10 facts about the bridge on the river kwai

[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. 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. Guinness, however, had his own reservations. The action of the movie takes place in a Japanese prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in . [31][32] Some consider the film to be an insulting parody of Toosey. Supplying it by ship was the only practical solution. [40], The Bridge on the River Kwai was a massive commercial success. Civilian workmen suffered terribly too, with their casualties far outstripping the military personnel. They would work in appalling conditions, given minuscule amounts of food, snatches of sleep, and little to no medical treatment. [49] Mike Kaplan, reviewing for Variety, described it as "a gripping drama, expertly put together and handled with skill in all departments. This was an entertaining story. Bridge Over The River Kwai Address: Tha Makham, Kanchanaburi, Thailand. The movie garnered seven Academy Awards, including that for best picture, as well as three Golden Globe Awards and four BAFTA awards. 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. These problems resulted in a number of anomalies that were very difficult to correct, like a ghosting effect in many scenes that resembles colour mis-registration, and a tick-like effect with the image jumping or jerking side-to-side. Both bridges stood for two years and were destroyed by bombers in 1945. 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. In early 1943, World War II British prisoners arrive by train at a Japanese prison camp in Burma. Japanese engineers had been surveying and planning the route of the railway since 1937, and they had demonstrated considerable skill during their construction efforts across South-East Asia. "[50] Kaplan further praised the actors, especially Alec Guinness, later writing "the film is unquestionably" his. They were soon sent to Thailand to begin labouring on the Death Railway. In 1997, this film was deemed "culturally . Use our search tools to explore our records and find out about those we commemorate. Just a stone's throw from the Menin Gate, visit our Information Centre to learn more about the CWGC. 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). About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . Real Bridge on the River Kwai. Lean had a lengthy row with Guinness over how to play the role of Nicholson; the actor wanted to play the part with a sense of humour and sympathy, while Lean thought Nicholson should be "a bore." Lean liked that draft even less. Get information about our funding, our Customer Charter and our Strategic Plan. 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. [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]. According to one biographer, he was "broke and needed work; he had even pawned his gold cigarette case." In 1941 the Japanese Army invaded Thailand. Warden, Shears, and two other commandos parachute into Thailand; one, Chapman, dies after falling into a tree, and Warden is wounded in an encounter with a Japanese patrol and must be carried on a litter. Be the first one to write a review. 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. 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. The finished screenplay had significant contributions from both Wilson and Foreman, though each went to his grave insisting he was the more important contributor. 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. At the end of the day, the officers are imprisoned, and Nicholson is thrown into the ovena small box made of corrugated metal. [51] Time magazine praised Lean's directing, noting he demonstrates "a dazzlingly musical sense and control of the many and involving rhythms of a vast composition. She spent most of the next 42 years working as a copy editor and editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. The cemetery itself is located just outside the town of Kanchanaburi at the point where the Kwai splits into the Mae Khlong and Kwai Noi rivers. This records the names of 11 Indian army men buried in Muslim cemeteries throughout Thailand whose graves could not be maintained. 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. Thousands of Asian workers and POWs (prisoners of war) died while working on the project. 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. 22. Answer (1 of 7): David Lean made some excellent films His Dickens films of the 1940's are classic black and white versions of OLIVER TWIST and GREAT EXPECTATIONS He discovered color and the wide screen in the 1950's and 1960's Besides BRIDGE, Lean also did LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DR ZHIVAGO Peo. 20. The prisoners of war who had . Shears tries to get out of the mission by confessing that he impersonated an officer, hoping for better treatment from the Japanese. 24. 