizes an ensemble cast with talent from all over the world taking part.  And in terms of story, the ensemble works better because the plot is very episodic.  The first 30 minutes is almost exclusively from the German perspective, the next 30 the Allied Intelligence, and the last hour mostly with the agents working deep undercover.  Each of these segments could have been expanded for their own movie, but together they work to form a coherent storyline.

The cast listing is an odd one because producer Carlo Ponti listed his wife Sophia Loren as the lead when really she makes a 20-minute or so appearance and is an add-on more than anything else.  That's not being critical of Loren because she's a fine actress, but big picture her part isn't essential to the movie.  Starring as Germans the ensemble includes Paul Henreid and Helmut Dantine as two high-ranking German generals, Barbara Rutting as German aviator Hannah Reitsch, and Anthony Quayle as Bamford, a secret agent/spy.  Allied Intelligence includes Richard Johnson, Trevor Howard, John Mills and Richard Todd as the men trying to halt the German advances.  The agents sent into Germany include George Peppard, Jeremy Kemp and Tom Courtenay, all posing as deceased scientists so they can access the German rocket plants with Lilli Palmer playing a resistance contact.

The whole movie is a good example of a solid WWII ensemble, but the best and most interesting/exciting part is when the story follows these three agents.  They are all forced to become someone else, knowing if they are caught they will be summarily shot on site.  Even getting to that point is difficult as Peppard's Lt. Curtis finds out when the scientist he is posing as is visited by his wife (Loren).  Courtenay's Henshaw is dealt a cruel twist of fate and must decide how much he is willing to sacrifice.  Kemp's Bradley is dropped into Germany as a last-minute resort with little knowledge of the man he's impersonating.  Their scenes as they try to dupe the Germans are tense and difficult to watch, those scenes where you get butterflies hoping everything doesn't hit the fan.

Crossbow's story covers a lot of ground -- almost a year and a half -- but never feels like we're being let out.  Supposedly a much longer finished product was turned in by director Michael Anderson only to have it cut heavily to the movie we see now which clocks in at just under two hours.  You can see where certain segments were cut, especially the German segment to open the movie, and other odd instances like Peppard gaining a bandage on his forehead, but we never see why.  But these are little things, not big disturbances that could ruin the movie.

While the V-2 rocket was actually used by Germany in WWII -- over 3,000 were fired at England -- the movie does have to have some sort of resolution if not necessarily a happy ending.  The finale is a whopper as Peppard and Kemp desperately try to pinpoint their underground location to a passing bomber force.  The huge underground facilities sets look like something out of a James Bond movie and provide quite an ending to a strong story.  Not as well know as some of its 1960s WWII counterparts, but definitely worth a watch or two.

Operation Crossbow <----trailer (1965): ***/**** 

The Dam Busters

All too often, war movies try to be something bigger, something with a message instead of just focusing on the story at hand. And that's the thing, most of the stories at their most basic are interesting enough without a lot of extra junk added on. A prime example of this? The Dam Busters from 1955, a British movie about a mission undertook by British bomber pilots midway through WWII. The story is interesting, and the movie is content to tell that story.

Doctor B.N. Wallis is a very intelligent if somewhat eccentric aviation engineer living in England in 1942. He's been working for months on a plan that could severely disrupt the German war effort. To create just one ton of raw steel, the Germans must use 100 tons of water. What's the best way to slow the process up? Knock out three dams deep in Germany that supply 2/3 of the needed water. Wallis develops a bomb that when dropped from a bomber at low altitudes skips across water toward the dam much like a rock skipping across a lake.

Of course things don't go smoothy as Wallis perfects the skipping five-ton bombs. That's just part of his problems, ranging from war materiel to dealing with the government. Throw in the issues the British pilots are having, and you've got a highly entertaining story. The pilots will attack the dams at night, flying just 60 feet up, and must drop their bombs with pin-point timing so the payload is delivered at just the right time.

The actual attack on the dams is handled perfectly, including some pre-CGI special effects that look dated, but what do you expect? The movie was made in 1955 so keeping that in mind, the effects aren't that bad. Besides, I was so wrapped up in whether the bombing runs would work I didn't even notice the so-so effects. Throughout the movie, the aerial footage stands out as incredibly well-done, and it's led some people to compare it to the end of Star Wars. See for yourself.

Cast-wise, the list goes on and on but two characters are at the forefront, Michael Redgrave as Wallis, and Richard Todd, a real-life war hero, as Wing Commander Guy Gibson, the leader of the British bombers. They're about as different as two men can be, but they share a common goal and become friends because of their shared experiences. Also, keep an eye out for a young Robert Shaw in just his 2nd movie and first speaking part.

One other thing mentioning that made me rewind a couple times. Gibson's dog is named 'N*gger." Looking the movie up at IMDB, I saw I wasn't the only one surprised by the name. Apparently, the word was a way of describing a black dog in England at the time, and in no way is any sort of racial slur. Still, I had to mention it.