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. 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. A Cholera epidemic swept through Nieke Camp between May-June 1943. Be the first one to write a review. Some 5,000 Commonwealth World War Two casualties are buried or commemorated in Kanchanaburi. [44], The film was re-released in 1964 and earned a further estimated $2.6 million at the box office in the United States and Canada[45] but the following year its revised total US and Canadian revenues were reported by Variety as $17,195,000. Mortally wounded, he falls onto the plunger, the bridge is blown up, and the train with the dignitaries falls into the river. 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. Young: "Donald, did anyone whistle Colonel Bogey as they did in the film?" Their roles and characters, however, are fictionalised. Despite the nightmarish conditions, and equipped only with the most basic of tools, the POWs pulled off an amazing feat of engineering. Search by location, regiment, nationality, and more fields to find the war dead involved in building the blood-soaked Burma-Siam Railway. Thanbyuzayat is in Myanmar. The bridge is still in everyday use as part of the Bangkok-Nam Tok line. When the sun rises, the commandoes realize that the water level in the river has fallen, exposing the explosives and wiring. All Rights Reserved. Drilled holes for the piers; and cut them to length. Lean and his production designer, Donald Ashton, were in Ceylon months ahead of time to construct the film's title character (the bridge, not the river). Disease was a huge killer among railway workers, but so was brutality. Nicholson's obsession with the bridge eventually drives him to allow his officers to volunteer to engage in manual labor. Burma-Siam Railway labourers and prisoners of war slept in rudimentary bamboo huts on filthy floors. THE HEAD OF COLUMBIA PICTURES FORCED LEAN TO ADD A LOVE SCENE. 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. In the meantime, Shears manages to escape. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI takes place in Japan-occupied Siam (later Thailand) in 1943, after the Imperial Japanese Empire has conquered vast territories of Asia. 17. [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". 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. 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. The movie starring William Holden, Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins was shot at more than 1 locations. The story is fictional but uses the construction of the Burma Railway, in 1942-1943, as its historical setting, and is partly based on Pierre Boulle's own life experience working in Malaysia rubber . However, cameraman Freddy Ford was unable to get out of the way of the explosion in time, and Lean had to stop filming. Guinness, however, had his own reservations. Save up to 50% on Thailand River Cruises August 2024. The year: 1943. (He didn't attend the Oscars, either.) The railway ran for 250 miles from Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma and is now known as the Death Railway. Nicholson desperately tries to keep Joyce from depressing the plunger, while Shears and Warden try to kill Nicholson. Following the raids, Thanbyuzayat was evacuated. Ironically, Allied bombing raids of the region between March and June 1943 contributed to casualties sustained around Thanbyuzayat. Workers died at a rate of 20 men per day. 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. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial, Malaysia. They were soon sent to Thailand to begin labouring on the Death Railway. 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. The region was seized by the Japanese in 1942, and they then set about making preparations . . Both writers had to work in secret, as they were on the Hollywood blacklist and had fled to England in order to continue working. Pitted against the warden, Colonel . Return trains are 12.55 and 15.15. When, the next morning, Saito orders all the British prisoners to begin building the bridge under the command of a Japanese engineer, Nicholson and the other officers refuse, even when Saito threatens to kill them. Basically, the bridge was built during World War II when the Japanese occupied Siam (now Thailand) and neighboring Burma (now Myanmar . 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. Check here to see our open positions and volunteer roles. Sessue Hayakawa really did accidentally strike Alec Guinness hard enough to draw blood in one scene. For all the death and misery caused by its building, the Burma-Siam Railway only ever carried two Japanese divisions and 500,000 tons of supplies before VJ Day brought the war in Asia to a close. Its this structure, Bridge 277, that still stands and is a famous local tourist attraction. Since it first graced the silver screen won the admiration of audiences everywhere and continues to do so. 2023 Commonwealth War Graves Commission. 6. 25 March 1995. Its telling that the railway workers had to see to their own medical care. 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. 