![]() ![]() Sunday evening, Durning will appear at the National Memorial Day Concert to read a letter written by a 19-year-old American soldier describing the horror of that day. Those experiences, along with his familiar television presence, made him an ideal choice to take part in a Memorial Day event and two productions pegged to the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. During a spring visit to Washington, he discussed his experiences guardedly. In recent weeks, Durning has been unpacking his D-Day recollections. More than 70,000 men went ashore on D-Day, 15,000 of them to their deaths. The invasion of Omaha Beach was assigned to the United States' 1st Infantry Division, to which Durning belonged, and the untested 29th Division from Maryland and Virginia. Operation Overlord deployed the largest naval armada ever assembled: 6,000 ships in a fleet that stretched 20 miles wide carrying troops from the United States, Britain and Canada across the English Channel to five invasion sites at Normandy. Later, Durning found that his brother in the Navy also had been part of the landing. There are many horrifying secrets in the depths of our souls that we don't want anyone to know about." "I dropped into a void for almost a decade. "I'd like to have a decade of my life back," he said. A bullet in the chest finally ended his wartime duty.ĭurning endured four years of hospitalizations for his physical and psychological wounds. A few months after that, he was taken prisoner at the Battle of the Bulge, survived a massacre of other prisoners, then had to return to help identify the bodies. Later, he was stabbed eight times by another bayonet-wielding German teenager. But so were the German soldiers on the bluffs above, strafing the Normandy beach from concrete bunkers that are still there.ĭurning survived the invasion - he had to kill seven German gunners to do it - and suffered serious machine gun wounds to his right leg and shrapnel wounds over his body. He holds the Silver Star for valor and three Purple Hearts for wounds he suffered. They were so painful he's rarely unpacked them since.ĭurning is the only survivor of a unit that landed on Omaha Beach that June 6 in 1944. That said, with the annual debate over how accepting the Academy ought to be of genre films, I think Ricardo Montalbán should have been nominated and won for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.Charles Durning tucked away his D-Day memories 50 years ago. I easily prefer this film to that, but I think the voters got this one right. Emil Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman. Otherwise, the other numbers and the non-musical story sections between them, moved at the right pace.Īnyway, as I mentioned, I watched this partly for its Oscar nomination:ĪCTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE - Charles Durning-The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas ĭurning 's performance of "The Sidestep" is as delightful as it is unexpected. I don't think it was the song itself so much as the actual moves were so repetitive. After awhile, I got bored watching the guys' choreographed dancing. The only number I felt went on too long was "The Aggie Song". I hate questioning Dolly but I just can't get behind the incongruous insertion of that song here.īy and large, though, this is a fun musical. We're told by Jim Nabors that they got married. What's more, the movie immediately disregarded it anyway by having Burt shrug it off and carries her out to his truck. It's a beautiful song but it took me out of the movie. I was disappointed, though, by the gratuitous "I Will Always Love You" in the final scene. Their duet early in the film, "Sneakin' Around", was a Dolly original not found in the original stage production but fit in quite well, I felt. Burt and Dolly are terrific, especially when they're together. When I told a friend I was participating in two concurrent DVD Talk forum challenges (Romance/Musicals and Oscars) and looking for things that qualified for both, he immediately suggested this Charles Durning earned a nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. I would argue that line is this film's thesis. "I don't give a damn if folks want their ass tickled! I kinda like to think that that's what Heaven is all about." ![]()
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