LONGEST DAY, THE 225
and styles... it crumbles under its own epic intentions and lack of cohesion”
(Macdonald, 2004).
Reel History Versus Real History
To his credit, Darryl F. Zanuck sought to preserve the depth and breadth of Cor-
nelius Ryan’s sprawling history of D- Day while also striving for historical accu-
racy. Accordingly, Zanuck hired Ryan to adapt his own book to the screen and
also retained some two dozen military and technical advisors, most of them D- Day
veterans, to ensure that uniforms, weapons, and events were properly represented.
Nonetheless, a three- hour movie epic cannot be a cinematic history lesson; it also
has to have commercial appeal to recoup its enormous production costs. A nota-
ble concession to this prerogative is evident in the film’s casting of a plethora of
big- name movie stars: distracting but not historically invalid, except in the case of
John Wayne, who was absurdly miscast as Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort (1917–
1990), the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, 505th PIR - 82nd Airborne
Division at D- Day. Vandervoort was a compact, athletic man 27 years of age in
1944, whereas Wayne was a lumbering 6'4" and 55 years old in 1961: 28 years
older and much bigger than his real- life counterpart— a preposterous paratrooper.
Other bits of Hollywood win dow dressing involved the casting of teen idols Paul
Anka, Fabian Anthony Forte (aka Fabian), and Sal Mineo and the portrayal of
French Re sis tance fighter Janine Gille- Boitard (1907–2001) by Zanuck’s then-
mistress, French bombshell Irina Demick: 12 years younger in 1961 than Boitard
would have been in 1944 and far sexier, no doubt, in cleavage- revealing outfits
and a modishly styled hairdo unknown to the 1940s. As for historical inaccura-
cies, one involves the so- called Ruperts. The paradummy decoys used at Normandy
were not elaborate rubber figures and did not contain fireworks, as shown in the
movie; they were stuffed forms, crudely made out of burlap. Though the film’s ren-
dition of “Operation Deadstick,” the taking of Pegasus Bridge by British Glider
forces, is quite accurate, it does embellish the American airborne drop at Sainte-
Mère- Église for dramatic purposes. In real ity, very few paratroopers landed in the
town square, compared to the fairly large number in the movie, who are then
slaughtered. There was, indeed, a Pvt. John Steele, who ended up hanging off a
church roof. In the movie, Steel intently watches the battle below. The real Pvt.
Steele played dead in order to survive, and he dangled for two hours, not six. The
movie also shows paratroopers firing their weapons as they descended— not pos-
si ble, according to actual paratroopers. Another inaccuracy involves the scene
depicting the U.S. Army Ranger assault on Point de Hoc, which shows the Rangers
mounting the cliff face with grappling hooks, ropes, and ladders. In real ity, these
methods largely failed; most of the Rangers resorted to scaling the cliff face by free
climbing. The movie also depicts the big guns as never having been installed—
not true. They were installed, but the Germans removed them from their emplace-
ments to avoid Allied naval shelling and set them farther back, where they were
later found and taken out by the Rangers. The scene depicting nuns at Ouistreham
braving gunfire to nurse French commando casualties is another example of fic-
tional license; there was no nunnery at Ouistreham.