History Daily - Saturday Matinee: War Movie Theatre

Episode Date: May 3, 2025

On today’s Saturday Matinee, we dust off our VHS tape to rewatch the 1962 D-Day mega-epic "The Longest Day". Its star-studded cast cements this film as a classic war movie, but how historically accurate is it? Link to War Movie Theatre: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/war-movie-theatre Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more. History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

Today, I'm going to tell you how valuable ideas are, the sparks of inspiration and ingenuity that lead to big leaps and better lives. They are worthless. Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything. I don't know who coined that maxim, but I found it to be true over and over. And I'm a big ideas guy. I love ideas. I have lots of them. But that just proves my point. For instance, I've been thinking about a new podcast for years now in which a buddy and I, maybe with some invited celebrity guests, re-watch a classic war movie, then discuss the true history and the artistic license, what they got right and what they fudged on. Maybe we'd also laugh at the bad accents or worn-out tropes while applauding true efforts of verisimilitude. It'd be enjoyable, fun to produce, and to listen to, it's a great idea. But it's still worthless because I didn't execute on it. Someone else did.

And on today's Saturday matinee, we're introducing you to that someone else, War Movie Theater, and the episode we're sharing today. Today is a rewatch of the 1962 D-Day mega epic, The Longest Day, whose star-studded cast includes John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda, and Sean Connery. But even if it is a classic, is it historically accurate? Is it even good? Stay tuned to find out, and I hope you enjoy.

While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow War Movie Theater. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. We have returned. For weeks and months, we have recorded podcasts. on other subjects, on newspapers, on politics, on macroeconomic policy. But now we are going to be podcasting on our own soil. For reasons of operational security, and because of bad weather in the channel, we have changed our code name. We are no longer a pod too far. From here on we will be known as more movie theatre, but our orders remain the same, to watch the films that shaped

our childhoods that told us who we were and who we were supposed to be. And there are only two kinds of war movie in this podcast. Those we've talked about and those we're going to talk about. That's right, we're marking this year's 80th anniversary of delay by watching the granddaddy of all war movies, the longest day. My name's Rob Hutton and my orders are to hold this podcast until relieved. Just after landing, I've stumbled across a lowly paratrooper, separated from his unit and missing his weapon, running around hopelessly confused about where the action is. Perhaps before the episode is over, he will have shot some prisoners. Duncan Weldon. It's nice to be back, Rob.

And joining us in a gratuitous bit of audience-pleasing casting is a man with a good claim to be Britain's leading war chatter. Pub landlord, military historian, and perhaps the finest audiobook narrator of his generation. It's Al Murray.

Hello, gents. Hello. I can't find my clicker. Normally there's a clicker on my desk and I would be chirping away like an enthusiastic American paratrooper. But Tragically, it is lost. I mean, actually not tragically.

They're the most annoying thing on the planet. And I thoroughly recommend anyone who sees a child with one to steal it from the child and bin it. We'll just go for thunder and flash. Yes, exactly. Thunder and Flash or ham and jam, yeah. Al, you once wrote a book called Watching War Films with my dad. What's it about?

Well, I think it's about your life as much as it's about my life. You know, I think there's a slab of us who did exactly that, you know, and my father took me, I remember him taking me, very clearly him taking me to see a bridge too far, and I was probably too young, and him sitting there and shaking his fist at it because it was the wrong panzers and the, you know, and he knew people who'd been there and it wasn't quite right and all that sort of stuff. So, yes, that's what that book's about, having had that experience. I think our operating argument, especially for sort of first, listeners joining us in this new series for the first time is that there is something particularly

sort of British about the war movies of, well, sort of 1945 to about 1980 and the then sort of endlessly sort of played out, it's felt to me like every Sunday afternoon on BBC 2. Yeah, exactly. Michael Kane would be getting shot. And these are telling us something about ourselves. I mean, my dad claims now that he never watched any of these, but I distinctly remember watching them with him. Yeah, of course. Of course he did. Yes, I mean, I think that we watched them.

It also says something about us. It's a sort of Mobius strip, really, isn't it? It comes back on itself. Why did we like these films? What were these films trying to tell us? What were we telling ourselves about these films? I was once on a tour bus after a show. I play in a band occasionally that was called T-34.

It's not called that anymore. Thanks to Russian aggression in Ukraine. We decided maybe let's change your name of the band. And we didn't update it. We're not T-80, you know, or any of that sort of stuff. But we'd put a bridge too far on on the tour bus coming back from this gig. Because we're all feeling, you know, fun to watch. Because it is fun to watch, which is like a strange thing.

