Forgotten war film about D-Day that’s ‘more realistic than Saving Private Ryan’ | Films | Entertainment

A “moving” and largely forgotten 1970s film about the D-Day landings is hailed as “more realistic” than modern portrayals of the battle. Overlord (1975) focuses on the experiences of Thomas Beddows (Brian Stirner), a young British soldier from his call-up to the East Yorkshire Regiment, to basic training and being deployed to fight in the Allies’ historic amphibious invasion of German-occupied Normandy in June 1944 (known as Operation Overlord).

The film, directed and co-written by Stuart Cooper, interweaves real footage of the momentous military advance with sequences of Tom ruminating on his mortality and the horrors to come. Screenrant contributor Tommy Lethbridge said, whilst it doesn’t feature the kind of visceral immersion seen in the D-Day sequences of Steven Spielberg‘s iconic 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, Overlord is ultimately a more “authentic” depiction of the face-off between Allied and German troops.

This, he argued, is due to Overlord’s use of archival footage, as well as the incorporation of “extensive detail from real soldiers’ diaries, clips from British Army training missions”, as well as captured German footage, which gives the project “unrivalled authenticity”.

Fans have flocked to IMDb to shower the lesser-known war epic with praise, with one writing: “The archival footage which makes up much of the film’s most stunning imagery is meticulously chosen and edited; it frequently becomes Tom’s dreams and visions of the War as it unfolds, and for the viewer, it is a vision of what WWII was, seen from both German and British sides.

“Cooper so masterfully situates Tom, an everyman, in visions of the surrounding war, that by the end of this surprisingly short, yet incredibly rich film, the magnitude of the toll the war took on the individuals fighting it becomes overwhelmingly moving.”

Another wrote: “If you watched Saving Private Ryan, go and see this film too. It’s totally different, but it deals with the personal feelings of a private much better, no battle scenes, just the perfect backdrop about a normal soldier going off to war, knowing what will happen.”

A third said it’s “not your average war film”, adding: “There’s very little in the way of dramatised battle scenes as it shows one soldier’s path to one of the most important, pivotal battles of all time: his farewells with family, his journey to his unit, his training, his preparation for Overlord.

“No heroics, no jingoism, just the reality of what soldiers go through in becoming soldiers and how they handle the fact that eventually they’ll need to use this training in deadly earnest.”

A fourth said: “It’s a sad tale, one of the forgotten men in a conflict long ago, but its universality still stands strong.”

Overlord, which has a 15 certificate, is available to buy or rent on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.