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The Longest Day is an epic portrayal of the D-Day landings from American, British, French, and German perspectives. A star-studded cast including John Wayne, Sean Connery, and Henry Fonda brought the historic event to life. Directed by three filmmakers, the film balances historical accuracy with personal accounts for a captivating experience.

John Wayne, Sean Connery, and Henry Fonda headlined an all-star ensemble cast in The Longest Day, one of the greatest cinematic portrayals of the D-Day landings. The Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, was the largest seaborne invasion in history. Since then, filmmakers have been trying to recreate the visceral terror of D-Day on the big screen. The D-Day landings were chronicled in Budd Boettichers Red Ball Express in 1952, Arthur Hillers The Americanization of Emily in 1964, Samuel Fullers The Big Red One in 1980, and, of course, Steven Spielbergs Saving Private Ryan in 1998.

But those movies usually depict the Normandy...

Fritz Wepper, the German actor who portrayed the German Jew Fritz Wendel in Bob Fosse’s Oscar-winning musical masterpiece Cabaret and starred in his home country on the TV series Derrick and For Heaven’s Sake, has died. He was 82.

Wepper died Monday in a Munich hospice after a long illness that followed the life-threatening sepsis he suffered last year, his family announced.

An actor since childhood, Wepper landed the biggest international role of his career in Cabaret (1972), where he appeared alongside Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem and Joel Grey. As Wendel, he passed as a Protestant and fell in love with wealthy Jewish heiress Natalia Landauer (Marisa Berenson).

After the film’s success — it raked in eight Oscars in 1973 — Wepper turned down Hollywood offers and instead took a sidekick role as Harry Klein on the new German crime series Derrick, playing alongside Horst Tappert‘s titular homicide detective, a...

The most striking aspect of the commemorative events marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings on 6 June 2019 was the testimony of the veterans who participated in the conflict and who spoke eloquently and movingly about the events of 6 June 1944.

These interviews should be compulsory viewing so people understand the courage and sacrifice of a generation of men and women who displayed the “unconquerable resolve” the Queen spoke about during her speech in Portsmouth.

The film world has, of course, brought us many depictions of the Normandy landings and the subsequent battles. You will find a number of those titles in this list of the 20 greatest Second World War films.

These 20 movies only scratch the surface of the countless number made about the momentous event, but remind us of the horrors and sacrifices made during the devastating global conflict.

Scroll through the gallery below to see the 20 greatest war films:...

Sometimes it’s like they read your mind—or just notice upcoming releases as you do. Whatever the case, I’m thrilled that the release of Terence Davies’ Benediction played (I assume!) some part in a full retro on the Criterion Channel this June, sad as I know that package will make me and anybody else who comes within ten feet of it. It’s among a handful of career retrospectives: they’ve also set a 12-film Judy Garland series populated by Berkeley and Minnelli, ten from Ulrike Ottinger, and four by Billy Wilder. But maybe their most adventurous idea in some time is a huge microbudget collection ranging from Ulmer’s Detour to Joel Potrykus’ Buzzard, fellow success stories—Nolan, Linklater, Jarmusch, Jia Zhangke—spread about.

Criterion Editions continue with Bertrand Tavernier’s Round Midnight, Double Indemnity, and Seconds, while Chameleon Street, Karen Dalton: In My Own Time,...

When they dig it up, what will they find? Fans will want to see this forgotten Deutsch-noir masterpiece. Helmut Käutner’s tale of trouble on an American air base in West Germany is a swirl of romantic, political and criminal complications — all down & dirty. A tiny burg that serves as a brothel for U.S. airmen attracts displaced women and dispirited men willing to do what’s necessary to survive. We’ve seem nothing quite like this riveting drama — its sixty-year absence carries a taint of political ‘inconvenience.’ If you like challenging fare like Ace in the Hole and Try and Get Me! you’re going to love it. Both censored and uncensored versions have been restored in excellent quality.

Black Gravel

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1961 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 114, 113 min. / Street Date September 1, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Helmut Wildt, Ingmar Zeisberg, Hans Cossy, Wolfgang Büttner, Anita Höfer, Heinrich Trimbur,...

Marlon Brando had few if any hits in the 1960s, but this wartime spy picture is a not-bad thriller with some tense moments. Both Brando and Yul Brynner have been blackmailed into a risky mission as spy and sea captain; they’re more than a little disillusioned to find themselves transporting a boatload of Nazis and political prisoners headed back to Germany. Persecuted victim Janet Margolin is beyond caring — she’s a victim on a voyage of the damned.