And one of the bands, the wife or partner of the guitar player said, why are you watching this? What are you getting from this? Do you wish you were one of these men? What does this say about you and your masculinity, right? and all this sort of thing. And I had to admit, I'd never run that through my software up to that point.

And I couldn't give her an answer. And I felt sort of embarrassed and discombobulated by being asked. You know, just as the Piet was being brought up at Devontag. No one should ever feel discombobulated as the Piet is brought up. No. Of course not. No.

But it was where these films sit. And I did go through a period of my life where I was trying to sort of like not be beguiled by all this. and to put it all away and be interested in other things, you know, because the world is a gigantic and interesting place. Maybe the Second World War and War films had to have their run of me, but, you know, more full me, you know. Well, so when I published my last book in 2018,

a TV executive said to me, the thing is people aren't really interested in World War II anymore. Well, I made a show 20 years ago called Road to Berlin, right, for the Discovery Channel, which was tremendous fun. And I got to drive a Jeep, theoretically, theoretically drive a Jeep for Normandy to Berlin, although, you know, more of a roundabout route than that due to scheduling and the Jeep blowing up.

There's a great scene of we're in Paris, liberating Paris, and I'm actually on a low loader, which is why the perspectives are all wrong as we drive around, plus Le Concord, because the Jeep had conced out. Anyway, we had a new broom problem at that broadcaster, so suddenly you got someone different in. We said, we want to do Road to Rome,

because we think, you know, Sicily all the way up the spine of Rome, casino, the story's amazing, you know, happy ending. Rome delivered to the Allies undestroyed and all that sort of stuff. She said, well, I think the thing is, is that, you know, the party's over for the Second World War. She said that 20 years ago. Yes. Well, we have ways launches in 2019, does it? Yes, we started in, I think, May of 2019. And we're one of those things where the pandemic is the thing that actually was the making of us.

So we, you know, in that sense, we had a good war. But, yeah, I mean, we've been doing it for five years nearly. I mean, we ought to finish next August, really. Well, it depends when you think World War II started. You can make an argument. Yeah, I go off the 37 argument. It's fine. I'd go back further.

I think Manchuko, the Japanese aggression in Manchuria. 14 years. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, I think we've plenty to talk about. And the actual thing, as we go further, into it into the podcast, the more we talk about, the more I realize I know a vanishingly tiny amount about it actually, because it's just such a gigantic thing.

Talking of vastly complicated subjects that you could study endlessly, let's turn to D-Day. And, well, I have no idea when I first saw the longest day. At some level, I feel like it may have been playing on a loop in the television, in the of our room from about 1982 to about 1988. Any idea, any of you when you first saw it? Well, I can't, well, I can't echo locate it because we had a black and white telly for a very long time. My father, my father, you know, wasn't going to go, didn't see the point television, so we

weren't going to ever get a colour telly. So who knows when I saw it? Because everything was in black and white at that point. So maybe, I don't know. I do, I mean, I do remember it was one of those films. where my sort of spider sense tingled about things not being, so it's the thing with the clicker with the dove, where he cocks the gun and he shoots him twice, right,

without re-cocking the gun. Yeah. So it's all that click-clack, click-clack, click-clack, bang, click-clack, bang, click-clack. And you're like, but that doesn't, even as a small boy, I'm like, nah. So I remember it for that. But also, I mean, I couldn't tell you when I first saw it.

Yeah, I mean, me. neither. I'm very like both of you that, yeah, it seems to have been permanently on at some level. It's also, because it's incredibly, I mean, I don't even, episodic is quite the way. It's a, it's a mosaic. It's a patchwork. Well, you know what? I watched it last night. I watched it again last night. And I really loved it for that on this viewing. Because when you read about D-Day, that's what it's like. Because it's obviously it's impossible narratively to, you know, unless you're a Mike Figures film, We've got five strands all happening at once on the screen together with all the action. That's what reading about a D-Day is like.

So for a film to be like that, I thought, is actually fine. And I actually found it convincing kind of the storytelling in that regard. Absolutely. I like that about it. I suppose it does make it hard to think about when you saw it, because in a sense you don't quite, you remember the guy hanging from the church tower. I remember I remember your man getting shot with his clicker and this kind of thing. But you could have sat down and watched one of these.

then been summoned away, if you see what I mean. Yeah, I don't have episodics the word. I mean, it feels more, I mean, it feels more docu-drama than, yeah, straightforward film the way it's done. Well, and a lot of the action is like that. That sort of the sequences on Omaha Beach at the end where they're sort of going forward and they're getting ammo and they're arguing about what to do and debating, you know, and it wasn't Cota that said, you know, there's two kinds of people on this beach.