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. The filming of the bridge explosion was to be done on 10 March 1957, in the presence of S.W.R.D. When the sun rises, the commandoes realize that the water level in the river has fallen, exposing the explosives and wiring. (Lean denied ever wanting Laughton for the role, despite abundant documented evidence to the contrary.). For the novel, see, American theatrical release poster, "Style A", A transcript of the interview and the documentary as a whole can be found in the new edition of John Coast's book, Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, 11th greatest British film of the 20th century, the highest-grossing film of 1957 in the United States and Canada, Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, Best Sound Track Album, Dramatic Picture Score or Original Cast, AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition), "Complete National Film Registry Listing", "New to the National Film Registry (December 1997) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin", "Columbia Earns as It Holds Coin Due Bill Holden on 10% of 'Kwai', "Flashback: A look back at this day in film history (, "Sri Lanka to rebuild bridge from River Kwai movie", "Film locations for David Lean's The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957), in Sri Lanka", "How Father Brown Led Sir Alec Guinness to the Church", "sic - correct spelling is Siegertsz. By this time, the United States and its naval and industrial might had entered the war. 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 year: 1943. 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. After Saito cuts a ceremonial ribbon, Nicholson spots a detonator wire. [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. Workers died at a rate of 20 men per day. 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 is a 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean and based on the 1952 novel written by Pierre Boulle. 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. Let's talk about British Food! Only minor damage was inflicted. The British soldiers were slaves; they did not help the Japanese. To counter the Allies tightening grip on supply lines, the Japanese army resurrected an old idea first mooted by regional powers in the late 19th century: to build a railway between Myanmar and Siam. Take a look below for 28 more fun and interesting facts about The Bridge on the . 18. Alec Guiness overseeing men working on the tracks in a scene from the film 'The Bridge On The River Kwai', 1957. The bridge, several museums, and cemeteries have respectfully preserved the history and memorialized the dead. British people of Anglotopia, what do you make of the whole anglophile thing ? The producer's press release, thoughwanting to emphasize that this was a Big Budget Hollywood Pictureclaimed the bridge had cost $250,000. 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. The Kanchanaburi Memorial sits with the cemetery grounds. 25 March 1995. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. Bridge over the River Kwai, Kanchanaburi, Thailand. 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. [citation needed], Julie Summers, in her book The Colonel of Tamarkan, writes that Boulle, who had been a prisoner of war in Thailand, created the fictional Nicholson character as an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers. Begun in October 1942, using prisoner of war (POW) labour, it was completed and operational by early February 1943. Saito is expected to commit ritual suicide if he fails to meet the rapidly approaching deadline. Shears, who is a British commando officer like Warden in the novel, became an American sailor who escapes from the POW camp. The bridge is still in everyday use as part of the Bangkok-Nam Tok line. Its this structure, Bridge 277, that still stands and is a famous local tourist attraction. Thanbyuzayat is in Myanmar. California Doubling: The film is set in Thailand, but was filmed in Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), a distinction the publicity of the time didn't see fit to make clear.Instead, it raved about the movie being shot in Ceylon in a way which implied the real-life River Kwai was located there. Showing the impact of disease on the workforce, Kanchanaburi contains two graves holding the ashes of 300 Cholera victims. 7. Spiegel, the producer, bought the film rights to the book (the English version of which was called The Bridge Over the River Kwai) and hired Carl Foreman to write the script. (He didn't attend the Oscars, either.) 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. For one sunset scene, David Lean specifically traveled 150 miles to capture it. Although the obvious link was by sea, Allied submarines controlling the region made it too treacherous. Their roles and characters, however, are fictionalised. Has only got one ball! Toosey in fact did as much as possible to delay the building of the bridge. The Bridge on the River Kwai was actually one of the reasons movies started becoming prime-time television programming. 8. David Lean, director of such landmark epics as Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, didn't always make giant movies. According to Columbia Pictures, they followed an all-new 4K digital restoration from the original negative with newly restored 5.1 audio. 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. It was more of a transit hub where prisoners were moved to other work areas along the railway route. Nicholson spots the wire and brings it to Saito's attention. With William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa. comment. The railway ran for 250 miles from Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma and is now known as the Death Railway. Work on the bridge proceeds badly, due to both the faulty Japanese engineering plans and the prisoners' slow pace and deliberate sabotage. A Cholera epidemic swept through Nieke Camp between May-June 1943. Nevertheless, the leeches in the recreated swamps were real. In many tense, dramatic scenes, only the sounds of nature are used. Allied soldiers had built a church and a hospital on the site where the cemetery now sits. They built a railway to link Bangkok to Rangoon. This Week's Toybox is . Both writers had to work in secret, as they were on the Hollywood blacklist and had fled to England in order to continue working. 