Morituri

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1965 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 123 min. / The Saboteur, Code Name Morituri / Street Date May 21, 2019 / Available from Twilight Time Movies / 29.95

Starring: Marlon Brando, Yul Brynner, Janet Margolin, Trevor Howard, Martin Benrath, Hans Christian Blech, Wally Cox, William Redfield.

Cinematography: Conrad Hall

Original Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Written by Daniel Taradash from a novel by Werner Jörg Lüddecke

Produced by Aaron Rosenberg

Directed by Bernhard Wicki

The dark, dank, morally murky...

(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you're watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there's the following: Peter H. Hunt's 1776 (1972), a largely forgotten film musical based on the Broadway hit with music by Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, who was recently on TCM talking about 1776 and a couple of other movies (A Thousand Clowns, Dodsworth), has one of the key roles as John Adams. Howard Da Silva, blacklisted for over a decade after being named a communist during the House Un-American Committee hearings of the early 1950s (Robert Taylor was one who mentioned him in his testimony), plays Benjamin Franklin. Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, a role he would reprise in John Huston's 1976 short Independence. (In the short, Pat Hingle was cast as John Adams; Eli Wallach was Benjamin Franklin.) Warner...

Pablo Larraín (Courtesy: Andrew Cowie/Afp)

By: Carson Blackwelder

Managing Editor

There’s one director this year that has a chance at being a major crossover success by having two separate films nominated in both the best picture and best foreign language film categories: Pablo Larraín. This filmmaker has Jackie as well as Neruda and could join an elite group of directors who been able to have films — or even one film — in both of these major categories.

Jackie, which stars Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is considered a frontrunner in the Oscars race this year by this site’s namesake, The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg. Neruda, which follows an inspector who hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, is Chile’s submission for best foreign language film this year and is considered a major threat in that contest. This would be a great feat — especially for someone who,...

or, Savant picks The Most Impressive Discs of 2015

This is the actual view from Savant Central, looking due North.

What a year! I was able to take one very nice trip back East too see Washington D.C. for the first time, or at least as much as two days' walking in the hot sun and then cool rain would allow. Back home in Los Angeles, we've had a year of extreme drought -- my lawn is looking patriotically ratty -- and we're expecting something called El Niño, that's supposed to be just shy of Old-Testament build-me-an-ark intensity. We withstood heat waves like those in Day the Earth Caught Fire, and now we'll get the storms part. This has been a wild year for DVD Savant, which is still a little unsettled. DVDtalk has been very patient and generous, and so have Stuart Galbraith & Joe Dante; so far everything...

Germany’s Burhan Qurbani wins best director prize for We Are Strong. We Are Young.

Gábor Reisz’s slacker comedy For Some Inexplicable Reason won the Grand Prix winner at the 6th edition of the Voices festival for young European cinema in the Russian provincial town of Vologda on Sunday evening (July 5).

Reisz’s debut had its world premiere in the East of the West competition at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival last year and is handled internationally by Alpha Violet.

The award was the film’s ninth trophy after prizes at festivals in Turin and Sofia, among others.

Speaking to ScreenDaily in Vologda, Reisz said that his film’s lead actor - fellow directing student Áron Ferenczik - had been overhelmed by the attention given to him for his acting turn as the slacker Áron, but is now preparing to direct a TV movie.

Reisz, meanwhile, is participating in the Cinéfondation residency in Paris and will...

In today's roundup of news and views: Charles Mudede on John Sayles's The Brother from Another Planet, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn's list of top ten Criterion releases, Terrence Rafferty on Bernhard Wicki’s The Bridge, Mike D'Angelo on John Ford and Native Americans, Philippa Snow on Ana Lily Armirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin, Patrick Wang on Lisa Joyce's performance in Jonathan Demme's A Master Builder, Kevin Hatch on Bruce Conner, Ryan Gilbey on Wim Wenders, interviews with Jia Zhangke, Hannah Gross and Deragh Campbell—and more. » - David Hudson...

In today's roundup of news and views: Charles Mudede on John Sayles's The Brother from Another Planet, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn's list of top ten Criterion releases, Terrence Rafferty on Bernhard Wicki’s The Bridge, Mike D'Angelo on John Ford and Native Americans, Philippa Snow on Ana Lily Armirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin, Patrick Wang on Lisa Joyce's performance in Jonathan Demme's A Master Builder, Kevin Hatch on Bruce Conner, Ryan Gilbey on Wim Wenders, interviews with Jia Zhangke, Hannah Gross and Deragh Campbell—and more. » - David Hudson...

