Disease was a huge killer among railway workers, but so was brutality. The film originally made thirty million dollars over its three million dollar budget and was rereleased in theaters just after Lean and Spiegel's Lawrence of Arabia came out. Interested in advertising on the world's largest website dedicated to all things Britain? The Bridge of the River kwai It is a tourist attraction of Kanchanaburi. In early 1943, World War II British prisoners arrive by train at a Japanese prison camp in Burma. Bangkok - Kanchanaburi More info / Tickets. The Bridge On The River Kwai was the first of David Lean's five epic films and the third of six movies that he made with Alec Guinness. After Guinness was done with the scene, Lean said, "Now you can all fuck off and go home, you English actors. Nicholson spots the wire and brings it to Saito's attention. Nicholson advises Saito that the officers cannot be required to do manual labour according to the Geneva Convention. He'd just been through a costly divorce from actress Ann Todd. Only minor damage was inflicted. The young soldier from Suffolk was dispatched to work on the bridge over the River Kwai, one of the railway's most daunting engineering projects. A regiment of British prisoners arrives, whistling the Colonel Bogey March, under the command of Colonel Nicholson (Sir Alec Guinness). It was 425 feet long, 90 feet high, and cost $52,085 out of the film's $2 million budget. The Bridge on the River Kwai. The site's critical consensus reads, "This complex war epic asks hard questions, resists easy answers, and boasts career-defining work from star Alec Guinness and director David Lean. Forced labourers were labourers taken from the populations of Japan-conquered territories. The railway ran for 250 miles from Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma and is now known as the Death Railway. ", Warden fires a mortar, killing Shears and Joyce and fatally wounding Nicholson. Only he survives, though he is wounded. While Nicholson disapproves of acts of sabotage and other deliberate attempts to delay progress, Toosey encouraged this: termites were collected in large numbers to eat the wooden structures, and the concrete was badly mixed. Corrections? Madness!" So go the tragic final words of David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), a spectacular and deeply-moving WWII adventure film that still entertains and challenges over sixty years later. According to Columbia Pictures, they followed an all-new 4K digital restoration from the original negative with newly restored 5.1 audio. The Bridge on the River Kwai was a smash hit on release. THE HEAD OF COLUMBIA PICTURES FORCED LEAN TO ADD A LOVE SCENE. Nicholson desperately tries to keep Joyce from depressing the plunger, while Shears and Warden try to kill Nicholson. Guinness had appeared in Lean's Dickens films but had since made a name for himself doing goofy comedies like The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). Despite this, he won an Oscar and a Grammy. Lets examine the history behind the film and the men who made it. Both the wooden and the adjacent steel bridge were subjected to numerous air raids between January and June 1945. A train carrying important dignitaries and soldiers is scheduled to be the first to cross the bridge the following day, and Warden wants to destroy both. It was set up at the beginning of the Burma-Siams construction. Though he'd already earned five Oscar nominations (three for directing, two for adapting the Dickens novels) and would soon be widely celebrated for Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Doctor Zhivago (1965), at this stage, Lean was in trouble. By this time, the United States and its naval and industrial might had entered the war. Pay on the train. All but a small section of the route was built in dense, malarial jungles, in sweltering heat and monsoon rains. The movie has been included on the American Film Institutes list of best American films ever made. The film"s story was loosely based on a true World War II incident, and the real-life character of Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey. [56] Warren Buffett said it was his favorite movie. Saito leaves the officers standing all day in the intense heat. In fact, two bridges were built: a temporary wooden bridge and a permanent steel/concrete bridge a few months later. Nicholson yells for help, while attempting to stop Joyce from reaching the detonator. [46], On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 96% based on 93 reviews, with an average rating of 9.4/10. Japanese guards were known for their cruelty and would frequently torture and assault their prisoners. Full scale plan drawing for the main cantilever bridge design. Despite the nightmarish conditions, and equipped only with the most basic of tools, the POWs pulled off an amazing feat of engineering. Imperial Japanese Army Command deemed this unacceptable. Their taskmasters were relentless. As it opens, two POWs, the American navy commander Shears (William Holden) and an Australian, are digging graves for their companions. Two bridges were built; one was made of wood, one was made of concrete and steel. [13], Many directors were considered for the project, among them John Ford, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, Fred Zinnemann, and Orson Welles (who was also offered a starring role). Lean only got $150,000 himself, but he always said Holden was worth it. Lean shouted at them, 'For God's sake, whistle a march to keep time to.' The Bridge On The River Kwai is the World War II Oscar winner about an Army colonel (Alec Guinness) obsessed with proving British superiority over his Japanese captors by showing that his . Chungkai was also a POW worker base camp. Around 90,000 forced labourers are thought to have died building Death Railway. He also didn't like hearing that he was Lean's second choice for the role, a fact made more awkward when he arrived in Ceylon and Lean greeted him with, "Of course, you know I really wanted Charles Laughton." Lean wanted Holden, a big star and recent Oscar winner (for Stalag 17), to play American prisoner Major Shears, over the objections of producer Spiegel, who wanted Cary Grant. 