Those are dead and those are about to die. Someone else said that. I think a guy called Taylor said that, really, which is I, you know, again, in spite of sense. But the interesting thing about that is the action in that completely conveys, suddenly a bloat next is killed out of nowhere, seemingly, that the random nature of it. And a lot of the sort of tedium of dragging boxes up a hill and stuffing them in a,

you know, like it's sort of, the action is sort of in a weird way prosaic and some of it's strangely mundane. And that feels to me really, really convincing. And also, I mean, the other thing is the debt of honor of saving prize. Private Ryan to so much of it. The point du Oxyquence is essentially the same. What does Bitter mean? They play that same scene out in Saving Private Ryan.

And everyone's going, oh, Saving Private Ryan is the most gritty war and horrific war film ever made because they shoot the people surrending. Well, I mean, we had it in the longest day. Yes. And that, I think, part of that tone, I think, is really, really interesting in it, too. I think that this might have been, I watched it the other night. And I sat down and watched it from beginning to end, despite, it being a three-hour film and it being a family evening.

So it was one of those things where at various points, children would wander in. And actually, unusually, the teenagers would sort of sit down and go, okay, what's going on? You know,

and you say, D-Day's going on, son. And actually my wife joined me for the last hour. And she pretended to be looking at her phone, but I knew really that she was sort of, she wanted to know whether they'd take Wistram or not. Yeah.

So it actually does, I think, again, in a weird way, because you don't need to know who these people are. You can kind of, it's quite a nice film to just come into. And it's like, oh, well, you know, who's this guy? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, darling. They're on the beach. They're trying to get off the beach. That's all you need to know.

So it comes from the Cornelius Ryan book, which I haven't read, but which I actually really want to read, having watched this. But the book comes out. It's a huge success. It's almost immediately option. the producer Darrell Zanuck is it really is his passion project apparently his son is worried it's costing too much

I mean a forerunner of today's teenagers wondering why I have this big pile of Blu-rays next one. Because it costs $10 million which is 100 million today which again compared to the average Marvel

film to be honest but that makes it the most expensive black and right film until 1993 when Chinders List comes out. Really? Yeah, and well, you can imagine that it would have been expensive and they try to save money

by, and this is one of the interesting sort of choices, having three different directors all filming at the same time. Yeah. So you've got a German director and, in fact, there may have been two German directors, this is slightly disputed by different accounts and a British and French director and an American director and

I, in my head, again, when I was preparing to watch this, I thought, oh, that's why you can see all the joins. And then I watched it and I thought, you can't. No, you can't. Now, you're telling me this, and this is a revelation. I didn't know that. Right. You can see why you might have done that, but it doesn't cut, it doesn't read in the film

at all. No, I think Toro, Toro, Toro, does this as well and in Toro Toro Toro, Tori, you kind of can You can smell it, yeah. And it's a, it's all-star, it's so all-starry. Did they all get their full fee? Because I mean, lots of them are just in for, you know. Let's talk about the fees. Oh, go on.

Let's talk about the fees. So it's because if anything, it is the only film I'm aware of, which is more All-Star than a Bridge too far. It's very All-Star. And everyone is signed up on a flat fee of $25,000. With the possible exception, there is a story that's may or may not be true that Richard Burton and Roddy McDowell, who are stuck in Rome filming Cleopatch. where they're not being used and they're very bored and they phone Zano Kup

and say, look, just let us come and do something. And they fly themselves up and film their bits for no fee just to be, but I don't know whether I believe that. But that is.

Well, magnificent, given that Burton gets to bookend the film. That's very strong. That's why I'm not quite sure I believe it. On the other hand, you never see him flying or anything. But maybe, or you do,

no, you don't. You never see him flying. Yeah, but if you're the director, or one of multiple directors. And Richard Burtt turns out and says, I'm available. I don't want to be paid.

I mean, you need to find a... I believe that if you were offered him, you'd take him. Well, and it does look like two days. Yes. He was only on two days. Now you say that. You can see that. In fact, you can bust it all up into the days they were on, can't you?

And the other... I'm pretty confident this is true, because I've seen it in several places. Everyone gets a flat fee for $25,000. except John Wayne, who has a grudge against Zanuck because he'd been rude about the LMO, and he demands to do it for $250,000. Despite the fact, and this is the weirdest bit of casting, because he's playing Vandervault. He's 55 years old.