Criterion releases actor turned director Bernhard Wicki’s feature film debut The Bridge for the very first time on Region 1. Though he directed a mid-length film the year before, Why Are They Against Us?, it would be his next project, arriving in 1959, that would come to be known as the first anti-war film to come out of Germany, as well as the nation’s first post-war film to reach international recognition and critical acclaim. It would go on to win the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in the Us, and it secured an Academy Award Nomination in the same category (losing out to Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus).

The title paved the way for a short-lived English language career for Wicki, but more importantly, stood as the platform upon which the burgeoning New German Cinema auteurs would proliferate, precipitating Volker Schlondorff’s own 1966 debut, Young Torless, a much darker...

The late 1950s were a time of seismic upheaval and innovation in world cinema. In France, Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol and Jean-Luc Godard were backing up their boisterous critical rhetoric by placing themselves behind the camera and making movies the way they believed they should be made. English filmmakers were developing the kitchen-sink realism style featuring a lineup of angry young men. Ingmar Bergman brought Scandinavian cinema to global prominence, Italian film boasted the emerging talents of Fellini and Antonioni, and Japan unleashed an exuberant new generation of directors like Suzuki, Kobayashi and others who came out of the agitated rebellion of the Sun Tribe movement. Even India could put forth a prodigious genius like Satyajit Ray to introduce cinephiles from around the world to a culture that was ready to transcend the stereotypes and mystification that its recent colonial past had distorted. Among all the nations that could lay...

Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...

A retrospective of work by the Polish cinematographer, who worked with Polanski and Haneke, to screen at the festival.

Camerimage, the cinematography festival held in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, is to pay tribute to the late Jerzy Lipman with a retrospective of his work.

Films shot by the Polish cinematographer will be screened as part of Camerimage’s Remembering the Masters series throughout the 22nd edition of the festival (Nov 15-22).

Included in the series will be Kanal (1957), Knife in the Water (1962), A Generation (1955), The Ashes (1965) and Colonel Wolodyjowski (1969).

Lipman, who died in 1983, is considered one of the most eminent cinematographers in Polish cinema history and is a co-originator of the Polish Film School movement.

Lipman endured occupation and imprisonment during the Second World War before he became a celebrated filmmaker. After his release in 1948, he joined the Cinematography Department of the National Film School in Łódź and graduated in 1952.

As a student, he was the...

German director Rick Ostermann has won the Munich Film Festival’s acclaimed The Bridge prize for his debut film, Wolfskinder. The period drama is set in 1946 and follows a group of war orphans struggling to survive in the wreckage of post-World War II Europe. Ostermann will be honored at a gala ceremony in Munich on July 3. Story: Oscar Winner Susanne Bier Wins Munich Film Festival's Bernhard Wicki Prize Previous winners of The Bridge prize include Danish director Susanne Bier for her Oscar-winning feature In A Better World and fellow Oscar-winner Heckel von Donnersmarck for The Lives

read more...

Review by Sam Moffitt

With Memorial Day, Fourth of July and most importantly, another June 6th, (the 70th anniversary of the landing in Normandy called Operation Overlord but always referred to as D-Day) approaching, I thought it appropriate to shine a light on one of the greatest war movies ever made, if not the greatest, which details the invasion of Europe, step by step; Darryl F Zanuck’s super production The Longest Day.

Firstly I have to say, as I’ve said before, I am against war, being a practicing Nicheren Buddhist , a member of the Soka Gakkai International, I do not believe war is necessary. But even before taking up the practice of Buddhism I have questioned every war the United States has become involved in since Vietnam. Yet I also served four years in the Us Navy, in peacetime, true, but I did serve my time and was honorably discharged.

La Notte (1961) is the first film from Michelangelo Antonioni I've seen more than once. Outside of L'Eclisse and The Passenger, I've seen all of what I presume most would call his "classics" -- L'Avventura, Il Grido, Red Desert and Blow-Up -- though I'm no Antonioni scholar as much as I am a fan. His works aren't immediately approachable and must be left to their own devices, to reveal their secrets at their own pace and under those circumstances La Notte delivers a smashing finale. Explained simply, this is a story of a man and his wife (Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau) who appear to have fallen out of love with one another. Taking place over the course of less than 24 hours very little happens in this film in the way of "action" as so much of what is actually going on is taking place inside the heads of the film's two leads.

(Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961; Eureka!, 12)

Cinematic trilogies have been all the rage since Pagnol's in the early 30s. But possibly the most influential was the trio that made Antonioni's beautiful, sceptical, ironic muse Monica Vitti the art house pin-up of the 1960s and created a new Italian cinema – cool, oblique, Marxist – to succeed neorealism. It began with L'Avventura, roundly booed at Cannes in 1960 by critics who thought it obscure, and concluded in 1962 with L'Eclisse, which some thought too explicit. Antonioni never made anything better than La Notte, the centrepiece of the trilogy, superbly shot in black and white by Gianni Di Venanzo, the key cinematographer of his time.

Set during a single day and night in a Milan where steel and glass skyscrapers are going up and old buildings being pulled down, it opens with a disillusioned novelist (Marcello Mastroianni) and his embittered wife (Jeanne Moreau) visiting their dying friend, a leftwing...

Mumbai, May 11: Director Mira Nair will receive German Film Award for Peace, The Bridge 2013, for her movie "The Reluctant Fundamentalist".

The 55-year-old will be honoured with the award July 4 at Cuvilliés Theatre, Munich for outstanding film and direction,said a statement.

The Prime Minister of Bavaria, the Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund and the Umbrella Organization of the German Film Industry will also be the part of the gala.

In the invitation letter, Elisabeth Wicki Endriss, the founder of the Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund, wrote: "'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' is an exquisite example for a high-class.

New Delhi, May 11: Internationally acclaimed director Mira Nair will be felicitated with the prestigious German Film Award for Peace - The Bridge 2013 for her upcoming film 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist'.

Nair will be conferred with the award on July 4, 2013 for an outstanding film and the direction.

The ceremony of the international film award for peace will take place at the Cuvillies Theatre, Munich.

The Prime Minister of Bavaria, the Bernhard Wicki Memorial Fund and the Umbrella Organization of the German Film Industry will also attend the event.

In the invitation letter, Elisabeth Wicki Endriss, the founder.

Article by Dan Clark of Movie Revolt

Well it’s that time again, time for another installment of Streaming for Your Pleasure. With Memorial Day weekend upon us America is about to officially start the summer. Barbeques, beers, and beaches will surely take up much of our time this weekend, however let us not forget the purpose behind this day as we celebrate the glory that is a three day weekend. In all seriousness it is a time to honor our Veterans and current soldiers for the remarkable sacrifices they make. No matter what political stance you may take I feel that is one thing we can all get behind. With that in mind I dedicated this installment to all things military as I look at military centric films currently available on Netflix Streaming.

The Longest Day

Directed By: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, and Darryl F. Zanuck

Written...

The 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival has unveiled another spectacular lineup of special guests and events for this year’s four-day gathering in Hollywood. Among the newly announced participants for this year’s festival are five-time Emmy® winner Dick Van Dyke, Oscar® winner Shirley Jones, two-time Golden Globe® winner Angie Dickinson, six-time Golden Globe nominee Robert Wagner, seven-time Oscar nominee Norman Jewison, longtime producer A.C. Lyles and three-time Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker. In addition, the festival will feature a special three-film tribute to director/choreographer Stanley Donen, who will be on-hand for the celebration.

As part of its overall Style and the Movies theme, the festival has added several films featuring the work of pioneering costume designer Travis Banton. Oscar-nominated costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis will introduce the six-movie slate, with actress and former Essentials co-host Rose McGowan joining her for one of the screenings.

Other festival additions include a screening...

Eiji Okada, Emmanuelle Riva in DGA (but not Oscar) nominee Alain Resnais' Hiroshima, mon amour (top); Melina Mercouri, Jules Dassin in Dassin's Oscar- (but not DGA-) nominated Never on Sunday (bottom) DGA Awards vs. Academy Awards 1953-1959: Odd Men Out Jack Clayton, David Lean, Stanley Donen 1960 DGA (14)Vincente Minnelli, Bells Are RingingWalter Lang, Can-CanDelbert Mann, The Dark at the Top of the StairsRichard Brooks, Elmer GantryAlain Resnais, Hiroshima, mon amourVincente Minnelli, Home from the HillCarol Reed, Our Man in HavanaCharles Walters, Please Don't Eat the DaisiesLewis Gilbert, Sink the Bismarck!Vincent J. Donehue, Sunrise at Campobello AMPASJules Dassin, Never on Sunday DGA/AMPASBilly Wilder, The ApartmentJack Cardiff, Sons and LoversAlfred Hitchcock, PsychoFred Zinnemann, The Sundowners   1961 DGA (21)Robert Stevenson, The Absent Minded ProfessorBlake Edwards, Breakfast at Tiffany'sWilliam Wyler, The Children's HourAnthony Mann, El CidJoshua Logan, FannyHenry Koster, Flower Drum SongRobert Mulligan, The Great ImpostorPhilip Leacock, Hand in HandJack Clayton,...

