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. British people of Anglotopia, what do you make of the whole anglophile thing ? It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and scooped up seven Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor. Find the latest updates on the work of the Special Committee. Toosey was very different from Nicholson and was certainly not a collaborator who felt obliged to work with the Japanese. Cafes and tourist spots dot the banks of the Khwae Noi. The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The Bridge over the River Kwai met its fate in 1945. The Japanese did indeed force British, Dutch, Australian, and American prisoners to build the Burma Railway, resulting in some 13,000 POW deaths and at least 80,000 civilian deaths. THE HEAD OF COLUMBIA PICTURES FORCED LEAN TO ADD A LOVE SCENE. It begins with British troops being marched into the prison camp after their surrender to the Japanese at Singapore. He created the railroad. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The key sites containing Thailand and Burma war graves related to Death Railway and the Bridge on the River Kwai are: Kanchanaburi War Cemetery is located a short distance from the former Kanburi POW camp. He knew that the railway ran parallel to the Kwae for many miles, and he therefore assumed that it was the Kwae which it crossed just north of Kanchanaburi. Lean filmed the scene from behind Guinness and exploded in anger when Guinness asked him why he was doing this. As the train approaches, they hurry down to the riverbank to investigate. Nicholson yells for help, while attempting to stop Joyce from reaching the detonator. [43] By October 1960, the film had earned worldwide box office revenues of $30 million. comment. Unique to this film, in some ways, were other issues related to poorly made optical dissolves, the original camera lens and a malfunctioning camera. Victims were cremated and their remains are buried in the aforementioned graves. 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. 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. [14][15], The film was an international co-production between companies in Britain and the United States. Leadership Analysis: The Bridge On The River Kwai. 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. The Bridge of the River kwai It is a tourist attraction of Kanchanaburi. Work on the bridge proceeds badly, due to both the faulty Japanese engineering plans and the prisoners' slow pace and deliberate sabotage. 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. [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. Nicholson desperately tries to keep Joyce from depressing the plunger, while Shears and Warden try to kill Nicholson. The Bridge on the River Kwai. Did he really want the enemy to come in across it? 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. The film "The Bridge on the River Kwai" dramatized the WWII story of the Thailand-Burma Railway, yet it was largely fictional. Dying, Nicholson stumbles toward the detonator and falls on the plunger, blowing up the bridge and sending the train hurtling into the river. At the POW camp, Nicholson not only requires officers to work on the bridge but also pulls men from the hospital in order to meet Saitos deadline for the project. Or maybe you have a story for us or would like to work together. The Kanchanaburi Memorial sits with the cemetery grounds. They were soon sent to Thailand to begin labouring on the Death Railway. 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. Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma, worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre. He wanders into a Burmese village, is nursed back to health, and eventually reaches the British colony of Ceylon. You carry it in your pack like the plague. Wise: "I never heard it in Thailand. Corrections? Aerial reconnaissance photo of the Steel Bridge taken during a bombing raid. Assistant director John Kerrison was killed in a car crash on the way to one of the locations. 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 . This way, he remained oblivious to the real nature of his characters fate. 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). When he asks for Saitos help in cutting the wires, the hidden commando, Lieutenant Joyce (Geoffrey Horne), leaps up and kills Saito. 25. Lamb, as he was known, had been a politician before calling up, serving the state legislature in Victoria, Australia. The Burma-Siam Railway was 250 miles of railway constructed by Allied prisoners of war alongside forced Asian labourers. 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. Nicholson forbids any escape attempts because they were ordered by headquarters to surrender, and escapes could be seen as defiance of orders. 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. [27] Gavin Young[28] recounts meeting Donald Wise, a former prisoner of the Japanese who had worked on the Burma Railway. They felt none of the Bridge on the River Kwai cast could fully understand or represent what it was like to be there. 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. 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." Some 5,000 Commonwealth World War Two casualties are buried or commemorated in Kanchanaburi. ", The screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, were on the Hollywood blacklist and, even though living in exile in England, could only work on the film in secret. When Columbia Pictures read the script for Kwai, it was concerned that the story was too much about men and had no love interest. [31] He strongly denied the claim that the book was anti-British, although many involved in the film itself (including Alec Guinness) felt otherwise.[36]. Victory over the Japanese navy at Midway in June 1942 had created a turning point in the Far East and Pacific. Has no balls He'd just been through a costly divorce from actress Ann Todd. The film won seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) at the 30th Academy Awards. The river is the Mae Klong River which passes through a valley of the Khwae Noi River (little tributary). There's a stench of death about you. Read the response of the CWGC to the findings of the Special Committee. [18] The bridge in the film was near Kitulgala. - Colonel Saito, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai '. By the way, the real Kwai River was just a trickle near Burma, where Boulle set his bridge; the actual bridge had been built 200 miles away, near Bangkok. For example, a Sergeant-Major Risaburo Saito was in real life second in command at the camp. The rail link, however, would . US $4.49 Standard Shipping from outside US. 