Vandavort, do you want to know how Vandavort was on D-Day? Close on. It was 31st. I believe he was about 27. They thought about Charlton Heston But John Wayne was willing to do it And obviously he's such a big star Yeah

Well you'd go and see that Wouldn't you Regardless at the time It is a bit sort of Tom Cruise offering To be in your film It's like okay Okay we will have you Even with your lunatic demand

That you get to ride a motorbike off the cliff You know There are endless facts 2,000 active soldiers are hired by it There's rows about They've got American soldiers And then there's a crisis the Berlin crisis is happening and so there's questions in Congress

about whether these guys should be off filming a film. Really? Amazing. Anyway, you could do a three-hour film about the making of this three-hour film. Duncan. Yes, Rob. Do you know what would help me to get off this beach? What would help you get off this beach, Rob?

What would help me get off this beach is if our listeners were to like, subscribe and give war movie theatre a five-star review? There are only two types of people on this beach, Rob. people giving us a five-star review and those who are going to die. Let's go to the After Action Report. And I say, Quick Dad, they're on the cable cart. When do you want to be called in? It's Pegasus Bridge.

Yeah. Right? Or it's taking a casino. But the thing about Pegasus Bridge, right? No one believes anymore that they did that. Because it's unbelievable, isn't it? There was a guy. I only discovered this after.

died. There was a guy in my church who was on that. He was in one of the gliders, died a couple of years ago. And it's one of these things so you think, well, I wish someone had said that to me before he died. No, I think it's that because they did that is simply incredible. And obviously, it also has the virtue of having gone exactly according to plan. Because they weren't expecting that to work. The expectation was that would fail. So, yes, all right. It is Pegasusus Bridge. You can keep that great long. tracking shot at the

I mean I right so the great long tracking shot at Restream is my that that was a jaw on the floor moment for me I was like bloody hell how long

are they going to keep this going you know yeah that's a boggling piece of cinema but I think as a moment for like what the hell is happening story wise

did this really happen it's the gliders at the con canal because it's because it just beggars belief that they did that and that it worked and that you know

I spoke to a guy called Wally Parr 20 years ago, who was on glider number one with the ox of bucks. And he says, well, you know, that's exactly what it was like, mate. And I know I said earlier on, memory gets distorted by the movies, but he says, that's exactly what it was like, mate. In we come. You know, crash bang out, we jump,

you know, and I'll buy that. And I think that's one of the things. This film, this film does do what it can to create verisimilitude, I think, which is really good, you know, especially around something completely mad like that. It's kind of thing that works because it's such a surprise that you can sort of imagine the defenders, even as there's all of this noise,

even as the sort of shooting thing, no, hang on, no, we're not the front line. You know, we get warned before people shoot at us. Yeah. And sort of struggling just mentally to understand what's happening to them. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's extraordinary.

And as a cuda man itself, but then as a cuda cinema, it works. It tells the story perfectly. There is also, pleasingly, Richard Todd, sort of last scene in this podcast blowing up dams, going off to write letters, very sad about his dog. Richard Todd, who plays Major John Howard, hold until relieved. I saw an interview with Howard, gosh, it must have been about 94, because it must have been the 50th, saying, I was not sitting there thinking, hold until relieved. I was not sitting there. But it works.

But he's on, Richard Todd as a young man is on the Pegasus to raid. And I think they offered him the chance to play himself. And he said, no, I'll, I'll, I'll, he knew he was a sufficiently successful actor to know to know which role he ought to be taken. Yes, yes. That's right. He was in seven power with Pine Coffin. His Lieutenant Colonel was called Pine Coffin, which I think is just the, probably one of the greatest

British Army, Lieutenant Colonel names of all time. It's like a character from an Evelyn Warnock. He's stepped into... Absolutely. I'm not sure I'd want to be commanded by pine coffin. Well, I don't know. His nickname was Wooden Box. How did you come by that?

Squatty humor is Enigma Ratt in a mystery. Anyway, yes, yeah. So he parachuted in, you know, half an hour later, Todd himself. And then they're the first people to relieve the guys at the Oxen Bucks. And it's amazing that he's in the film. It's an incredible thing to have done. I also, I love one of the lines. I just wrote down as just being great is up the ox and bucks

when he charges because I just thought I tried to imagine an American audience trying to know what that might mean Only steady the buffs could have been sort of more utterly mysterious Well and also the oxen bucks being on the American side in a film I mean surely they'd be thinking Hang on a minute these are the red coats I mean, it is quite the thing, isn't it, that that sequence?

It's brilliant. I, you know, you feel like that's a thing they should show in schools. Yeah, exactly. No, it's the same moment for me as well. You know, there are three reasons that I've ended up, well, being like this and doing this podcast. One is watching too many of these films with my granddad at the time. Secondly, is my granddad is talking about the wall. And the third one was a school trip to Normandy when I was about 11 or 12.

and we went to Pegasus Bridge on June 6th, it was one of the anniversaries. And, you know, this was, you know, about 50 or years afterwards. So there were a lot of veterans there just sort of chatting at school kids. And it was, yeah. Gosh, how amazing.

