Watching The Longest Day with my wife

My wife Christine didn't see The Longest Day when it premiered in 1962. She still hadn’t seen it 64 years later. She watched it with me last night because the World War Two docuseries with Tom Hanks had incited her curiosity.

I did see The Longest Day in a movie theater in November or December 1962. My father took me, my brother Dan, and some of our friends to see the blockbuster either for Dan's birthday (Nov. 25) or mine (Dec. 18). Or maybe it was both birthdays since the two dates were close (as were Dan and I) and it got us out of the crowded house. Dan was turning 10; 12 for me.

I have seen the movie a half-dozen times since.  I loved it as a kid and hated it as a young man and now feel nothing but nostalgia for it. Almost all of the cast is long gone. Normandy is now a tourist draw. But, during that one moment in history, it was the center of turmoil.

Chris doesn’t watch war movies. The violence disturbs her, as it should, and she gets sidetracked due to her ADHD. When I was a lad, the details of World War Two were important. My father was a veteran as were many fathers of the time. His basement den was filled with war souvenirs, medals, photos. His parents had saved every Life magazine from early 1942 until spring of ’46 when he finally arrived home. I devoured those magazines, mostly for the war coverage. I no longer have them but they are readily available online and at your local library. They’re a treasure trove of photos and news stories and period ads for cigarettes (many cigarettes) and toothpaste -- lots of brushing to banish that two-pack-a-day habit.

Chris grew up overseas with her U.S. Army lifer dad, Jack. Their family lived on military bases from Ethiopia to Germany, Virginia to Georgia. By the time her father  retired, he had three wars worth of stories and the crusty demeanor of a Chief Warrant Officer. He and my father belonged to the same Knights of Columbus chapter. We were not introduced by them. That’s a whole other story.

I don’t know exactly what she felt while we watched. She was only two feet away in her recliner (a match to mine) but with a whole different set of experiences. Now we share those experiences, and have for almost 50 years. But we bring our own selves to each shared experience.

I have seen the movie many times. There are almost no plot surprises. They came, they saw, they conquered. Some new things happened though. The segments showing the German side were the most interesting. Will Der Fuehrer be awakened from his sleeping-pill-induced sleep to release the Panzers? Only Hitler can summon the Panzers due to his paranoia and need for control. Waking him is verboten, risky too. So his very experienced generals are at a loss and will lose, but not right away. The soundtrack also got my attention. The theme song played in the background on several occasions as did the dot-dot-dot-dash of “V for Victory.” And marching band snare drums announced the German scenes. Damn, here come the Nazis! Attention!

Chris was impressed with the scale of the battle and enjoyed some of the quirky scenes, like the last vignette with downed RAF pilot Richard Burton and Airborne paratrooper Richard Beymer marveling at the dead Nazi who had put his boots on the wrong feet. Also, the cricket clickers that the paratroopers carried to sound out who was friend or foe. 

It was clear that John Wayne and Henry Fonda had to get in the most scenes – their stars still shone brightly. Sean Connery was in some crucial scenes on the British beachheads. Comic relief, as when he when he hears the Scottish army piper and says that “only the Irish can play the pipes.” Connery was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and did his first stage play (South Pacific) in London. And then Bond, James Bond. Dr. No with Connery premiered in October 1962 in London. As Dan and I watched him cracking wise on the beaches, Connery was already getting famous in Dr. No in its U.S. debut in May of ’63.

I bring all my years to anything I see and hear and read. Chris does too. I can continue retirement without watching The Longest Day again. I think of viewers of the future watching it. In what form of media will they see it? What will they think of the generations who lived in the mid-to-late years of the 20^th century? I hope they are not cursing us. I hope to see that we were striving too, that we spent time with our loved ones while it thundered outside.