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.. Civilian workmen suffered terribly too, with their casualties far outstripping the military personnel. Following the raids, Thanbyuzayat was evacuated. [35], Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey of the British Army was the real senior Allied officer at the bridge in question. They included Chinese, Malayan, Burmese, Thai, Indonesian and Singaporean people. 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. Lets find out. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 26. Just a stone's throw from the Menin Gate, visit our Information Centre to learn more about the CWGC. . Lets examine the history behind the film and the men who made it. Take a look below for 28 more fun and interesting facts about The Bridge on the . The British Film Institute placed The Bridge on the River Kwai as the 11th greatest British film. The railway route, which ran through Burma and Thailand, had been planned by the British. The plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay were almost entirely fictional. The real swamps in Ceylon were deemed to be too dangerous. The Bridge On The River Kwai Film Facts. 2023 Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Supplying it by ship was the only practical solution. The movie is based on the novel "Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai" by Pierre Boulle. [40] Boulle had never been to the bridge. [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 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. ABC, sponsored by Ford, paid a record $1.8 million for the television rights for two screenings in the United States. One of the iconic war films of its time, the Bridge on the River Kwai has shone a spotlight on POWs suffering. Find out how you can apply to become a CWGC Volunteer. The place is regarded as "The Symbol of Peace". Highly competent work is also done by William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa". By the end, prisoners working on the rail route werent calling it the Burma-Siam Railway. 17. Just two months later, Lieutenant Lamb was dead. An example of this is when commandos Warden and Joyce hunt a fleeing Japanese soldier through the jungle, desperate to prevent him from alerting other troops. Both the wooden and the adjacent steel bridge were subjected to numerous air raids between January and June 1945. Geoffrey Horne saved his life. Colonel Nicholson, arrive at a Japanese prison camp in Thailand. Madness! Harry Cohn, the vulgar (but successful) man who ran Columbia Pictures at the time, was furious when he read the script and saw no love interest. [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. This article is part of our Classic Film Throwback series - By Sam Hendrian - "Madness. In 1957 the movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai, premiered in London and became the biggest grossing film of 1958, winning seven academy awards in the process, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Musical Score, Best Cinematography and Best Editing.Not bad for a movie that is largely a work of almost entirely fictional characters and a story which . It was filmed in Kitulgala which is 60 . Surviving veterans consider Toosey one of the finest officers they ever served under. Kwai's composer, Malcolm Arnold, wove the march into his Oscar-winning score so seamlessly that modern viewers may assume it was original to the film. The Bridge on the River Kwai Facts for Kids. The adventure war film The Bridge on the River Kwai may have swept the board of awards and attracted acclaim as one best films of the 20th century, but the War Office was very nervous "it would . They were calling it the Death Railway. 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. Bangkok-Kanchanaburi, by train or private transport, for the Bridge on River Kwai; Kanchanaburi-Nam Tok, by train or private transport, for Death Railway and Hellfire Pass; You can book your bus tickets online and in advance here. 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. The march was written in 1914 by Kenneth J. Alford, a pseudonym of British Bandmaster Frederick J. Ricketts. Some Japanese viewers resented the movie's depiction of their engineers' capabilities as inferior and less advanced than they were in reality. 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. He had basically retired when Lean approached him to play Colonel Saito in Kwai, a performance that earned Hayakawa an Oscar nomination. His career was hurt by the advent of sound, and then by increasing anti-Japanese sentiment in America. David Lean's 1957 epic Bridge on the River Kwai is regarded as one of the all-time great war films. Commonwealth war graves commission Caring for the fallen, Commonwealth war graves foundation Our charity site. 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). Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson have written the screenplay for this film. Read more. [56] Warren Buffett said it was his favorite movie. It was still highly unusual at that time for a television network to show such a long film in one evening; most films of that length were still generally split into two parts and shown over two evenings. Contact us, Image: Rows of graves at Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Image: Kanchanaburi Dutch Memorial commemorates Dutch POWs who died building Death Railway, Image: Chungkai War Cemetery's Cross of Sacrifice, Image: The Pavilion at Chungkai War Cemetery, Image: The cemetery's horticulture gives Chungkai a sense of serenity, Image: The Stone of Remembrance at Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, Image: Headstones and horticulture at Thanbyuzayat, Get the latest CWGC news and see some of our recent work, Report of the Special Committee to review historical inequalities in Commemoration, Discover world war casualties who lived in your area, The True Story of the Bridge over the River Kwai, Why and how were restoring the Menin Gate: What you need to know about this amazing project, A push through the desert: How The Allies Captured Jericho in 1918, Visit Commonwealth war graves in Arras, France.