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. Alec Guiness overseeing men working on the tracks in a scene from the film 'The Bridge On The River Kwai', 1957. Ian Watts, longtime professor of English at Stanford and author of the landmark The Rise of the Novel, had actually been a prisoner in the camp and helped with the construction of the bridge. There's a stench of death about you. British English: The Top 50 Most Beautiful British Insults, British Slang: Your Guide to British Police Slang for the Telly Watcher, British Slang: Tea Time British Words for Tea and Tea Related Culture, ltimate List of Funny British Place Names, 101 Budget Britain Travel Tips 2nd Edition, Great Britons Book: Top 50 Greatest Brits Who Ever Lived, Anglotopias Grand Adventure Lands End to John OGroats. The Bridge on the River Kwai is now widely recognized as one of the greatest films ever made. Spiegel sent the screenplay to the Japanese government ahead of time, hoping to get their cooperation with the production. So Spiegel hired another writer, Calder Willingham, to give it a crack. c. 1945. Lets examine the history behind the film and the men who made it. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and scooped up seven Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor. Nicholson advises Saito that the officers cannot be required to do manual labour according to the Geneva Convention. You carry it in your pack like the plague. Only in 1984 did the Academy rectify the situation by retroactively awarding the Oscar to Foreman and Wilson, posthumously in both cases. Some sections, such as the infamous Hellfire Pass, required carving through tough sheer rock. Surviving veterans consider Toosey one of the finest officers they ever served under. The destruction of the bridge as depicted in the film is also entirely fictional. 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). Let's talk about British Food! 25. Bought 4 and 6 mm dowel wood for bridge piers. Bangkok - Kanchanaburi More info / Tickets. Thanbyuzayat continued to be used as a POW reception centre to reinforce work parties along the Burma-Siam Railway. Lets find out. The place: Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma. Around the time that he was offered the movie, David Lean had little money, as he was in the middle of a financially ruinous divorce, and was very much in need of a new project. Unique to this film, in some ways, were other issues related to poorly made optical dissolves, the original camera lens and a malfunctioning camera. Corrections? "[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. All but a small section of the route was built in dense, malarial jungles, in sweltering heat and monsoon rains. Take a look below for 28 more fun and interesting facts about The Bridge on the River Kwai. In fact, the cemetery is the original burial ground started by the prisoners themselves. They would work in appalling conditions, given minuscule amounts of food, snatches of sleep, and little to no medical treatment. The real swamps in Ceylon were deemed to be too dangerous. Supplying it by ship was the only practical solution. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean and based on the 1952 novel written by Pierre Boulle. 19. By this time, the United States and its naval and industrial might had entered the war. The Bridge on the River Kwai poses complex interpretive issues about the vagaries of war and military behavior as conveyed by the Japanese soldiers, Commander Saito, Lt. Col. Nicholson, and the British captives. 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 steel bridge was repaired and is still in use today. Sessue Hayakawa (1889-1973) was a Japanese-born actor who came to Hollywood in the very early days of cinemahis first short, The Typhoon, was made in 1914and quickly became a matinee idol, playing exotic villains and such. During WW II, Japan constructed the meter-gauge railway line from Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma. "[57], Some Japanese viewers have disliked the film's depiction of the Japanese characters and the historical background presented as being inaccurate, particularly in the interactions between Saito and Nicholson. Or maybe you have a story for us or would like to work together. 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. Beijing Kwai Technology Co.'s app Kuaishou, or Kwai, is arranged for a photograph on a smartphone in Hong Kong, China, on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018.. ", 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. This way, he remained oblivious to the real nature of his characters fate. He described the music for The Bridge on the River Kwai as the "worst job I ever had in my life" from the point of view of time. 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. The deaths of the Asian workers and the prisoners were real events, but most of the book and the movie are not true. 15- "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.". The conditions to which POW and civilian labourers were subjected were far worse than the film depicted. 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). The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean and based on the 1952 novel written by Pierre Boulle.Although the film uses the historical setting of the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942-1943, the plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay are almost entirely fictional. 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. It was filmed in Kitulgala which is 60 . [40] Boulle had never been to the bridge. He had basically retired when Lean approached him to play Colonel Saito in Kwai, a performance that earned Hayakawa an Oscar nomination. 