From the invention of horror under the Weimar republic to recent re-examinations of the second world war, German cinema has an amazingly creative history

German cinema got off to a fantastic start straight after the first world war, as the liberal atmosphere of the Weimar republic triggered an explosion across all creative disciplines. Film-makers responded by appropriating the techniques of expressionist painting and theatre, incorporating them into twisted tales of madness and terror – thereby virtually inventing what would become known as the horror film. With its angled, distorted set designs, tortured eye-rolling, and layers of dreams and visions, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) is generally acknowledged as a landmark of international cinema, not just Germany's own. Two years later came an equally groundbreaking film, Nosferatu – an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula that enshrined some of the creepiest cinema images ever recorded.

They also marked the beginning of...

Cologne, Germany -- Two of Europe's most distinctive female film talents, German actress Sibel Kekilli and Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic, will be honored with the top two awards at this year's Munich Film Festival.

Kekilli takes Munich's best actress prize for her comeback role in Feo Aladag's "When We Leave," where she plays a Muslim woman rejected by her family after she defies her abusive husband. Kekilli's performance has already earned her honors in Tribeca and at this year's German Film Awards, where she took the best actress nod.

Zbanic's latest, "On the Path," has won Munich's top prize, the Bernhard Wicki Award. The film also focuses on the plight of a woman struggling with her Muslim heritage. In this case it is an urbanite Bosnian whose husband embraces Islamic fundamentalism.

In case anyone didn't get Munich's feminist message, the festival will also give a special, honorary award to Iranian filmmaker Shirin Neshat,...

Russian director Valeriya Gai Germanika’s “Everybody Dies But Me” picked up the CineVision Award at the 25th edition of the Munich Film Festival. The coming-of-age drama follows three teenagers as they gear up for a party held at their high school.

The Young German Cinema Award for best director went to Timo Müller for “Morscholz,” a drama that follows the lives of seven people in a small German town. Heiko Martens was named best screenwriter for “Narrenspiel,” while Markus Tomczyk won best actor for his role in “Braams.” Susanne Wolff won best actress for “Das Fremde in Mir.”

The Arri-Zeiss Award, the festival’s new prize, went to Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorra,” a look at crime families operating out of Naples. The film also won the grand prize at Cannes last month.

Julie Christie received this year’s CineMerit Award, a prize honoring outstanding personalities in the international film community.

COLOGNE, Germany -- "The Anarchist's Wife", Peter Sehr and Marie Noelle's period drama starring Maria Valverde and Juan Diego Botto, has won the Munich Film Festival's Bernhard Wicki Prize.

The award, dubbed the Bridge in honor of Wicki's 1959 anti-war epic of the same name, comes with a grant of €10,000 ($15,600).

"Wife" is the story of a 1930s couple torn apart by the Spanish civil war. Manuela (Valverde) is left behind when her husband, Justo (Botto), is arrested for fighting the Franco regime and sent to a concentration camp.

The prize will be presented Thursday at a gala ceremony in Munich.

The festival runs through Saturday.

COLOGNE, Germany -- Nick Broomfield's "Battle for Haditha", a dramatic re-enactment of a real-life massacre of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines, was the surprise winner of this year's Emden-Norderney film festival, taking the Bernhard Wicki prize for best film and the DGB Film prize for work that engages with social or political issues.

"Haditha" beat out Anand Tucker's family drama "And When Did You Last See Your Father?" for the top prize.

Kinowelt has acquired "Haditha" for German release.

MUNICH -- Germany's No. 2 film festival, the Munich FilmFest, wrapped up Saturday with the traditional array of awards honoring excellence in international cinema. Marceline Loridan-Ivens won the Bernhard Wicki Bridge prize for "The Birch Tree Meadow", a semi-autobiographical film in which a holocaust survivor returns to the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp 60 years afterward. The award, set up last year by Elisabeth Wicki-Endriss, the widow of legendary German director Bernhard Wicki, honors filmmakers who use their work to "build bridges" between cultures.