Christian Love Messages
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D-Day the Sixth of June (1956)
Robert Taylor portrays an American officer on the front lines of the massive Allied landing, whose special commando unit must destroy a key German gun position.
But for Capt. Parker (Taylor), the mission is also fraught with personal complications because he and his commander (Richard Todd) are in love with the same woman (Dana Wynter).
Featuring Edmond O’Brien, and building to a stirring climax on the beaches of Normandy, D-Day The Sixth Of June is a moving story of courage and sacrifice both on and off the battlefield.
D-Day is a misleading title for a very tame wartime romance with barely 10 minutes of combat in the last reel.
What we mostly get is a year’s worth of flashbacks depicting the reluctant, London-based affair of a married U.S. staff officer (Robert Taylor) and a British Red Cross worker (Dana Wynter) whose commando suitor (Richard Todd) is fighting in Africa.
To be sure, the emotional desperation and embattled decency of good people in time of war is as worthy of film treatment as any military campaign, and the script works preinvasion Anglo-American tensions into the story.
But the CinemaScope production is utterly formulaic, with leaden direction by Henry Koster. Wynter’s porcelain beauty apparently didn’t permit changes of expression, and Taylor looks about 15 years past his prime.