D-Day's 80th anniversary recalls a vivid childhood memory.
My mother dropped my sister and me off at a theater in downtown Baton Rouge to watch "The Longest Day," a Hollywood extravaganza depicting the Allied invasion, based on Cornelius Ryan's pioneering book.
The film, released in 1962, featured a "galaxy of stars," ranging from John Wayne, Robert Ryan, Richard Burton, Henry Fonda, Peter Lawford and Robert Mitchum to Red Buttons, Eddie Albert, George Segal, Paul Anka and Fabian. Many just made cameo appearances.
I still remember sitting in the dark theater, eating my popcorn, transfixed by the luminous action on the screen.
In those days, parents thought nothing of letting their children go alone to the movie theater, the mall, the barbershop or the golf course.
The theater where my sister and I saw "The Longest Day" is long gone now, a victim of suburban multi-screen theaters.
Hollywood's dramatization of D-Day captured the mammoth scope of the invasion, and the heroism of individual soldiers.
It was one of the first movies I watched in a theater, opening an exciting world.
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