Shot in a striking, monochrome docudrama style, with on-screen titles naming various figures and subtitles for the French and German led sequences, The Longest Day captures the invasion from the angles of all the participants. The recipient of two Academy Awards, for cinematography and special effects, The Longest Day is an epic recreation of D-day, beginning in the immediate lead up to the invasion and ending as the allied troops advance inland into France from their newly established beachheads. Featuring an impressively convincing D-day landing sequence shot with only two landing craft, 80 extras and canny use of a back-projection screen, D-day the Sixth of June reaches a tragic conclusion that leaves the love triangle forever unresolved. Finding themselves both aboard an advance ship carrying the first soldiers to land on the Normandy beaches, Wynter and Parker both reminisce about their respective relationships with Russell. Based on war correspondent and writer Lionel Shapiro’s 1955 novel, The Sixth of June, Koster’s engrossing adaptation sees British subaltern Valerie Russell ( Dana Wynter) fall in love with married American Capt Brad Parker ( Robert Taylor) while Russell’s hitherto beau, Lt Col John Wynter (played by D-day veteran Richard Todd), is posted in Africa. D-day the Sixth of June (1956)įlitting between D-day itself and lengthy flashback sequences covering the period after the Americans joined the allied war effort, Henry Koster’s war drama revolves around a love triangle both enabled and dictated by World War II. Despite this, Boetticher’s film does effectively capture the perilous nature of the Red Ball Express.
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In reality, close to 75% of the Red Ball Express drivers were African Americans thought of as ‘expendable’, a far cry from the on-screen demographic and their heroic portrayal in the film. Starring Jeff Chandler as Lt Chick Campbell and Sidney Poitier as his truck partner, Cpl Andrew Robertson, Red Ball Express drew justified criticism for its historical inaccuracies. Red Ball Express focuses on one racially integrated platoon whose interpersonal grievances are as threatening to morale as the missions they carry out are to their lives. With General Patton’s advancing Third Army running dangerously low on gas and supplies, a military truck route is set up for the ad-hoc, titular truck convoy to replenish and refuel the troops and vehicles.
To mark the 75th anniversary, here are 10 great D-day films.Ĭommencing after D-day, Budd Boetticher’s Red Ball Express is a tense depiction of the kinds of operations that the allied invasion of Normandy enabled. In these films, heroism and self-sacrifice rub shoulders with fear, tragedy and, occasionally, a strong anti-war message. Epic battle films, tense pre-invasion thrillers and bruising post-invasion dramas have all – alongside countless made-for-television documentaries and docu-dramas – recreated, represented and analysed the planning, execution and aftermath of the events of D-day. Hass, 1956), pre-D-day spy drama Eye of the Needle (Richard Marquand, 1981) and war-horror hybrid Overlord (Julius Avery, 2018) exemplify. In terms of genre, tone and style, films with a D-day theme have been diverse, as the action-oriented Screaming Eagles (Charles F. The sheer scale of the operation lends itself to the cinematic form, with individual tales of heroism and determination being rich material for more intimate portraits of those involved in the allied landings.
It’s unsurprising that this momentous, bloody and crucial invasion has been the theme for a number of war films over the decades.