Word: zanucks
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...Longest Day. General Zanuck's war games are played off like cops and robbers. With 42 stars and a musical score by Ludwig van Beethoven and Paul Anka to inspire them, Zanuck's troops have a splendid time on D-day outfoxing those funny old Germans. Day is three hours long, and while it is never boring, it is basically an episodic documentary that sometimes has the bad taste to say: war is swell...
Ever since capturing 20th Century-Fox from the cold grip of Wall Street last summer, President Darryl F. Zanuck had been holed up in his Manhattan bunker, coldly sniping at Cleopatra. Then, armed with the excellent argument that any unfinished movie that has cost its studio $35 million must be a scandal, Zanuck moved into Paris for close combat with Writer-Director Joseph Mankiewicz. Last week the generalissimo took careful aim, picked Mankiewicz off, and flew home with Cleopatra under his arm. Having made a career of making others dance to his martial music, he was scarcely prepared...
...Longest Day. General Zanuck's war games are played off like cops and robbers. With 42 stars and a musical score by Ludwig van Beethoven and Paul Anka to inspire them, Zanuck's troops have a splendid time on D-day outfoxing those funny old Germans, dodging bullets (even the casualties are bloodless), and scaring old ladies. Day is three hours long, and while it is never boring, it is basically an episodic documentary that sometimes has the bad taste to say: war is swell...
...strength of his achievement, however, Zanuck is unlikely to become President of the United States-and perhaps may not even survive as president of his studio. The Longest Day cost $10 million to put in the can, more than any black-and-white picture ever produced, and Fox is by no means certain to get all its money back. Not that the picture is a clinker. As Hollywood epics go, it goes well enough. It is long (3 hrs.), but it is never boring. Some of the skirmishes that flare up in the darkness make mighty exciting cinema. Some...
Then what is wrong with The Longest Day? Plenty. Too many of the lines just lie there. Too many of the actors just stand there. Too much of the direction ("I ended up directing about 65% of the picture myself," Zanuck says) has no direction. Furthermore, the film is technically crude. In one crucial sequence the process shots are so badly matched that the mighty invasion fleet looks like a silly flotilla of peanut shells in a puddle. Worse yet. the film is confusing, and war's natural confusion is compounded. For want of legible maps, for want...