Wow. The only other scene that I, I mean, the Omaha Beach scene is amazing. Again, as a piece of cinema and so on. But the other one I would just recommend is, I offer is the Richard Burton one. I mean, literally, if you turned on the film and it was finishing,

and you just thought, oh, hang on, Just stay here for a second, darling. Richard Burton's about to pop up. Yeah. You know, and deliver five lines brilliantly. Yeah. Yes, he is extraordinary in it. And you can, you know, anyone who has only ever seen sort of tail end Richard Burton

should treat themselves to that scene. It's incredibly. You ever killed someone close up? Oh, cool. No. No, I haven't. Yes. Yes, you get the full kind of, oh, right.

Okay. this is why you are one of, you know, Britain's leading actors for two decades. Yeah, and in a peculiar way, it's an anti-war film suddenly. Yeah. Isn't it? Is this what war is always like, do you think? You know, it's fantastic. Next section, she's not so dumb.

Are there women in this film? We might, I think not for the last time, combine this with the Dan Buster's Dog Prize for the most problematic moment. There's not a lot of problematic moments in this film But the arrival of Janine on her bicycle I was a little bit I don't know where to look Well she was having an affair with Zanak I believe Oh right Seemingly how she got the part

So rumour has it I mean she has a pivotal action moments She does later She does absolutely later The sort of the her opening arrival. That is the only moment in this film that I just vaguely felt.

You're supposed to drop your popcorn and say, crikey, aren't you? Yes. I wondered if, you know, if the 2024 remake gets quite that scene in quite that way. The other women in the film of the nuns. Yeah.

Who are terrific. I mean, which actually, that's also a great little sort of just the concern and them, You must leave and the multi-superer saying we're in. But there's something sort of Monty Python about them, March, you know, in phalanx coming through the battlefield, with things pinging around them and being unharmed. I mean, it's, I mean, in a way, you can see what Python would be drawing on in a way

for some of their stuff. Because it's, is it, I don't even know if it's, is it melodramatic them appearing like that? I don't know what the, I don't know what the, I mean, they're literally DeiSX, um, yeah, aren't they? Yeah, I, yeah, no, it's, It is a thing, and it's a thing that provides... There's actually all these little moments of comic relief. Yeah.

Yes. That sort of leaven, there's sort of the tremendous seriousness of it all. And then you got this, you know, and then you just got this sort of, then go straight to a proper kind of moment of courage. No, we will stay. You know, we are nurses. Yeah. Yes, it's beautifully done that, actually.

And there's the Frenchman on Omaha Beach's wife, isn't there? You know, like, you know, and he's enjoying... being shelled sort of. You know, which when you come to a bridge too far, although it's a different direction, you know, it's coming from a different place that film. It's like the old lady where they say, I'm afraid we're going to have to, you know,

we're going to have to take your house, occupy your house. It's got to be to that flavor. It's rather a war on, you know. The casualty list. I don't have a movie body count, but Duncan, do you have a D-Day body count? Yes, a D-Day body count. 10,000 plus allied casualties, 4,400 dead, estimated 4 to 9,000 total German casualties.

I mean... Well, you're putting 23,000, I think it is, parachutists down, airborne soldiers down, and then it's something like another 100 coming onto the beaches. And so, and they're expecting 30% something like that, casualties. So it's not a bad day for the elderly. in that regard. I think it's pretty crap if you're a French civilian.

Yes. Because you've been bombed flat for weeks, haven't you? I mean, this is the weird thing about the memory in the films of the period, isn't it? There's so much on DEDA itself. And, you know, Dita itself, you know,

by its own terms, very, very successful. Yeah. And it's then the following six weeks in Normandy, which take a lot longer than anyone expected or a lot bloody than anyone expected. It's like, you know, terrible fighting in Normandy rather than Dita itself in the campaign where, you know, a lot of the casualty rate in the six weeks after D-Day, you're getting towards First World War levels.

Yes, I mean, if you're an infantryman, it's the same, really, essentially the same. And the thing is, they're all writing home going. Still, it's not as bad as it was at the sum for you, Dad. You know, which is, I think, quite remarkable. And, no, I can't remember which American division is that basically, in the next fortnight, that comes off Utah Beach, takes 100% casualties. So they go through everybody. Well, the Fonda character, Teddy Roosevelt Jr., who they're terribly worried about sending him onto the beach

and, you know, is he going to go and that kind of thing? And I looked him up because the son is slightly obsessed with American presidents. And he dies a month later. Yes. And he's a general, and I feel that generals are not supposed to die in combat. They're not really meant to. No, the expectation is they don't. Yeah, I think he died of a heart attack.

