In 1944, the U.S. Army and Allied forces plan a huge invasion landing in Normandy, France. Despite bad weather, General Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the okay and the Allies land at Normandy. General Norma Cota travels with his men onto Omaha Beach. With much effort, and lost life, they get off the beach, travelling deep into French territory. The German military, due to arrogance, ignorance and a sleeping Adolf Hitler, delay their response to the Allied landing, with crippling results.
The movie covers the invasion of Normandy but not just the operation. It covers all the stories, all the characters, all the missions from both sides of the war leading up to the invasion and D-day itself. This is an epic war movie with a huge cast. The first half of this 3-hour movie is just the build-up leading up to the invasion and the battle, and when you finally get to that point, you won’t be left disappointed. This cinematography and the effects are really great for the year this was filmed it. This came out in the early 1960’s and some effects still hold up to this day. And I would love to see a colourised version of this movie, since the black and white impressed me so much. The scale of this movie is truly epic. So many actors are in this, so many extras. You’ve got some of the best actors from America, Britain, France and Germany. This movie also gives you a great WWII feel, the soldiers, the weapons, the equipment, the uniforms, the scale of the battle scenes. Really impressive for the time period. This was far ahead of its time.
I found the story a little boring… There have already been so many invasion of Normandy movies, like Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk… But… What those two movies lack is the scope, the authentic WWII feel as I mentioned earlier and the fact that the story is told from both perspectives, not just from the perspective of the allies. This movie isn’t better than Saving Private Ryan, but, I gotta admit, it is better than Dunkirk, although, I will give them the same grade, 8/10*
Directed by: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Gerd Oswald, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl F. Zanuck
Written by: Cornelius Ryan, Romain Gary, James Jones, David Pursall, Jack Seddon
Starring: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Richard Burton, Eddie Albert, Paul Anka, George Segal, Rod Steiger, Jeffrey Hunter
Runtime: 178 minutes
