Le Jour le plus long [The Longest Day]
Paris, Laffont, (29 June) 1961.
1 vol. (155 x 240 mm) of 274 p. and [3] f. Paperback, illustrated cover.
A rare and early edition, in its first dust jacket – the layout was changed from 1963 onwards.
Signed by the author on the first leaf.
This is the first edition published when filming of the film had just begun in May 1961.
We apologize for the imperfect translation generated by Deepl for the purposes of the show.
The Irish-American journalist Cornelius Ryan, who was in France for the first filming, probably signed this copy at that time. The book had been published eight months earlier in France, by Robert Laffont.
Directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, Darryl F. Zanuck and Gerd Oswald – the latter solely for the parachute sequences -, the film adaptation was a huge success, including in France (11 million admissions). It remained the most expensive black and white film in cinema history until the release of Schindler’s List (in 1993).
The screenplay, based on the book by Ryan, is the work of Romain Gary, Erich Maria Remarque, James Jones, David Pursall, Jack Seddon and Noël Coward, with music by Maurice Jarre. The cast is a who’s who: Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner, Roddy McDowall, Paul Anka, Curd Jürgens, Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Bourvil, Madeleine Renaud, Pauline Carton, Georges Wilson, etc.
President Eisenhower was even a technical advisor on the film – and was supposed to play his own role. Daniel Gélin, meanwhile, was unable to play the part written for him in the scene specially written for him by Romain Gary due to a hunting accident; it should be noted that Gary contributed to almost all the French scenes in the script, mainly those relating to the Resistance.
The Longest Day was published in the United States in 1959 and in France at the end of 1960. It was originally due to be published in 1954 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Normandy landings, but the documents collected by Ryan, after 9 years of research with 49 war correspondents and more than 3,000 testimonies from soldiers (Allied and German), did not allow him to finish in time. It would take him four years of relentless work to document and write this account, which remains an iconic testimony of the end of the Second World War.
