The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, a British colonel co-operates to oversee his men's construction of a railway bridge for their captors - while oblivious to a plan by the Allies to destroy it.

Director:

David Lean

Writer:

Pierre Boulle (novel)

Stars:

William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins

Top 250 #101 | Won 7 Oscars. Another 24 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
William Holden	...	Shears
Alec Guinness	...	Colonel Nicholson
Jack Hawkins	...	Major Warden
Sessue Hayakawa	...	Colonel Saito
James Donald	...	Major Clipton
Geoffrey Horne	...	Lieutenant Joyce
André Morell	...	Colonel Green (as Andre Morell)
Peter Williams	...	Captain Reeves
John Boxer	...	Major Hughes
Percy Herbert	...	Grogan
Harold Goodwin	...	Baker
Ann Sears	...	Nurse
Heihachirô Ôkawa	...	Captain Kanematsu (as Henry Okawa)
Keiichirô Katsumoto	...	Lieutenant Miura (as Keiichiro Katsumoto, K. Katsumoto)
M.R.B. Chakrabandhu	...	Yai (as M.R.B. Chakrabandhu {Col. Broome})

Storyline

The film deals with the situation of British prisoners of war during World War II who are ordered to build a bridge to accommodate the Burma-Siam railway. Their instinct is to sabotage the bridge but, under the leadership of Colonel Nicholson, they are persuaded that the bridge should be constructed as a symbol of British morale, spirit and dignity in adverse circumstances. At first, the prisoners admire Nicholson when he bravely endures torture rather than compromise his principles for the benefit of the Japanese commandant Saito. He is an honorable but arrogant man, who is slowly revealed to be a deluded obsessive. He convinces himself that the bridge is a monument to British character, but actually is a monument to himself, and his insistence on its construction becomes a subtle form of collaboration with the enemy. Unknown to him, the Allies have sent a mission into the jungle, led by Warden and an American, Shears, to blow up the bridge.

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Plot Keywords:

Bridge | Japanese | Jungle | River | Torture | 

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Taglines:

It spans a whole new world of entertainment!

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | History | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for mild war violence

Details

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English Japanese Thai

Release Date:

14 December 1957 (USA)

Also Known As:

El puente sobre el río Kwai

Filming Locations:

Ambepussa, Sri Lanka

Box Office

Budget:

$3,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$27,200,000 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation, Horizon Pictures (II)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

161 min

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) (RCA Sound Recording) Mono (35 mm prints) (RCA Sound Recording) 4-Track Stereo (Linear PCM)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

At one point during filming, David Lean nearly drowned when he was swept away by a river current. Geoffrey Horne saved his life.

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Goofs

Both scenes are wrong: the actual line would have been 1 metre gauge, as it connected existing Thai and Burmese metre-gauge routes.

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Quotes

Colonel Nicholson: Now, there's another important decision that can't be postponed. As most of the British soldiers will be working on the bridge, only a small number will be available for railway work. So, I must ask you, Colonel Saito, to lend us some of your own men to reinforce the railway gang, so that the final stretch of track can be completed as quickly as possible.
Colonel Saito: I have already given the order.
Colonel Nicholson: We must fix the daily work quota for your men. At first I thought of setting it at a yard and a half, so as ...
[...]

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Crazy Credits

and introducing Geoffrey Horne

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Connections

Featured in Getaway: Episode #17.34 (2008)
Clips shown when a story on Kanchanaburi, Thailand visits the bridge of its title.

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Soundtracks

"Colonel Bogey March"
(1914) (uncredited)
Music by Kenneth Alford
Whistled by Alec Guinness with British Prisoners of War,
Accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Arnold

User Reviews

Ageless and all but perfect

Of all war movies this is the one with the best idea behind it. Think how easy it is to make a bad war movie. A group of people must blow up a bridge, and this is the story of their quest ... Actually, that DID serve as the premise for a film: it was called `Force Ten from Navarone', and it was dire. Or how about this one: we see close up the brutalities of war. (Then we see them again. Then we see some more of the brutalities of war. Then we see the credits.) Or how about this: a humble American soldier, with the pragmatism native to his breed, rejects his superiors' highfalutin talk of honour and glory and asserts his basic humanity in trying to stay alive. Or this one: we see English prisoners of war maintain their dignity in the face of Japanese brutality.

They're all present, in a sort of a way: but ALSO present is a magnificent, long, suspenseful, tight story, around which these apparent clichés wrap naturally. If the clichés don't wrap naturally then they, not the story, are bent out of shape. Just when we think that the American pragmatist will turn out to be the hero, we see him cut a rather shabby figure, and it seems that there really WAS something to that highfalutin talk of honour and glory, after all. But then we discover that he has standards of his own, and they appear to be better ones. But THEN it seems that ... I could go on indefinitely, since there are many people here with something to be said for them, and it requires some thought to see who has the most to be said for him in the end.

There's almost no need to mention the excellent performances, photography and music. The only thing one might have qualms about is historical accuracy. Nothing like this ever happened. Still, that makes the movie much less dishonest than those that base themselves on historical events, and then proceed to get them all wrong. You can only be misled by `The Bridge on the River Kwai' if you don't know that it's pure fiction. Well - you know now.