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The Longest Day opens in the US following its premiere in Paris a week earlier. Directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, Gert Oswald and producer Darryl F. Zanuck, from a screenplay by Romain Gary, James Jones, David Pursall, Jack Seddon and author Cornelius Ryan from his 1959 novel, the film is a three hour, quasi-documetary-like recreation of the pivotal Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France on June 6, 1944. Some 42 international stars, including John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton and a youthful, pre-Bond Sean Connery register telling cameos in a WWII picture of staggering logistics and verisimillitude.
