The Long Day's Dying

The Long Day's Dying
Film poster
Directed by	Peter Collinson
Produced by	Michael Deeley Harry Fine
Screenplay by	Charles Wood Michael Deeley (uncredited) Peter Yates (uncredited)
Based on	Novel by Alan White
Starring	David Hemmings Tony Beckley Tom Bell Alan Dobie
Music by	Malcolm Lockyer
Cinematography	Ernest Day Brian Probyn
Edited by	John Trumper
Production company	Junction Films Limited
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release dates	28 May 1968 (1968-05-28)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£150,000-£200,000[1]

The Long Day's Dying is a 1968 British Techniscope war film directed by Peter Collinson and starring David Hemmings.^[2] It was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival,^[3] but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.

Plot

Three British paratroopers are cut off from their unit and are lost behind enemy lines. Sheltering in a deserted farmhouse, they are awaiting the return of their Sergeant who has ventured out in an attempt to locate their unit. The three soldiers are Tom, a world-weary cynical veteran, John, a middle-class educated thinker who despises war and Cliff, an eager soldier who loves his work. All three are highly trained professional killers who, regardless of their own personal thoughts, do not hesitate to perform their duties.

Two German soldiers approach the farmhouse and the paratroopers despatch them both. The second of the enemy attackers is stalked by the paratroopers who virtually toy with their victim before John kills him, finishing the man off up close, although the experience renders him sick. As the three men eat a meal, they are surprised and captured by a third German named Helmut, a paratrooper like themselves. The British soon turn the tables and capture Helmut but the latter, who speaks English, manages to manipulate his captors into keeping him alive. The group leave the house in search of their Sergeant whom they eventually find dead in the woods, his throat cut. The men continue on, trying to find their way back to Allied lines. They come across a farmhouse, where a trio of Germans are sheltering. The paratroopers cautiously approach and shoot them, only to find that the Germans are already dead.

After spending the night in the house, the group continues their walk back to the British lines, only to run into a German patrol. In the ensuing battle, all of the Germans are killed but Cliff is fatally wounded. John and Tom reach the frontline, taking their prisoner Helmut with them but nearby British troops mistake them all to be German and open fire, mortally wounding Tom. Both injured themselves, John and Helmut take cover in a muddy ditch. There, John decides to kill Helmut with a small skewer he has always carried with him. Delirious with exhaustion and trauma, John staggers into the open, yelling that he is a pacifist before the British troops open fire again, shooting him dead.

Cast

• David Hemmings as John
• Tony Beckley as Cliff
• Tom Bell as Tom Cooper
• Alan Dobie as Helmut

Critical reception

Renata Adler, reviewing the film's release in The New York Times in 1968, disliked it. "There are some excellent scenes....But the screenplay is unendurable. Smug, dimestore Existential....stale, self-important and tough...No characterization...One for the English antiwar cheapshot satire brigade".^[4]

Mark Connelly wrote (in 2003) of The Long Day's Dying. 'Critics hated the film, finding in it much the same faults as they identified in The Charge of the Light Brigade'. (Charles Wood wrote the screenplay for both films) 'They were confused by the fact that it was an anti-war film that celebrated some of the values of war and army life. Wood was showing, as he did in The Charge, that war has a complex hold over the minds and imaginations of humans. That although it is ultimately an awful, destructive, wasteful process, it has inspired men and motivated them intellectually and emotionally'.^[5]

Production

According to Michael Deeley, he and Peter Yates worked on the first draft of the script but were denied credit. He claims he gave Collinson the job partly to see if he was up to the task of directing The Italian Job (1969).^[1]

References

External links

• The Long Day's Dying at the Internet Movie Database
• The Long Day's Dying at AllMovie
• The Long Day's Dying at the TCM Movie Database