Bandaranaike, then Prime Minister of Ceylon, and a team of government dignitaries. One of the biggest causes of ire was the treatment of Toosey. Once Spiegel relented, he realized Holden was a box office draw and offered him a great deal: $300,000 salary (about $2.5 million in 2016 dollars), plus 10 percent of the gross. Allied bombers struck the wooden bridge and its concrete counterpart in February 1945 with one of the earliest uses of guided bombs in history. 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. When the sun rises, the commandoes realize that the water level in the river has fallen, exposing the explosives and wiring. Moreover, Kanchanaburi has an annual "Bridge Over the River Kwai" week, which has a sound show to relive the moments of World War II. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942-43 for its historical setting. [12], William Holden's deal was considered one of the best ever for an actor at the time, with him receiving $300,000 plus 10% of the film's gross receipts. But, what about the real men behind the real story of the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway? They were supported by an unknown number of Malaysian labourers. 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. Harry Cohn, the vulgar (but successful) man who ran Columbia Pictures at the time, was furious when he read the script and saw no . Of course, he could not save many of his men from expiring, but he did their best to make conditions more comfortable. The Bridge on the River Kwai Facts for Kids. In January 1943, a base hospital was organised to care for sick and injured prisoners and labourers. Brigadier Varley would survive the hellish building work along the Burma-Siam Railway but not the war. Full scale plan drawing for the main cantilever bridge design. Lean wanted Charles Laughton (who'd starred in his 1954 film Hobson's Choice) to play Colonel Nicholson, the role that ultimately went to Alec Guinness. British POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it. Both writers had to work in secret, as they were on the Hollywood blacklist and had fled to England in order to continue working. The action of the movie takes place in a Japanese prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in . By 1944, its operational capacity was being massively hampered by the damage caused by air raids. The movie garnered seven Academy Awards, including that for best picture, as well as three Golden Globe Awards and four BAFTA awards. Burma-Siam Railway labourers and prisoners of war slept in rudimentary bamboo huts on filthy floors. This Week's Toybox is . The filming of the bridge explosion was to be done on 10 March 1957, in the presence of S.W.R.D. Victory over the Japanese navy at Midway in June 1942 had created a turning point in the Far East and Pacific. In 1997, this film was deemed "culturally . Guinness regarded this one tiny scene as some of the finest work he did throughout his entire career. Thanbyuzayat is in Myanmar. The real Bridge on the River Kwai. Basically, the bridge was built during World War II when the Japanese occupied Siam (now Thailand) and neighboring Burma (now Myanmar . as for the bridge on the River Kwai, it crossed the river only in the imagination of its author. When he asks for Saitos help in cutting the wires, the hidden commando, Lieutenant Joyce (Geoffrey Horne), leaps up and kills Saito. "[55], Balu Mahendra, the Tamil film director, observed the shooting of this film at Kitulgala, Sri Lanka during his school trip and was inspired to become a film director. For one sunset scene, David Lean specifically traveled 150 miles to capture it. Two bridges were built, the first made of wood. 16- "You make me sick with your heroics! Servicemen who survived the death marches, appalling working conditions, and savage treatment by their guards thought the film nor book reflected the realities of their experience. Interested in advertising on the world's largest website dedicated to all things Britain? All but a small section of the route was built in dense, malarial jungles, in sweltering heat and monsoon rains. In fact, there were two: one a wooden railway bridge and the other a ferroconcrete structure built using imported bridge sections from Japanese-controlled Java. Part of this project was building bridges over Thailand's Kwai Yai, at a place named Tamarkan, which is near a town named Kanchanaburi. ", Warden fires a mortar, killing Shears and Joyce and fatally wounding Nicholson. The negative itself manifested many of the kinds of issues one would expect from a film of this vintage: torn frames, embedded emulsion dirt, scratches through every reel, colour fading. American casualties were repatriated back to the United States. 16. 8. Realising he has no choice, Shears volunteers. He insisted that Lean add a scene where Shears, the American played by William Holden, cozies up to a nurse (Ann Sears). The Hitchhiker's Guide has this to say about John Rabon: When not pretending to travel in time and space, eating bananas, and claiming that things are "fantastic", John lives in North Carolina. This meant that some of the British prisoners were actually natives of the region wearing make-up to appear Caucasian. "[47] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Use our postcode search tool to discover more about the war dead from your local area. While the story is fiction, the broader setting--including the construction of the Burmese railway--is based on historical events. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). But Laughton, a fine actor with such credits as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) on his resume, was in poor physical shapegreat for playing the corpulent Henry VIII in Young Bess (1953), not so great for playing a British military officer in a prison camp. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial, Malaysia. Subsequent releases of the film finally gave them proper screen credit. Shears and two others escape. 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. The real Bridge over the River Kwai is bridge 277 of the Burma-Siam Railway. No visit to the Western Front is complete without a trip to The CWGC Visitor Centre. : 1942: Boldly advancing through Asia, the Japanese need a train route from Burma going north. Nicholson will not cooperate and finally insists that the bridge can be built only under his command. Toosey was very different from Nicholson and was certainly not a collaborator who felt obliged to work with the Japanese. Assistant director John Kerrison was killed in a car crash on the way to one of the locations. By Barry Fox. Saito leaves the officers standing all day in the intense heat. Dying, Nicholson stumbles toward the detonator and falls on the plunger, blowing up the bridge and sending the train hurtling into the river. Its this structure, Bridge 277, that still stands and is a famous local tourist attraction. Save up to 50% on Thailand River Cruises August 2024. Supplying it by ship was the only practical solution. This article is part of our Classic Film Throwback series - By Sam Hendrian - "Madness. Persuaded that the film would be about the horror and folly of war, the Japanese government sent a military adviser to help with the camp scenes. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. 23. [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. A regiment of British prisoners arrives, whistling the Colonel Bogey March, under the command of Colonel Nicholson (Sir Alec Guinness). as soon as he signed, Lean borrowed $2,000 from Columbia Pictures to get his teeth fixed. [38] Some Japanese viewers also disliked the film for portraying the Allied prisoners of war as more capable of constructing the bridge than the Japanese engineers themselves were, accusing the filmmakers of being unfairly biased and unfamiliar with the realities of the bridge construction, a sentiment echoed by surviving prisoners of war who saw the film in cinemas. Toosey in fact did as much as possible to delay the building of the bridge. The Bridge On The River Kwai Film Facts. According to one biographer, he was "broke and needed work; he had even pawned his gold cigarette case." THE HEAD OF COLUMBIA PICTURES FORCED LEAN TO ADD A LOVE SCENE. The Bridge over the River Kwai met its fate in 1945. Bridge On The River Kwai is an Epic war-based film. We want to hear from you! 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. The bridge depicted in the film is most definitely real. Spiegel finally sent Michael Wilson to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where Lean was in pre-production, and the two worked together to hammer out the final version. 2. It was more of a transit hub where prisoners were moved to other work areas along the railway route. 1957 World War II film directed by David Lean, This article is about the film. 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. To keep costs down, producer Sam Spiegel decided not to hire any extras, using crew members and Ceylon locals instead. [3] Since it was not a documentary, there are many historical inaccuracies in the film, as noted by eyewitnesses to the building of the real Burma Railway by historians.[30][31][32][33]. Saito is expected to commit ritual suicide if he fails to meet the rapidly approaching deadline. As shown in the movie, Guinness played the scene without flinching. 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 . Unique to this film, in some ways, were other issues related to poorly made optical dissolves, the original camera lens and a malfunctioning camera. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. $ 3 million (estimated) The Bridge on the River Kwai is a British 1957 movie from Columbia Pictures, based on Pierre Boulle 's 1952 book The Bridge over the River Kwai ( French: Le Pont de la Rivire Kwai ). Mortally wounded, he falls onto the plunger, the bridge is blown up, and the train with the dignitaries falls into the river. The railway route, which ran through Burma and Thailand, had been planned by the British. [9], The film was relatively faithful to the novel, with two major exceptions. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Other parts have been placed in various local war museums. [7][8] In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Bridge on the River Kwai the 11th greatest British film of the 20th century. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma. For example, a Sergeant-Major Risaburo Saito was in real life second in command at the camp. Starring Alec Guinness, William Holden, and Sessue Hayakawa, among others, it paints an . does not fall onto the plunger, and the bridge suffers only minor damage. [60] The 167-minute film was first telecast, uncut, in colour, on the evening of 25 September 1966, as a three hours-plus ABC Movie Special. [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 official credit was given to Pierre Boulle (who did not speak English), and the resulting Oscar for Best Screenplay (Adaptation) was awarded to him. Within 16 months the bridge was completed but it took another two years to complete the entire rail line.
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