Oh, right. So not self-liber. Because he did have a dick, he did have a dick, I think. I seem to think so. But then McNair is killed, Lieutenant General, Lieutenant General McNair is killed in the opening phase of Cobra a couple of months later, which is the American breakout operation in July by American bombers because he's too far forward or they miss their bomb line. So it's generals are in the body count, which is, I think, in Normandy in the major main campaign. I mean, when you've, go round there, there's every town you go to has an American or British War Memorial.

It's sort of really quite striking. Well, I mean, we have the Kooler King for the most gratuitous American character. It's John Wayne. It is John Wayne, isn't it? He's getting it purely by being John Wayne in this film, 20 years too old, paid 10 times as much as anyone else. Yeah, can move on and move.

Right, fine. John Wayne. And introducing, who's in this in a tiny part who goes on to be a legend? And there is an obvious one and then there are two much more interesting, less obvious ones. Well, Sean Connery.

Sean Connery is the obvious one. Just about to be Bond, isn't he? Yeah, this is his last film before Bond. And he's terrible in it. You wouldn't watch that and go, this man, this is the guy we are looking for to be the iconic suave. It's ridiculous.

Well, you know who's in it who Ian Fleming was looking for to be Bond. Richard Todd. Really? Apparently. I can see that. Well, yeah, again, yeah. I mean, if you were picking

posh English stars at that point, you might well have sort of thought of that. Yeah, you might well, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, so Sean Connery is going to be Bond, but this film features not one, but two Bond villains. Do you know that? No, it is not known that. Right, so Kurt Juergens, who plays

General Gunter Blumentrit I mean I couldn't tell you any of the German generals who they are apart from Rommel but he will go on to be Karl Stromberg and that's fine who loved me but much more entertainingly do you remember the comedy German who is getting shelled who's always bringing

the coffee to the front it's Goldfinger it's Goldfinger oh yeah Gert Frobe and in fact he so his character in this is called Sergeant Cafican. He sees Sergeant Coffee Pot. So nominative determinism in his two, John Connery. He's the man, the man with the coffee pot.

Amazing. All sorts of foreshadowing there. Extraordinary. He's bought it, Sarge. Best death. I'm quite tempted by the resistance guy at the start. Because that actually, that's the reason why I slightly wondered how many times I'd seen this from the beginning because when that happened, I thought, blamie, I don't remember that.

And that's, you know, proper, brutal. Yeah. Yes, I know, I think I'd agree with that. Because there is this film's sort of ability to change tone and maintain tone and all that is, I think, really, really interesting. And that you do have, there is loads of light relief, but also there are deaths that are like, that make it clear what we're actually dealing with here. And I think that's, that's like the, I think that's a sort of calling card, isn't it,

that first? Yeah. Yeah, I'd buy that, yeah. It's a we're not mucking about. I mean, the other obvious one is the Omaha Beach engineer. Yes. Now, Duncan, have you looked him up? Yeah, very hard to get.

Very good details on this. One promoted by Cota, we're talking. Yes, yeah. It starts today as a sergeant whose wife has left him and ends today as a dead, dead lieutenant, probably with a medal or something. Unclearish, Joe. It's the kind of thing Cota would do. It's a very sort of inspiring leader running around the beach and, you know, 29 let's go and all this. But we don't, we don't, that's sort of a composite event, as it were.

Yeah, it is the kind of thing that's happening, though. You know, make no mistakes. You could put that in the film with that. And it's real enough, isn't it? Good luck, the best meme. I'm sure I have actually used hold until relieved. I think during the Brexit Wars, I was using that on Twitter quite a lot. lot.

But the other one I quite like is the soldiers missing each other at night when they're passing each other. Because that's actually one of the scenes that stayed with me since childhood. I mean, if only that stuff weren't shot on a soundstage, it would just be like, it would be completely believable, I think. Those sort of night scenes are all a bit brightly lit and noisy, aren't they? You can hear they're in a, you can hear they're on a sound stage. And it's a thing in, you know, in Band of Brothers, they did do really, really well,

is that sort of people wandering around in chaos thing. But yes, or, I mean, the other one is the, is the Padre, you know, with his clicker. God damn it. God damn it, Padre. I just think that's really, really funny. That's like, that's a, that's also a good meme moment, isn't it? Shut up. You know, I love that.

It's really good. And I like that they use the Vickers for comic relief. Yes. Yes. And making the point that these guys were dropping too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Stiffest upper lip. Did we give it to John Howard?