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In 1985, the Academy officially recognized Foreman and Wilson as the screenwriters and posthumously awarded the Oscar to them. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Major Warden of SOE invites Shears to join a commando mission to destroy the bridge just as it is completed. Construction began before anyone had been cast. A real train rode over the bridge as it blew up. Bridge Over The River Kwai Address: Tha Makham, Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Mitch Miller had a hit with a recording of both marches. These issues, running throughout the film, were addressed to a lesser extent on various previous DVD releases of the film and might not have been so obvious in standard definition.[67]. The Bridge Over the River Kwai won seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) in 1958. For the scenes where William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Geoffrey Horne and the native girls had to wade through swamps, they were wading through specially created ones. 60,000 or so Allied prisoners of war, including British, Australian, Dutch and some US troops, alongside more than 200,000 civilian labourers were pressed into service. Image: British troops surrender at Singapore. The screenplay was based on French author Pierre Boulle"s 1954 novel of the same name. Image: Bridge 277 aka the real Bridge over the River Kwai, Image: The iconic poster of the 1957 classic. 8. Spiegel had it refurbished completely and then had one mile of railway track laid for it. Casualties commemorated at Chungkai are mostly men who died in the field hospital set up by prisoners. The bridge in the movie was near Kitulgala. He was a huge star, drawing a weekly salary of $5000 in 1915 (adjusted for inflation: $119,000) and appearing in more than 60 films between 1914 and 1924. Madness! 15. This Oscar-winning epic is part of movie folklore and widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever so I really wanted to see the area where director David Lean shot it way back in 1957. The bridge they build will become a symbol of service and survival to one prisoner, Colonel Nicholson, a proud perfectionist. It was released in the US on December 14, 1957, taking in a reported $17M+, which made it the highest-grossing film of 1957. The Bridge on the River Kwai is now widely recognized as one of the greatest films ever made. 19. Both writers had to work in secret, as they were on the Hollywood blacklist and had fled to the UK in order to continue working. Both bridges were used for two years, until they were destroyed by Allied bombing. Starring Alec Guinness, it depicts the struggles and defiance of Japanese prisoners of war building the fictional Burma railway between 1943-44. [50] William Holden was also credited for his acting for giving a solid characterization that was "easy, credible and always likeable in a role that is the pivot point of the story". The filming of the bridge explosion was to be done on 10 March 1957, in the presence of S.W.R.D. 26. The bridge construction is going badly, however, and Saito offers concessions to Nicholson in an effort to get the structure completed on schedule. Further afield, and appealing to my military family war history, is Kanchanaburi with its war cemetery and bridge over the Kwai river which is made famous by the Oscar winning film The Bridge on the River Kwai. "[53], Among retrospective reviews, Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, noting that it is one of the few war movies that "focuses not on larger rights and wrongs but on individuals", but commented that the viewer is not certain what is intended by the final dialogue due to the film's shifting points of view. 2. This is now known as the Death Railway. The separate dialogue, music and effects were located and remixed with newly recorded "atmospheric" sound effects. He had basically retired when Lean approached him to play Colonel Saito in Kwai, a performance that earned Hayakawa an Oscar nomination. In 1997, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Concurrently, Shears, after a harrowing journey in which he nearly loses his life more than once, is rescued by the British and then required to lead a group of commandoes headed by Major Warden (Jack Hawkins) back to the POW camp that he escaped from in order to blow up the bridge. The documentary itself was described by one newspaper reviewer when it was shown on Boxing Day 1974 (The Bridge on the River Kwai had been shown on BBC1 on Christmas Day 1974) as "Following the movie, this is a rerun of the antidote."[37]. 22. 27. The correct name for the River Kwai is Khwae Noi, meaning small tributary, which merges with Khwae Yai River to create the Mae Kong River. [31][32] Some consider the film to be an insulting parody of Toosey. Omissions? Nicholson undertakes the construction of a well-made bridge, at first thinking it a good way to improve the morale and discipline of his regiment but gradually coming to regard the structure not as a part of the enemy war effort but as a monument to British ingenuity. David Lean is taken that story and directed it in 1957. It was initially scripted by screenwriter Carl Foreman, who was later replaced by Michael Wilson. The story about this bridge has also been made into a Hollywood movie such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957), which is based on the novel of the same name and another movie . The steel bridge was repaired and is still in use today. Boulle drew on the experiences of Far East POWs building the now infamous Burma-Siam Railway, linking modern-day Myanmar and Thailand to create his work. In fact, the cemetery is the original burial ground started by the prisoners themselves. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Addeddate 2021-08-19 15:12:20 Identifier the-bridge-on-the-river-kwai_202108 Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.4. plus-circle Add Review. You can also take a boat down the Kwai River . Since it first graced the silver screen won the admiration of audiences everywhere and continues to do so. Starring Alec Guinness, William Holden, and Sessue Hayakawa, among others, it paints an . It is close to, but not over the country's border with Myanmar. Spiegel sent the screenplay to the Japanese government ahead of time, hoping to get their cooperation with the production. David Lean's classic 1957 World War II movie Bridge on the River Kwai depicted the horrors endured by the Allied prisoners of war (POWs) forced to build the Thailand-Burma railway by the Japanese Imperial Army. Save up to 50% on Thailand River Cruises August 2024. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay. Copyright 2020 Tons Of Facts. The real Bridge over the River Kwai is bridge 277 of the Burma-Siam Railway. [35], Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey of the British Army was the real senior Allied officer at the bridge in question. Pitted against the warden, Colonel . Construction of the Burma-Siam railway began in October 1942 and would end in October 1943. Initial estimates from Japanese engineers suggested it would take five years. Young: "Donald, did anyone whistle Colonel Bogey as they did in the film?" 18. She retired Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Read the response of the CWGC to the findings of the Special Committee. The plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay were almost entirely fictional. Nicholson suddenly realizes that his pride in the bridges construction has blinded him to his military duty. This, plus the fact that he loved to travel, plus the fact that shooting a film in Southeast Asia would be good for him tax-wise, motivated him to accept a project that was bound to be grueling. The movie, based on the novel Le Pont de la rivire Kwa (1952) by French novelist Pierre Boulle, was adapted for the screen by Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman, who were both at the time on the Hollywood blacklist. Rather than start building at two ends and meet in the middle, as per normal railway construction, the Japanese created hundreds of camps across its lengths. To learn more about the men behind the real story of the Bridge on the River Kwai, and to discover the casualties, please use our Find War Dead tool. What's happening in this "The Bridge on the River Kwai" movie clip?Warden (Jack Hawkins from Land of the Pharaohs and Ben-Hur) fires a mortar, wounding Nicho. Colonel Saito, the camp commandant, informs the new prisoners they will all work, even officers, on the construction of a railway bridge over the River Kwai that will connect Bangkok and Rangoon. In 1997, the movie was deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Neither of them got credit, though, as The Bridge on the River Kwai was released during the three-year period when people who'd ever been Communists (or who refused to answer questions about it before Congress) were ineligible for Academy Awards. Join us in an act of virtual remembrance and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice. A Smith article describes bridge on River Kwai, near Kanchanaburi, Thailand, built by Allied POWs during Japanese occupation of Thailand in World War II and subject of famous film The Bridge on . In 1997, this film was deemed "culturally . At the end of the day, the officers are imprisoned, and Nicholson is thrown into the ovena small box made of corrugated metal. The curved-shaped truss spans are the originals on the bridge (constructed by the Japanese military during WWII) while the two trapezoidal-shaped bridge spans were provided by Japan as war reparations after the war ended in 1945 (to replace two curved-shaped truss spans that fell into the river after the bridge was attacked and bombed by Allied aircraft. Bought 4 and 6 mm dowel wood for bridge piers. Their roles and characters, however, are fictionalised. David Lean was completely at home in the hot and humid Ceylon jungle. We hadn't much breath left for whistling. Lean had a lengthy row with Guinness over how to play the role of Nicholson; the actor wanted to play the part with a sense of humour and sympathy, while Lean thought Nicholson should be "a bore." The Bridge on the River Kwai Facts for Kids. After a few days, the British medical officer Major Clipton (James Donald) tries to persuade both Saito and Nicholson to compromise, but both are unyielding. Real Bridge on the River Kwai. Chungkai War Cemetery is something of a sister site to Kanchanaburi. He, Shears, and Joyce reach the river in time with the assistance of Siamese women bearers and their village chief, Khun Yai. Commonwealth war graves commission Caring for the fallen, Commonwealth war graves foundation Our charity site. 5. [55] Slant stated that "the 1957 epic subtly develops its themes about the irrationality of honor and the hypocrisy of Britain's class system without ever compromising its thrilling war narrative", and in comparing to other films of the time said that Bridge on the River Kwai "carefully builds its psychological tension until it erupts in a blinding flash of sulfur and flame. It was filmed in Kitulgala which is 60 . A temporary wooden bridge was completed at the beginning of 1943 and a few months later the steel bridge (which can be seen today) was finished. Walk over the steel bridge at the River Kwai, one of the most famous rivers in the world, which gained international fame in the book and film, "Bridge on the River Kwai". [66] The original negative for the feature was scanned at 4k (four times the resolution in High Definition), and the colour correction and digital restoration were also completed at 4k. It had previously belonged to an Indian maharajah and had seen 65 years of active service. Victims were cremated and their remains are buried in the aforementioned graves. In 1941 the Japanese Army invaded Thailand. His first epic was his twelfth film: The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness and William Holden as P.O.W. Laughton was in his habitually overweight state, and was either denied insurance coverage, or was simply not keen on filming in a tropical location. The Mount Lavinia Hotel was used as a location for the hospital. Over a muddy jungle river called Kwai, a Japanese colonel, Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), must complete a railroad bridge vital to Japan's war effort. [50] Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times claimed the film's strongest points were for being "excellently produced in virtually all respects and that it also offers an especially outstanding and different performance by Alec Guinness. The Bridge on the River Kwai, British-American war film, released in 1957 and directed by David Lean, that was both a critical and popular success and became an enduring classic. Lean wanted to use the tune in Kwai, figured those lyrics wouldn't pass the censors (or the approval of the composer's widow), and opted to have the troops whistle it instead. 9. He was contracted for $150,000 to be paid in installments. In the movie the bridge is destroyed by commandos. The actual bridge on the River Kwai is located in Thailand, and stretches over a part of the Mae Klong river, which was renamed Khwae Yai (Thai for big tributary). Just as in Love is a Many Splendored Thing, normally hairy chested William Holden had to have a full body wax for his many shirtless scenes in the movie. Saito is expected to commit ritual suicide if he fails to meet the rapidly approaching deadline. 10. The Kanchanaburi Memorial sits with the cemetery grounds. [30], A 1969 BBC television documentary, Return to the River Kwai, made by former POW John Coast,[33] sought to highlight the real history behind the film (partly through getting ex-POWs to question its factual basis, for example Dr Hugh de Wardener and Lt-Col Alfred Knights), which angered many former POWs. A picture of the actual bridge over the River Kwai in June 2004. The movie was mainly filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and also in England. The Bridge on the River Kwai, Kanchanaburi 1942. The film was directed by David Lean and starred William Holding, Jack Hawkins and academy award winner Sir Alex Guinness. Sessue Hayakawa really did accidentally strike Alec Guinness hard enough to draw blood in one scene. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Jun 7, 2011 - New on Blu 6-7-11: Studios unload nearly 70 titles. The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. [23], British composer Malcolm Arnold recalled that he had "ten days to write around forty-five minutes worth of music" much less time than he was used to. Shears and two others escape. But the unusual move paid off for ABCthe telecast drew huge ratings with a record audience of 72 million[60] and a Nielsen rating of 38.3 and an audience share of 61%. The building of Bridge 277, the eponymous bridge that gave Leans film its name, was overseen by 2,000 British and Dutch prisoners of war. In reality, Japanese engineers proved to be just as capable at construction efforts as their Allied counterparts.[58][59]. Everywhere in the jungle, the graveyards made their appearance; starting in a small way they gradually grew bigger, until when the railway was completed at the end of the year, thousands of bodies lay in the jungle from one end to the other.. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 World War II POW film directed by David Lean, about the construction of the bridges over the River Kwai, although it's heavily fictionalised.It's based on the French novel The Bridge over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle, of Planet of the Apes fame; Boulle, who could neither read nor write English, was also credited for the screenplay adaptation due to . Sri Lanka Filming Locations: The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) Posted on July 17, 2017 by tokyofox. [11] Guinness admitted that Lean "didn't particularly want me" for the role, and thought about immediately returning to England when he arrived in Ceylon and Lean reminded him that he wasn't the first choice. Use our postcode search tool to discover more about the war dead from your local area. The Bridge on the River Kwai, commonly referred to as the Railroad of Death or Death Railway, which stands in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, was one of only eight steel bridges of the estimated 688 that were built. Writers: Pierre Boulle (novel), Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson (screenplay), Academy Award nominations (* denotes win), https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Bridge-on-the-River-Kwai-film-by-Lean, Filmsite - The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), BFI Screenonline - The Bridge on the River Kwai, Turner Classic Movies - The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Guinness regarded this one tiny scene as some of the finest work he did throughout his entire career. It begins with British troops being marched into the prison camp after their surrender to the Japanese at Singapore. Realising he has no choice, Shears volunteers. For one sunset scene, David Lean specifically traveled 150 miles to capture it. Although the obvious link was by sea, Allied submarines controlling the region made it too treacherous. Civilian workmen suffered terribly too, with their casualties far outstripping the military personnel. The British Film Institute placed The Bridge on the River Kwai as the 11th greatest British film. The Bridge on the River Kwai was selected in 1997 for preservation in the National Film Registry. It worked. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Bridge On The River Kwai Trivia: Fun And Interesting . Although the Death Railway has never again reached the Myanmar border, a shorter stretch was reopened by Thailand's railway authorities between 1949 and 1958, and trains on this modern-day line cross the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai.
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