The Longest Day (1962)

Tonight. I know it’s tonight. In the days leading up to D-Day, 6th June 1944, concentrating on events on both sides of the English Channel the Allies wait for a break in the poor weather while anticipating the reaction of the Axis forces defending northern France which they plan to invade at Normandy. As Supreme Commander of Supreme Headquarters of Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) Gen. Dwight Eisenhower (Henry Grace) makes the decision to go after reviewing the initial bad weather reports and the reports about the divisions within the German High Command as to where an invasion might happen and what should be their response as the Allies have made fake preparations for Operation Fortitude, to take place in a quite different landing position:  are the Germans fooled? Allied airborne troops land inland.The French Resistance react. British gliders secure Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal. American paratroopers launch counter-attacks at Manche in Normandy. The Resistance carries out sabotage and infiltrate the German ranks. The Wehrmacht responds ….  He’s dead. I’m crippled. You’re lost. Do you suppose it’s always like that? I mean war. Funny, intense, jaw-dropping in scale, this landmark war epic produced by D-Day veteran Darryl F. Zanuck, whose dream project this was, is a 6th June commemoration like no other, a tribute to the armed forces who launched the magnificent amphibian assault. The screenplay is by Cornelius Ryan (who did not get along with DFZ) who was adapting his 1959 non-fiction book, with additional scenes written by novelists Romain Gary and James Jones, and David Pursall & Jack Seddon. DFZ knew the difficulties of such a mammoth undertaking which included eight battle scenes and hired directors from each of the major participating countries/regions: Ken Annakin directed the British and French exteriors, with Gerd Oswald the uncredited director of the Sainte-Marie-Église parachute drop sequence; while the American exteriors were directed by Andrew Marton; and Austria’s Bernhard Wicki shot the German scenes. Zanuck himself shot some pick ups. There are cameos by the major actors of the era, some of whom actually participated in the events depicted: Irish-born Richard Todd plays Major Howard of D Company and he really was at Pegasus Bridge and is wearing his own beret from the event; Leo Genn plays Major-General Hollander of SHAEF; Kenneth More is Acting Captain Colin Maud of the Royal Navy at Juno Beach and is carrying his shillelagh; Rod Steiger plays Lt. Commander Joseph Witherow Jr., Commander of the USS Satterlee; Eddie Albert is Colonel Lloyd Thompson, ADC to General Norman Cota (Robert Mitchum) of the Fighting 29th Infantry Division; Henry Fonda plays Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Assistant Commander of the 4th Infantry Division. The all-star cast also includes John Wayne (replacing Charlton Heston), Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Mel Ferrer, Tom Tryon, Stuart Whitman, George Segal, Jeffrey Hunter (who’s probably got the best role), Sal Mineo, Robert Wagner; Peter Lawford, Richard Burton and Roddy McDowall (who both volunteered to appear for nothing out of boredom on the Cleopatra set in Rome), Sean Connery,  Leslie Phillips, Frank Finlay; Christian Marquand, Georges Wilson (Lambert’s dad), Bourvil, Jean-Louis Barrault, Arletty;  Paul Hartmann, Werner Hinz (as Rommel), Curd Jürgens, Walter Gotell, Peter van Eyck, Gert Fröbe, Dietmar Schönherr. An astonishing lineup in a production which does not shirk the horrors of war, the number of casualties or the overwhelming noise of terror. It’s a stunning achievement, measured and wonderfully realistically staged with the co-operation of all the forces organised by producer Frank McCarthy who worked at the US Department of War during WW2.  The key scene-sequences are the parachute drop into Sainte-Mère-Église; the advance from the Normandy beaches; the U.S. Ranger Assault Group’s assault on the Pointe du Hoc; the attack on the town of Ouistreham by Free French Forces; and the strafing of the beaches by the only two Luftwaffe pilots in the area. The vastness of the project inevitably means there are flaws:  where’s the point of view? Where are the Canadians?! But it is a majestic reconstruction made at the height of the Cold War of one of the biggest events of the twentieth century. Or, as Basil Fawlty said before he was muzzled by the BBC yesterday, Don’t Mention The War. Yeah, right. Or maybe do like Hitler did – take a sleeping pill and pretend it’s not happening. Thank God for common sense, great soldiers and DFZ, come to think of it. Spectacular.  You remember it. Remember every bit of it, ’cause we are on the eve of a day that people are going to talk about long after we are dead and gone