I think, I mean, yeah. Well, I don't know. I think the Padre looking for his chasible or whatever it's called, you know, looking for his communion kit. Communion set. We must now do God's work, dear boy, whatever it is. Yeah, I mean, as you say, they were dropping in his world. So clearly these blokes are, these have hardest nails vickers.

Which is always a fascinating contrast, isn't it? They're men of the cloth, but it's extremely tough cloth that they're cut from. So, yeah, maybe. Or, yeah, there are many stiff upper lips, though, aren't there? Yes, yeah. I mean, obviously, on Omaha Beach, everyone has sort of got a stiff upper lip. I don't know that Americans have ever really quite mastered. I always think, sort of the stiffest upper lip in the whole operation.

And also at Arnhem, I think it's the glider pilots. And that's just, you know, you're flying this rickety machine. You're aiming for a crash landing because it's a crash landing only. That's how these things do. And then once you've crashed it, you're picking up a rifle and fighting as an infantryman. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, that is quite extraordinary, actually. It's a fairly short straw. And they were volunteers. So, you know. Nasty is Nazi. It's one of those, were the Germans so bad type of, so. Yeah. Which I guess comes from the book and the fact that Ryan's interviewed all sides and that their line is, look, this is a military thing.

And, you know, we were on different sides and now we're, you know, now we're all on the same side in NATO and, you know, that's sort of the context. Yes, there is an absence of nasty Nazis, which is peculiar, isn't it? And certainly all the people who are generals are going, there's a bit of that if only the if only the Bureau would listen about it. Yes. I always think it's a very peculiar thing to dig into. But yes, there's no one saying, you know, going, kills them. There's no one doing that. Yeah, you know, it does completely buy the idea that, yeah,

that it was Hitler's sleeping pill was what cost them all. It's kind of the myth of Rommel and... Yeah. Yes, there's a bit of that going on. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Which is, you know, in late 50s, early 60s, it's absolutely what there was floating about. Yeah.

I mean, I struggled a bit on best lines. I did have some. Hang on. It's not a hugely quotable film. No, I mean, I quite like the Lord Lovett. We have another engagement with the war when they've done a time to drink champagne sort of thing, liberate the town. I quite like, who is it, James Gavin, 82nd Airborne, Robert Ryan.

You know, when we're in Normandy, you'll have two things, God and this, holding up his rifle. Yes. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. And I suppose, Burton's saying, you know, the thing that's worried me about being one of the few

as we keep on getting fewer. Yeah, that was my top line. Yeah. The film needs more Lord Levert. It's just a wonderful... Well, bagpipes. Yeah. I just...

Not enough bagpipes in combat. And that is Bill Millen, playing Bill Millen, isn't it? Oh, is it? No, I'm not sure it is. Is it not? It's widely believed to be, but I think, in fact, it's the Queens Piper or something. Oh.

I saw some back and forth on this. I was convinced it was. Okay. Right. Well, that's interesting. But we've done, Broad Sword Radio, completely implausible moments. There aren't, there's sort of, there's bits of this that don't sit quite right. But there is none of it that you think, well, it's sort of helped.

That just didn't happen. You know, it's almost a dokey drama. style adaption of a non-fiction book, isn't it? I mean, it's not... There's bits and pieces you can quiver with, but the overall picture, I think, is not bad at all. Judgment at Nuremberg? Well, I mean, interestingly,

for there being no evil Nazis or bad Nazis in it, the fact that you do see American soldiers kill men who are surrendering. Yeah. It's pretty striking, actually. I wonder what bitter bit of means. Yeah, yeah.

And it's sort of presented as you know, tough cheese rather than anything else, I think. You know what I mean? It's not presented as a war crime, but it is presented as a mistake and a heat of battle thing. But it's very,

I think that's such an interesting moment to include in a film. Because what is the, why are you making this film? Is it to say, we must all pull together when faced with adversity or the war's over now,

we can all get over it. Because the tone towards the Germans is very much that 60s like. Yeah. Howells now, you know, let bygones be bygones sort of thing. And tales of heroism, you know, it's a peculiar artifact in that respect. Because it's not saying we must defeat tyranny wherever we find it. It's kind of like, well, we've got to do an invasion.

Germans are sort of ridiculous. It's very peculiar in that regard. So to have that scene in that, I think, is really, really interesting. It's interesting choice. Yeah. Well, I mean, so in Band of Brothers, there is what we think is a, prisoner's execution moment. It's never quite...

