It would have been even better if they hadn't cast faux-patriotic, All-American hack actor John Wayne.

Marion Morrison was in his mid-to-late fifties when the movie was being made. The character he played, Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin VanDerVoort was 36 on D-day.

They got so much else right in the film. It was a shame they had to lower themselves to casting that draft-dodging armchair warrior in a prominent role.

But like it or not, he was the biggest actor in Hollywood at the time.

Fortunately, the movie also has Henry Fonda and Eddie Albert in it, who were big lefties AND distinguished WW II vets. I imagine they probably had the same opinion of the Duke that we do.

Thanks for posting.

I really got caught up in it. I know very little about WWII so I don't know how factual the movie is, but I was on the edge of my seat through the whole thing.
Thank you.

Like any epic of that scale, it does mess up a lot of little details. But as to the various operations on that day and what they were all trying to achieve, it does a pretty good job depicting it.

My favorite scene is probably the glider infantry assault on the Pegasus Bridge, led by Major John Howard. Richard Todd, who plays Howard in this movie, served under Howard and actually participated in that operation.