Ike: Countdown to D-Day

December 1943. Dwight D. Eisenhower has just been named Supreme Commander of the Allied forces, and he gives Winston Churchill an ultimatum: either he gets total control of every operation or he resigns. Churchill gives way, and Ike is left with a few months to plan the invasion of Nazi occupied Europe.

Don't expect a single battle scene. 'Ike: Countdown to D-Day' fights its war in smoky briefing rooms, where Eisenhower has to handle Montgomery's pride, Patton's loose talk to the press, de Gaulle's demands and casualty forecasts nobody wants to hear. Above all, there's the weather over the Channel, which will decide when the landings can go ahead.

Tom Selleck gave up his famous moustache and a fair bit of his hairline to play Eisenhower, and later admitted he wouldn't have cast himself in the part. James Remar is Omar Bradley, Timothy Bottoms plays chief of staff Walter Bedell Smith, Gerald McRaney shaved off his own moustache to play Patton and New Zealander Ian Mune is Churchill. Lionel Chetwynd wrote the script from Eisenhower's letters and diaries, Robert Harmon directed, and the whole thing was shot in New Zealand.

A&E aired it on 31 May 2004, Memorial Day in the US, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Its 5.5 million viewers made it the most watched programme in the channel's history until 'Flight 93' came along in January 2006. It earned six Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Made for Television Movie and one for Harmon's direction, and its average across the eight outlets collected on Movienco is 7.4 out of 10. More than two decades later, Brendan Fraser took on the same role in 'Pressure'.

• Drama
• History
• War
• World War II