The Longest Day (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

The Longest Day (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) Sale

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 Oscars® (Special Effects and Cinematography), The Longest Day ranks as one of Hollywood's truly great war films.

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Description




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


The Longest Day (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) Customer Review


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.

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