Ok – I was going to do some reading on the flight, but then I noticed Delta had “The Longest Day” as one of its movies, and it dawned on me that I haven’t actually watched it since I started paying attention to WW2 history.

Shot in black and white, despite being plenty recent enough (1962) for Technicolour, because the director wanted it ‘to look like WW2’, it features a fairly ridiculous cast of famous names, from John Wayne through Richard Todd to Robert Mitchum. Todd played Major Howard in the assault on Pegasus Bridge, having declined the option to play himself 😀 Several other cast members also took part in the D-Day landings.

What do I think?

It hasn’t aged brilliantly, but it’s markedly better than a lot of that era’s war films. The fight scenes are definitely of their time (compared to the gritty realism of Saving Private Ryan) with perhaps too many grenades and explosions and not enough MG34s, but it’s still an entertaining romp though the story of D-Day.