Sconesandjam

I shall make my case forever; Sir David Lean's epic direction, combined with Sir Alec Guinness' brilliant study of being a British officer, makes this my favourite British film. I am sorry, I don't see any others!

MrDrakesDuck

Not a film I like.

Don't think it was a subject that should have been trivialized with the raid to blow up the bridge.

And of course there had to be an American star so they could flog the film in the States.

"I thought I had to shoot Germans, not chew 'em"

Bob M.

I like the film 'cos it's got Percy Herbert in it!

"How about dat, a? How about dat?

Sconesandjam

The film was an excellent film. Unlike the Titanic, or Pearl Harbour, the film doesn't seek to trivialize history with unnecessary romance. Furthermore, there were more American soldiers in Eastern Asia during World War II than any other- why not have an American actor portraying an American soldier?

Regardless of what some may think, this film benefits from the brilliance of Sir David Lean's direction, making it watchable, and Sir Alec Guinness' multi-layered performance, and those are the highlights of this undeniable classic!!

MrDrakesDuck

That's what I mean by 'trivialized'.

American tough guy out to whip Japaenese asses.

The suffering of allied pows taking second place.

Of course if no action, no film, or at least no blockbuster, but so what IMO.

"I thought I had to shoot Germans, not chew 'em"

DB7

It never really caught the mood of the true death toll on Hell Fire Pass. In truth it's a Boys Own story of derring-do like The Great Escape but I don't find Guinness' personnal moment of realisation as sobering as the executions at the end of Sturges' film.

Kwai is a great film but the subplot of Shears escape to Ceylon and subsequent commando mission blights much of the films initial impact and the battle of wills between Saito and Nicholson.

But without the reluctant "Dirty Dozen" hero formula thrown in it probably wouldn't have been such a success.

Gibbie

I have to primarily agree with DB7 here.

The aforementioned advertising is what happened with a lot of films and still does sometimes in adverts, they do not project what the real theme is (another example of that time is "Rebel Without a Cause"). Knowing the post-war era, films were advertised to draw people on Hollywood's perceived view of the public - here a patriotic attack on the enemy, but anyone who knows David Lean, knows that the film is essentially an anti-war picture and that that is the key to his point at the end.

As a result, while a classic, I think the movie fails here, because it is being played both ways and so DB7's observation on Guiness' character is correct and that it doesn't do justice, as I think Lean was being heavy handed here and tends to leave one with the view of futility (I think he meant that concerning war, but it gives the impression that the futility is the struggle in life - in this case, one's enemies).

Gibbie

Hackett

"THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWIA" I enjoyed it as a film, an entertainment. As far as realism goes if you have ever talked to men who worked on the railway the story would have concluded when Guiness first defied the Japanese commandant. Not with the machine-gun from the back of the truck but a bayonet.

Gibbie

Good point. Well stated Hackett.

Gibbie

Freddy

Two sites people reading this thread might like to look at.
http://www.mnlegion.org/paper/html/whittaker.html

http://www.ihffilm.com/r590.html

Freddy

The world wags on.

Gibbie

Great resources Freddy - Excellent to get actual personal histories.

Still... in line with Hackett, the movie was a great entertainment and I remember well whistling in solidarity with my father (WWII vet) on trips as a child.

Gibbie

Freddy

Hi Gibbie

I remember when the IRA put a bomb outside the Union Jack Club in London(Forces club)some years ago, the young TV reporter was interviewing a veteran who described the scene.
Veteran: "I was having a gin and tonic when there was a load bang outside, part of the roof fell in and some of the plaster went in my drink"
The reporter,in a semi panic, excited tone then asked him what he did next.
The old soldier looked at him as if to say what a silly question.

"I ordered another drink of course."

Not a film story but you know what I am trying to say

regards
Freddy

The world wags on.

Gibbie

Hi Freddy,

Exactly.

I remember living in London during the IRA bombs in the early 90s. If you haven't grown up with that sort of thing it can get quite unnerving. But, the people in London were like "chin up" sorts like it was par for the course, just like the officer.

Gibbie

Hackett

I was working on St.Thomas Hospital when the IRA bombed The Old Bailey and the Army Careers Office off Horse Guards Parade. I could see the smoke rise from both explosions and some of the injured arriving at the hospital from the roof of the ward block. But the most vivid memory I have is of my tube trip home. It was quiet, anxious, took forever and the only time I ever got a seat from Westminster to Finsbury Park in the two years I made that rush hour Journey.

DB7

Ex-River Kwai prisoner Ronald Searle slams 'nonsense' movie

By Anthony Barnes, Arts and Media Correspondent
Published: 10 July 2005
The movie classic The Bridge On The River Kwai has been condemned as "romantic nonsense" by the satirical cartoonist Ronald Searle, who was himself a labourer on the infamous Burma railway.

Mr Searle, the reclusive creator of the St Trinians tales about schoolgirl minxes, was dismissive of the movie's suggestion that the prisoners of war who built the track saw it as a matter of British pride.

The film won seven Oscars for its portrayal of the brutal conditions under which their Japanese masters kept the Allied prisoners as they forced them to build the death railway. Director Sir David Lean based the popular 1957 movie on a novel by Pierre Boulle, which also comes in for criticism in Searle's attack which will be broadcast today in Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

"It is nonsense and absolute rubbish. It is a romantic novel, a Frenchman's idea of how the British behave. A sort of "jolly good chaps and let's build a bridge," Mr Searle said in his first broadcast interview for three decades.

The humorist said that the railway was seen rather as a source of national shame with British officers assigning any troublemakers in their number to keep them out of the way, The Sunday Telegraph reports

Mr Searle began work on the railway in 1943 after he and two other prisoners began producing a magazine to keep up the PoWs' morale. "It upset the extremely conservative mentalities of our own administration - the commanders and the chaplains. When the time came for the Japanese to say we want groups to be sent up north, the English chose the troublemakers," he said.

The interview with Mr Searle, which was conducted in France where he now lives instead of the more usual recording at the BBC's Broadcasting House, is timed to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. In it, he gives his account of their appalling existence as prisoners and talks about how his own weight plunged to just six stones. "We were dirt," he said.

Searle, who was also co-author of the Molesworth series, said that the experience coloured his career: "The horror, the misery, the blackness changed the attitude to all things, including humour."