Post by telegonus on Apr 11, 2017 18:26:48 GMT
Great film, more than a little flawed, The Longest Day holds together for me due to its integrity, the black and white photography making it feel like You Are There, the sheer sweep of the film, especially given its narrow time frame makes it, in a word, awesome. I agree with many who feel that the big stars in small parts drags it down, but only up to a point. The big name players date it but as time has gone by fewer and fewer people know who Frankie Avalon, Richard Beymer, Steve Forrest or Tom Tryon were, so they're just playing characters in a movie.
Some of the major stars I wish hadn't been cast in the film, including John Wayne and Robert Ryan, whom I like but not in this movie. Rod Steiger doesn't work for me, either. But the film is overall bigger than all its stars and rises above their casting. In recent years they've stopped showing it on television on June 6th, Veterans Day or whatever holiday they used to choose to run it. Till fairly recently it was a matter of if not on one channel then the other. Even my local PBS station, which used to run it, has stopped doing so.
Some of the major stars I wish hadn't been cast in the film, including John Wayne and Robert Ryan, whom I like but not in this movie. Rod Steiger doesn't work for me, either. But the film is overall bigger than all its stars and rises above their casting. In recent years they've stopped showing it on television on June 6th, Veterans Day or whatever holiday they used to choose to run it. Till fairly recently it was a matter of if not on one channel then the other. Even my local PBS station, which used to run it, has stopped doing so.