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 Nicholson, arrive at a Japanese prison camp in Thailand. Shears is enjoying his hospital stay in Ceylon unwittingly within a commando school referred to as "Force 316" (likely based on the real world Force 136 of the Special Operations Executive (SOE)). Forced labourers were labourers taken from the populations of Japan-conquered territories. Part of this project was building bridges over Thailand's Kwai Yai, at a place named Tamarkan, which is near a town named Kanchanaburi. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a British 1957 World War II film by David Lean based on the novel The Bridge Over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. Did he really want the enemy to come in across it? It was set up at the beginning of the Burma-Siams construction. Highly competent work is also done by William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa". His first epic was his twelfth film: The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness and William Holden as P.O.W. Please select which sections you would like to print: Pat Bauer graduated from Ripon College in 1977 with a double major in Spanish and Theatre. Or maybe you have a story for us or would like to work together. The railway route, which ran through Burma and Thailand, had been planned by the British. It begins with British troops being marched into the prison camp after their surrender to the Japanese at Singapore. Lean wanted to use the tune in Kwai, figured those lyrics wouldn't pass the censors (or the approval of the composer's widow), and opted to have the troops whistle it instead. Madness! Joyce, manning the detonator, breaks cover and stabs Saito to death. Chandran Rutnam and William Holden while shooting The Bridge on the River Kwai. 1957 World War II film directed by David Lean, This article is about the film. Image: Bridge 277 aka the real Bridge over the River Kwai, Image: The iconic poster of the 1957 classic. 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. What's your favorite? It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, wining seven -- including Best Picture . Himmler Walk over the steel bridge at the River Kwai, one of the most famous rivers in the world, which gained international fame in the book and film, "Bridge on the River Kwai". The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. However, cameraman Freddy Ford was unable to get out of the way of the explosion in time, and Lean had to stop filming. 4. Sessue Hayakawa really did accidentally strike Alec Guinness hard enough to draw blood in one scene. The conditions to which POW and civilian labourers were subjected were far worse than the film depicted. [48], Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the film as "a towering entertainment of rich variety and revelation of the ways of men". 7. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was set in 1942, shortly after the fall of Singapore. 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. American casualties were repatriated back to the United States. Lean only got $150,000 himself, but he always said Holden was worth it. The rest were made of wood and local materials. ", Warden fires a mortar, killing Shears and Joyce and fatally wounding Nicholson. Starring Alec Guinness, it depicts the struggles and defiance of Japanese prisoners of war building the fictional Burma railway between 1943-44. 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. The Bridge on the River Kwai, Kanchanaburi 1942. Brigadier Varley would survive the hellish building work along the Burma-Siam Railway but not the war. c. 1945. 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. 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. Interested in advertising on the world's largest website dedicated to all things Britain? Within 16 months the bridge was completed but it took another two years to complete the entire rail line. The action of the movie takes place in a Japanese prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in Burma during World War II. A real train rode over the bridge as it blew up. Their taskmasters were relentless. Nicholson yells for help, while attempting to stop Joyce from reaching the detonator. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Addeddate 2021-08-19 15:12:20 Identifier the-bridge-on-the-river-kwai_202108 Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.4. plus-circle Add Review. Lambs sister received a letter from him in September 1943, saying he was in excellent health and being treated well by his captors. This was an incorrect assumption. The Burma-Siam Railways construction necessitated construction of over 670 bridges and numerous cuttings. The Bridge over the River Kwai (French: Le Pont de la rivire Kwa) is a novel by the French novelist Pierre Boulle, published in French in 1952 and English translation by Xan Fielding in 1954. By the end, prisoners working on the rail route werent calling it the Burma-Siam Railway. 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). He had basically retired when Lean approached him to play Colonel Saito in Kwai, a performance that earned Hayakawa an Oscar nomination.

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