They were soon sent to Thailand to begin labouring on the Death Railway. He shows a rare sense of humor and a feeling for the poetry of situation; and he shows the even rarer ability to express these things, not in lines but in lives. While the British prisoners celebrate their accomplishment that night, the commandoes wire the bridge with explosives to be detonated by a plunger operated by a hidden soldier, timed to collapse the bridge just as an inaugural train carrying Japanese dignitaries is crossing it. [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 Bridge On The River Kwai Trivia: Fun And Interesting Facts About The Bridge On The River Kwai: Fascinating Facts About The Bridge on the River Kwai - Kindle edition by Randolph, Amanda. David Lean, a British director then in his late forties, had made 11 films, including well-received adaptations of Charles Dickens (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist) and Noel Coward (Blithe Spirit, Brief Encounter). Tooseys men stated this never happened. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942-43 for its historical setting. 7. 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. Train crossing the wooden bridge which spanned the Mae Klong River (renamed Kwai Yai River in 1960). Along with 1,250 other POWs, he died while in transit from Singapore to Japan aboard the Rakuyo Maro transport ship after it was torpedoed by a US submarine. 5. David Lean, director of such landmark epics as Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, didn't always make giant movies. Only he survives, though he is wounded. [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. In fact, two bridges were built: a temporary wooden bridge and a permanent steel/concrete bridge a few months later. The steel bridge was repaired and is still in use today. Civilian workmen suffered terribly too, with their casualties far outstripping the military personnel. 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. [63], The film was restored in 1985 by Columbia Pictures. 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. [26], A memorable feature of the film is the tune that is whistled by the POWsthe first strain of the "Colonel Bogey March"when they enter the camp. As Australian Brigadier Arthur Varley put it: The Japanese will carry out their schedule and do not mind if the line is dotted with crosses.. Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson have written the screenplay for this film. 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. 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. The Bridge on the River Kwai. - Colonel Saito, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai '. He didn't like the next draft of the screenplay, either, because it made Nicholson "a blinkered character." You carry it in your pack like the plague. [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). Nicholson yells for help, while attempting to stop Joyce from reaching the detonator. Prisoners, including the sick, were marched to camps further along Death Railway. The surviving sections stand as monuments to the men who suffered so much to build them. Cast the Expert: Percy Herbert, who played the role of a prisoner of war in the film, actually spent four . He had basically retired when Lean approached him to play Colonel Saito in Kwai, a performance that earned Hayakawa an Oscar nomination. Japanese guards were known for their cruelty and would frequently torture and assault their prisoners. Thanks to the film, the Bridge, situated in the Thai town of Kanchanaburi a couple of hours drive from Bangkok, is one of Thailand . Thanbyuzayat continued to be used as a POW reception centre to reinforce work parties along the Burma-Siam Railway. The United States Army Air Force (USAAF) was the first to conduct air raids on the bridges over the River Kwai between November 1944 and January 1945. [27] Gavin Young[28] recounts meeting Donald Wise, a former prisoner of the Japanese who had worked on the Burma Railway. [64] The image was restored by OCS, Freeze Frame, and Pixel Magic with George Hively editing. "[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. It spans crosses the lazily winding Khwae Noi at Kanchanaburi, Thailand. 14. Nicholson spots the wire and brings it to Saito's attention. The film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Guinness), not to mention a handful of Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and even a Grammy nomination for its soundtrack. They were calling it the Death Railway. [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. [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. Ernest Gordon, a survivor of the railway construction and POW camps described in the novel/film, stated in his 1962 book, Through the Valley of the Kwai: In Pierre Boulle's book The Bridge over the River Kwai and the film which was based on it, the impression was given that British officers not only took part in building the bridge willingly, but finished in record time to demonstrate to the enemy their superior efficiency. Get information about our funding, our Customer Charter and our Strategic Plan. The march was written in 1914 by Kenneth J. Alford, a pseudonym of British Bandmaster Frederick J. Ricketts. In the setting of World War II, a defeated unit British Soldiers is marched into a Japanese prison camp in western Thailand, with the purpose of constructing a bridge over the River Kwai to carry a new railway line to invade Burma. And a bloke called George Siegatz[29] an expert whistlerbegan to whistle Colonel Bogey, and a hit was born.". In early 1943, a contingent of British prisoners of war, led by Lt. The movie is based on the novel Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai by Pierre Boulle. [31], On a BBC Timewatch programme, a former prisoner at the camp states that it is unlikely that a man like the fictional Nicholson could have risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and, if he had, due to his collaboration he would have been "quietly eliminated" by the other prisoners. 16- "You make me sick with your heroics! English / Japanese / Thai. A Cholera epidemic swept through Nieke Camp between May-June 1943. [7][8] In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Bridge on the River Kwai the 11th greatest British film of the 20th century. The actual name of "Bridge on the River Kwai", on the 258 mile long Burma Railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma, built from 1940-1944, was called Bridge 277. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. Allied bombers struck the wooden bridge and its concrete counterpart in February 1945 with one of the earliest uses of guided bombs in history. There were no facilities on the island of Ceylon to process film rushes, so the days filming had to be flown to London to be processed and then flown back out to Ceylon. When Joyce is wounded by Japanese fire, Shears swims across, but is himself shot. The process of adapting Pierre Boulle's French-language novel Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai was difficult (more on that later), but the two writers ultimately responsible for it were Carl Foreman (High Noon) and Michael Wilson (A Place in the Sun). "[47] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". As shown in the movie, Guinness played the scene without flinching. Allied soldiers had built a church and a hospital on the site where the cemetery now sits. Boulle based his novel, published in 1952, on his own experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and on an infamous construction project that he wasn't involved with. Their roles and characters, however, are fictionalised. Harry Cohn, the vulgar (but successful) man who ran Columbia Pictures at the time, was furious when he read the script and saw no . 9. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 in the United States and Canada and was also the most popular film at the British box office that year. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial, Malaysia. [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. The Suez Canal crisis of 1956 badly affected production. He served as an adviser during the making of the movie. 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. This was an entertaining story. Real Bridge on the River Kwai. 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. His first epic was his twelfth film: The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness and William Holden as P.O.W. Check here to see our open positions and volunteer roles. . "[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. This records the names of 11 Indian army men buried in Muslim cemeteries throughout Thailand whose graves could not be maintained. Its telling that the railway workers had to see to their own medical care. 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. [61][62], In 1972, the movie was among the first selection of films released on the early Cartrivision video format, alongside classics such as The Jazz Singer and Sands of Iwo Jima. David Lean was completely at home in the hot and humid Ceylon jungle. As Ashton explained, it was so cheap because "we used local labor and elephants; and the timber was cut nearby.". 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. 7. Death Railway was bombed heavily by the Allies from 1943 onwards. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was set in 1942, shortly after the fall of Singapore.