Long before Saving Private Ryan, 1962’s The Longest Day offered the most famous account of the June 6, 1944 “D-Day” invasion. The film starts with a look at the preparations of the Germans on the French beaches – as well as the efforts of local resistance fighters to sabotage the Nazis’ efforts.

From there we head across the Channel and meet some of the Germans’ eventual opponents. The film looks at the British and American soldiers of the Allied forces as they await their deployment. We also examine the planning done by their superiors as they plot the invasion. From there, we follow the battles and see what happens to all the characters we met in the lead-up to D-Day.

Back in the glory days of laserdiscs, I rented The Longest Day. Due to some time considerations, I made a VHS copy of the film so I could watch it at my leisure. That day never came. Oh, I started to check it out on a few occasions, but I could never get into it. Although I find World War II-related material to be fascinating, for some reason I just couldn’t lose myself in Day

Years later, I made it through the whole movie as represented on this DVD, but I can’t say it was easy going. While Saving Private Ryan almost immediately drops us into the action, Day takes it sweet time. You’ll note that I wrote a pretty short synopsis for a three-hour movie, but it summarizes the situation as well as I can imagine – without devoting thousands of words to the endeavor.

Day features so many characters that I had two options. I could pen a quick overview – which I did – or I could mention all of the many participants. That seemed like a bad idea, simply because I didn’t think it would go anywhere. With so many characters, we don’t tend to learn a lot about them, and the general story of the invasion remains the only important plot piece. The participants matter in terms of the way they execute the tale, but they don’t get much development.

This means the viewer will tend to refer to the characters by the actors’ names. “What’s John Wayne gonna do now?” “I hope Robert Mitchum gets out okay!” If you don’t know the actor on sight, then you’re left without much else to identify him.

In fact, Day includes so many actors that you literally need a scorecard to keep track of them all. As I watched the movie’s credits, I found plenty of recognizable names – for actors I never recognized in the movie. The flick so overwhelms us with its participants that you might not even realize who many of them are!

I understand the decision to throw out so many characters, as it opens up the different aspects of the war that we can follow. If the movie introduced us to a limited roster ala Ryan, then we’d be stuck with one part of the invasion. Since Day gets into so many participants, it allows us to examine many facets of D-Day.

And I like that part, especially as we see the little bits and pieces that don’t usually get much attention. Most D-Day related pieces take the Ryan approach and concentrate on the beach attack to the exclusion of all else. While that portion of D-Day becomes important here, it’s not the whole story. We get lots of smaller bits that give us a broader picture of the event’s scope.

Unfortunately, because the film covers so many participants, we’re left without many characters about whom we care. Actually, it’s not really that we don’t care - we do kinda sorta hope they’ll do okay, at least as far as the Allies go. Heck, even some of the Germans get semi-sympathetic treatment; when we see a pair of airmen go against insurmountable odds, we feel some compassion for their plight.

But we just don’t know any of these guys enough to feel much investment in them. The decision to feature skillions of characters may allow Day a broader scope, but it diminishes the movie’s emotional impact. It becomes more about scale and mass than about narrative and drama.

And it also turns into an awfully episodic piece. To wrangle its “48 international stars” – as touted in the ads – and hundreds of no-names, Day utilized no fewer than three different directors. A movie can’t boast so many “head honchos” and turn into a coherent piece. Day doesn’t do poorly in that regard, but it often doesn’t flow particularly well. There’s an awkward, stilted feel about the film that makes it less than fluid.

I don’t want to sound too down on The Longest Day, as it becomes fairly involving once the invasion actually starts. Unfortunately, it’s slow going up to that point, as the bits and pieces of character exposition leave me cold. After that, Day turns more evocative but it can’t quite recover, and the film’s broad scope tends to mean it leaves the viewer at a distance.

The Longest Day appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this single-sided, dual-layered DVD; the image has NOT been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Though a 2006 DVD provided an anamorphic version of the film, this 2012 “John Wayne Collection” package opted for the old non-enhanced disc from 2000. Sine the 2006 transfer had its problems, that wasn’t a horrible letdown, but it still meant we got a flawed image.

Sharpness was consistently problematic. Very little of the film showed even mediocre resolution, as the majority of the flick was soft and mushy. I noticed blockiness and jagged edges as well as more than a few examples of edge haloes. Source flaws were a consistent concern. Throughout the movie, I witnessed specks and marks. These varied in intensity but accompanied a lot of the flick.

This black and white movie provided mediocre contrast. Black levels tended to seem somewhat mushy, and the film took on a somewhat dingy gray tone much of the time. Shadow detail varied. Some shots presented good clarity, but others became murky and opaque. This was a bad image that only deserved a “D”.

Though it came with its own issues, the Dolby Digital 5.0 worked much better than the visuals. On the positive side, the soundfield provided a solid sense of depth and breadth throughout the movie. The forward speakers demonstrated good localization across the channels, as a mix of effects popped up usefully from the sides. Sounds moved cleanly across the front channels and they blended together quite well.

The film also displayed quite a lot of directional dialogue as well, which came as a mixed blessing. Especially early in the movie, the localization of the speech didn’t fare very well. Too many lines that should’ve come from the center or left instead materialized from the right. After the first half-hour or so, this tendency decreased and the placement of the lines seemed more natural, though. Some exceptions still occurred, but the localization worked better as the film progressed.

Surrounds kicked in with a little information during appropriate scenes. The battle sequences were the main beneficiaries of this trend, but don’t expect much excitement. The back speakers tended to reinforce various elements like explosions and gunfire; they didn’t do a lot, but they added a little kick to the track.

While the soundfield was somewhat sophisticated for a movie from 1962, audio quality tended to show the movie’s age the most. Speech seemed erratic. Many lines sounded pretty natural and concise, but others came across as thin and rough. The concise dialogue dominated, though, so don’t expect many problems from that side of things.

Day featured little score, so music wasn’t much of a factor. The bits and pieces that appeared came across fine, however. Unfortunately, effects were a periodic problem. These tended to sound tinny and flat. The track failed to deliver much range and lacked punch. Some crackling and distortion occasionally accompanied these elements. The breadth of the soundfield was good enough to make this a “B-“ track when I graded on an age-based curve, though; it never excelled, but it boasted some strengths.

Under Trailers, we find three ads. This area presents promos for Longest Day as well as for Tora! Tora! Tora! and Patton.

With “48 international stars” and three directors, The Longest Day can certainly claim to provide a big experience. And it occasionally lives up to its billing, as some of the battle elements give us a good look at the events of D-Day. However, the broad scope also means that we know little about most characters and simply fail to care much about them. This affects the film’s dramatic impact and makes it less involving than I’d like. The DVD offers pretty good audio but suffers from weak picture and lacks supplements. I don’t think there’s ever been a good DVD release of Day, and this one doesn’t change that belief.

Note that this version of Longest Day comes as part of a 10-DVD set called “The John Wayne Film Collection”. It also includes The Comancheros, The Big Trail, Red River, Legend of the Lost, The Barbarian and the Geisha, The Horse Soldiers, The Alamo, North to Alaska and The Undefeated.

To rate this film, visit the Cinema Classics Collection review of THE LONGEST DAY