With spears, yeah. Yeah, it's never quite clear whether that's happened or not. Yeah, and as you say, in saving private run, and part of this, you just think, well, look, it's a combat zone and, you know, you don't want to sneak up

behind a man with a gun, you know, because he'll shoot you. Which is sort of how it's presented here. It's not that they, it's not a deliberate act. It's a kind of, oh, oh, bang, bang, you know. Yeah. But it is the kind of thing, Phil Shiner, would have come at you, you know, 10 years ago.

You know what I mean? It's the sort of thing now we would go, hold on a minute, is that not a war crime? Yeah. But it's in a film in the 60s where it's sort of presented as a mishap and with some kind of humor in it. It's just that it's depicted at all, I find really, really interesting. But it is a thing that's happened since time in memorial.

And after all, those bloke's in that bunker were up to that point trying to kill you. Yes. How you're supposed to uncouple yourself from that? I don't know. It's amazing that it ever works at all, actually. You think that a bit in Weistram when they all suddenly surrender. And it's like you think, well, blimey, you know, if I was surrendering at that point, I wouldn't be completely convinced, given what I've just been doing to these boys,

that I was going to live to see the end of the day. Yeah, exactly. Duncan, is this the operation that changed the course of World War II? I mean, it's got a fairer. I claim the most be stolen of Ed, isn't it? I think you can argue. Although I would say it is the operation that is the course of World War II. Yes.

Right. Yeah. I mean, this is slightly the Phillips O'Brien argument, isn't it? It's only going one way and the way it's going. And also, I mean, when you delve into it, there's only one place that where all that, es is Normandy, what's past it? All that, of course is Normandy. There's nowhere else you can go.

You can't fit that many ships into the Padacale. That would be much more difficult. And you need fight to cover. It's obviously, you know, come on, you're coffee-potted Germans, figure it out. Yes, it's Phillips argument. This is the operation that is the course of the Second World War. But it certainly changes the course of it. There's no doubt about that.

Yes. If you don't do it, you're going to have to do it. Yes, exactly. Worth dying for. I mean, we love this film, don't we? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is the thing. I hadn't watched it in a really long time,

and I found it, I enjoyed it far more than I thought I was going to. I think the end where the rousing choral thing of the longest, that's like service time and ghastly and corny that I think maybe it's the aftertaste of that rather than the film itself. There is this weird thing in Hollywood in the late 50s, early 60s, where every film has to have a song. and somebody has to sing some words to the theme tune. Yes. And I'm very glad that they've stopped doing that.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But yeah, I think it's great. I think it's well worth it. I think it stands up. Yeah, completely. I mean, you won a lot of Oscars, didn't it?

Ooh, good question, actually. What did it win? So it wins. It's nominated for Best Picture. It wins best in photography. It's nominated for editing and it wins special effects. That means special effects doesn't really count, does it?

But I think, you know, the Academy was right to nominate it for Best Picture. It's a very, very good film. Apparently, the Weistram Assault took eight takes to get it right. There's some suggestion in one of the books I read that several of the directors tried. It's a helicopter they use. I was just sitting there thinking, how are you doing this? But it is a helicopter. Yeah, it's a helicopter, and it was a British director who managed to nail it.

Wow. Wow. Wow. But, yes, you know, and that's special effects, because those explosions, you know, are not painted on afterwards and so on. No, no, no, like it would be today, yeah. Yeah. God, brilliant.

No, so actually I really, I, too, really enjoyed this film. Probably much more than I thought I would, actually. You're right. You're right. And, I mean, we are, as I say, going to turn to saving Private Ryan, but I think I would offer this as a D-Day movie over Saving Private Ryan, actually. Well, if you want to know what happened on D-Day, Yes.

Yeah. You know, and it's not, there's, there's no scene with American sloping around going, that manny's no good. He'll put money in charge. You know, there's none of that weirdly injected stuff because people weren't saying that at the time and they certainly, and they weren't saying it 20 years later even. You know, even though Monty by this point had written his memoir and upset Ike, but, you know, it wasn't a, wasn't a thing.

And I think it's good, it's good refreshing that that's not in it. just mentioning Ike, isn't it? Didn't they ask Ike to be in the film? They consider getting Ike to play Ike, and they realize that they can't make up Ike to look 20 years, to look like Ike 20 years. A problem that didn't bother them with John Wayne, who is not convincingly playing a man in his late 20s or early 30s. The bounds of reality. Wow. Amazing. Well, that was the longest day.

Thank you, Al. My pleasure. Thanks for having me, gents. And thank you, Duncan. Thank you. That was War Movie Theatre. Thanks for listening. And join us next week where we'll be stealthy and secretive with Tim Shipman watching Where Eagles Dare.