7. Have a question about us or our work? Before the US began rolling up Japanese possessions throughout the Pacific, and the British really started gaining momentum in Burma, Japan had carved out a large empire. Over a muddy jungle river called Kwai, a Japanese colonel, Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), must complete a railroad bridge vital to Japan's war effort. Sam Spiegel bought the railroad train from the Ceylonese government. It was set up at the beginning of the Burma-Siams construction. (This can be compared to a scene in the 1927 movie, The General, which starred Buster Keaton.). Some of the Second World War's fiercest battles involved bridges and inspired some riveting accounts - capture of key bridges (Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day"; Stephen. We hadn't much breath left for whistling. As the train approaches, Nicholson frantically pulls up the wire, following it to find the detonator. Goering Nicholson yells for help, while attempting to stop Joyce from reaching the detonator. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a classic 1957 British-American war film based upon the 1952 novel Le Pont de la Rivire Kwai by Pierre Boulle. Weill you be in London for the Coronation in 2023? He wanders into a Burmese village, is nursed back to health, and eventually reaches the British colony of Ceylon. 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. 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. Like thousands of other POWs, Lamb was kept in degrading conditions, refused medical treatment and barely fed. 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. The ending of that was sort of the story of life. [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. The trials of Australian Army Lieutenant George Hamilton Lamb reflected the mens awful experience building the Burma-Siam 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. Tooseys men stated this never happened. For the scene when Colonel Nicholson emerges from the oven after several days confined there, Alec Guinness based his faltering walk on that of his son Matthew Guinness when he was recovering from polio. This article is part of our Classic Film Throwback series - By Sam Hendrian - "Madness. Forced labourers were labourers taken from the populations of Japan-conquered territories. Lean shouted at them, 'For God's sake, whistle a march to keep time to.' Nicholson will not cooperate and finally insists that the bridge can be built only under his command. In a prison camp, British POWs are forced into labor. Starring Alec Guinness, it depicts the struggles and defiance of Japanese prisoners of war building the fictional Burma railway between 1943-44. TakeMeTour's Review. [43] By October 1960, the film had earned worldwide box office revenues of $30 million. 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. Allied soldiers had built a church and a hospital on the site where the cemetery now sits. Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson have written the screenplay for this film. American casualties were repatriated back to the United States. By Barry Fox. Wise: "I never heard it in Thailand. It stretched from Japan, Korea, and China in the north all the way down to Indonesia. David Lean is taken that story and directed it in 1957. Laughton would die (of cancer) five years later, at the age of 63. 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. Lean only got $150,000 himself, but he always said Holden was worth it. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was set in 1942, shortly after the fall of Singapore. 24. 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. Pierre Boulle, a Frenchman, who had experienced great hardship after being captured by the Vichy French on the Mekong River, wrote a novel called 'Le Pont de la rivire Kwa' - The Bridge of the . In reality, Japanese engineers proved to be just as capable at construction efforts as their Allied counterparts.[58][59]. 9. It was more of a transit hub where prisoners were moved to other work areas along the railway route. Just two months later, Lieutenant Lamb was dead. He'd just been through a costly divorce from actress Ann Todd. Lean feared Guinness' public persona had changed so much that audiences wouldn't buy him in this very dramatic role, but came around to the idea when the Laughton plan didn't work. Initial estimates from Japanese engineers suggested it would take five years. 4. He didn't like the next draft of the screenplay, either, because it made Nicholson "a blinkered character." But in 1966, the film aired on American . The commandoes arrive for their mission as the finishing touches are being put on the bridge. The Bridge on the River Kwai Facts for Kids. Leadership Analysis: The Bridge On The River Kwai. Highly competent work is also done by William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa". The real Bridge on the River Kwai. The Burma-Siam Railways construction necessitated construction of over 670 bridges and numerous cuttings. "[52] Harrison's Reports described the film as an "excellent World War II adventure melodrama" in which the "production values are first-rate and so is the photography.
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