The Longest Day

Buy This Item The Longest Day by 20th Century Fox  Available from Amazon  $14.98  on 11-16-2008     <I>The Longest Day</I> is Hollywood's definitive D-day movie. More modern accounts such as <I>Saving Private Ryan</I> 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 <I>Private Ryan</I> they nonetheless show the sheer scale and audacity of the invasion. <I>--Mark Walker</I> Reader Reviews I bought this DVD and several others as Christmas gifts for my husband. He finally sat down to watch it tonight and I wish he hadn't. The DVD cuts out just before the final chapter and freezes the playback. This turned what I had hoped to be a thoughtful gift for a fan of WWII films into a very bad experience for us both. There has to be a more well manufactured version out there. My advice is, look for it and avoid this one.

The Longest Day Available from Amazon Price: $14.98 Updated on 11-16-2008.

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