Overlord (1975)
Runtime: 83 minutes
Directed by: Stuart Cooper
Starring: Brian Sterner, Davyd Harries, Nicholas Ball, Julie Neesam, Sam Sewell
From: Joswend
No, do not confuse this with the movie from last year. The Invasion of Normandy was known as Operation Overlord so the only thing those two films have in common is that it's a fictional account of D-Day. This played on Turner Classic Movies last night for the 75th anniversary of D-Day; before that they played The Longest Day, which I've reviewed here before and it is still great.
TLD and Overloard are drastically different accounts of the same event. While the former covers it on a wide scale and involving many different sides and people, this is devoted to a single sad-sack soldier known as Tom. In this movie with arty flourishes, Tom is followed from his enlistment in the British Army until June 6, 1944. Things start off fine for him but as things progress, a foreboding dread builds and builds. He manages to meet a girl while on duty but that doesn't help matters and really, that character seemed to be an excuse for Tom to write and narrate a letter to later on.
The most impressive aspect of Overlord is that about half the movie is archival footage from World War II, and as everything is in black and white, everything is integrated together pretty well. Having John Alcott be the cinematographer was a big asset... after all, he collaborated w/ Kubrick three times and in fact won an Oscar for Barry Lyndon. The journey Overlord takes is a surreal one but the message still comes through: some soldiers had an unpleasant and harsh experience in the military even before they made it to Normandy. A haunting experience, this was.
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