YMMV / The Longest Day

• Alternative Character Interpretation: When the Resistance fighter played by Bourvil hears the code words he's been waiting for on the radio, he excitedly rushes out to perform his assigned task. His apparently perplexed mother stares after him, then digs the radio out from where he hid it and switches it back on. Confused parent wondering what has made her son go off the deep end, or a fellow member of the resistance waiting for her own coded message?
• And You Thought It Would Fail: First, the original producer couldn't get the budget he wanted. Then, Darryl F. Zanuck met reluctancy by his son Richard ("No one cares about World War II anymore!") and the studio he founded, Fox - who eventually decided Cleopatra was screwing them enough and thus they could take a chance on Zanuck's project. It was a big hit, offsetting some of the Cleopatra losses.
• Director Displacement: Given five people did the thing simultaneously, doesn't surprise producer Darryl F. Zanuck gets more focus than all of them.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: British Captain Colin Maud (Kenneth More), in charge of getting the troops moving on Juno Beach. He's the one who gives the stalled Bren carrier a good bash. Maud was on set as an advisor and loaned the shillelagh he had that day to More.
• Misaimed Fandom: According to producer Daryl F. Zanuck, the film was supposed to be an anti-war film (which can already seen by the fact, that he engaged Austrian-Swiss Bernhard Wicki, maker of Die Brücke as a director). Instead, the film seemed to encourage many American youths into enlisting to go to Vietnam.
• Questionable Casting: John Wayne, age 54, was twice the age of Benjamin Vandervoort during D-Day, age 27; Wayne was even ten years older than the real Vandervoort.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Before he became famous, Loriot got cast by Bernhard Wicki in an uncredited bit-part as a junior Wehrmacht staff officer.
  • Not only is Sean Connery present the same year he would debut as James Bond, but two future Bond villains appear as well. "Sergeant Coffepot" is played by Gert Fröbe, who two years later would play the eponymous Goldfinger, while Curd Jürgens (Maj. Gen. Gunther Blumentritt) would later play Karl Stromberg.
  • Private Watney is played by Michael Medwin, who would later be best known for playing Don Satchley in Shoestring.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: For starters, it takes 45 minutes to get out of military planning into the actual invasion. And then the battles frequently break rhythm by cutting back to officers talking, making the 3 hour duration not easy to endure.

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