Force 10 From Navarone (1978)

It’s being treated on a need to know basis and you don’t need to know. At the height of WW2 British commandos Major Keith Mallory (Robert Shaw) and demolition expert Sergeant Donovan ‘Dusty’ Miller (Edward Fox) are being sent behind enemy lines to eliminate a German spy known as ‘Nicolai’ aka Colonel von Ingorslebon who betrayed the original Navarone mission and is believed to have infiltrated a unit of Yugoslav partisans in the guise of ‘Captain Lescovar’ (Franco Nero). To get to the Balkans they are teamed up with a US sabotage unit led by Lieutenant Colonel Mike Barnsby (Harrison Ford) who steals a Lancaster bomber in Italy under fire from US military police and they are joined by US Army medic Captain Weaver (Carl Weathers).  They get shot down by the Luftwaffe and imprisoned by partisan Chetniks headed by Captain Drazak (Richard Kiel) posing as pro-Allied Forces who are actually Nazi collaborators on the ground. Mallory and Barnsby are assisted by Maritza Petrovic (Barbara Bach) and meet up with her father Colonel Petrovic (Alan Badel) and Mallory’s target – Lescovar but Petrovic assures them he’s the wrong man. The partisan camp is close to a hydroelectric dam crucial for the Germans and Barnsby reveals that Force 10’s job is to blow it up. They rescue Miller using Lescovar and Marko (Petar Buntic) but in the course of a gunfight Maritza is killed and the men have to get to the bridge with suspicions growing about Lescovar. Meanwhile, they are being pursued by Drazak … We can’t just stand here like ducks in a storm. The sequel to the stone cold classic The Guns of Navarone replaces Peck with Shaw and Niven with Fox and throws out more or less the whole of Alistair Maclean’s novel which he wrote originally as a screen treatment and when it was unmade he novelised it and it sold like hot cakes. Adapted by actor and playwright Robin Chapman with an uncredited on-set rewrite by George (Flashman) MacDonald Fraser (among four others, also uncredited) it’s directed in a fairly slapdash way by Bond veteran Guy Hamilton managing to extract much of the suspense and thrills from the story. However there are decent set pieces, some nice humour and a few good scenes with Fox who relishes the surprise at the end. Ford seems uncomfortable in the early part but comes into his own in scenes with Shaw who sadly died before the film was released. Watch out for Wolf Kahler in a small role. There’s no bridge in the world that can’t be blown. That’s what Force 10 was here to prove

 

The Guns of Navarone (1961)

A friend of mine is under the weather at the moment so I prescribed holiday viewing:  The Great Escape and its fraternal twin, this, one of the best men on a mission action adventures to come out of WW2. It’s 1943.  An Allied commando team is deployed to destroy huge German guns on the Greek island of Navarone in order to rescue troops trapped on Kheros. They’re led by British Major Franklin (Anthony Quayle) and include the American Mallory (Gregory Peck), Greek resistance fighter Stavros (Anthony Quinn) and reluctant Brit explosives expert Miller (David Niven). Facing impossible odds, the men battle stormy seas and daunting cliffs. When Franklin is injured, Mallory takes command, and the infighting begins. They have to impersonate Nazi officers and work with local resistance fighters Irene Papas and Gia Scala. There is a spy  in the camp – but who can it be? There’s interrogation and explosives and betrayal and all kinds of good stuff. This is sublime fun and contains probably my favourite movie line of all, from the inimitable Niven:  Heil everybody! Adapted from Alastair MacLean’s novel by blacklisted screenwriter and producer Carl Foreman (who made a lot of changes to the material) and directed by J. Lee Thompson (taking over from Alexander Mackendrick one week before production – that old saw, ‘creative differences.’) Narrated by James Robertson Justice and shot by the peerless Oswald Morris with a majestic soundtrack by Dimitri Tiomkin. Definitely taking this to the desert island. Or even a Greek one.