The Longest Day/Trivia

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• All-Star Cast: If you were an A-List male actor in Hollywood in 1962, you have at least a bit part in this film.
• Backed by the Pentagon: About 23.000(!) real US, British and French soldiers were used as extras in the movie. They also rented 2 Messerschmitts from the Spanish air force and 4 Spitfires from the Belgian air force.
• Cast the Expert: Richard Todd, who plays Major Howard of the British Airborne, was a British paratrooper during the war and actually took part in the D-Day landings — in fact, he was initially approached to play himself in the film.
• Dawson Casting: John Wayne as Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Vandervoort. The real Benjamin Vandervoort was 12 years younger than Wayne. He was actually just 27 during D-Day, when Wayne was 54 when the movie was filmed.
• Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • Besides the ones mentioned below, there's Red Buttons, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Eddie Albert, Paul Anka, Fabian, Robert Wagner, Richard Dawson...
  • Also cartoonist and comedian Loriot in an uncredited bit part as a German staff officer.
  • Two German actors were future James Bond villains:
    • Gert Fröbe -- best known for playing the title roll in Goldfinger -- as the German soldier who rides the donkey to the beach every morning.
    • Curd Jürgens (credited here as Curt Jürgens) -- who played Karl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me -- as Major General Gunther Blumentritt.
    • The first James Bond himself, Sean Connery, is one of the soldiers landing on the beach.
• Life Imitates Art: The code names given to some of the unnamed structures (like Pegasus Bridge) and the beaches (Utah, Omaha, Juno, Sword) are now known by those names.
• Throw It In: While clearing a section of the Normandy beach near Pointe du Hoc, the film crew found a tank used in the invasion. They cleaned it up and used it for the British Invasion scenes.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Christopher Lee, who fought in the War as an intelligence officer with the RAF, auditioned for any role he could get. He was turned down because the producers felt he didn't look like a military officer.
  • This was made just after Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidency and the producers very nearly cast Eisenhower to play himself. They abandoned the idea because he was too old, though.

• Engineers are seen removing explosives from the Orne Bridge. In reality they hadn't been placed in their slots when the gliders landed. Zanuck chose to ignore Howard's telling him this for the sake of drama.
  • However, a scene where German soldiers are seen running out of the cafe near that bridge wasn't done as one of the owners insisted vehemently she had never allowed Germans to sleep there.