[43] By October 1960, the film had earned worldwide box office revenues of $30 million. [63], The film was restored in 1985 by Columbia Pictures. Lean wanted Charles Laughton (who'd starred in his 1954 film Hobson's Choice) to play Colonel Nicholson, the role that ultimately went to Alec Guinness. By 1944, its operational capacity was being massively hampered by the damage caused by air raids. Warden tells the Siamese women that he had to prevent anyone from falling into enemy hands, and leaves with them. 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. ABC, sponsored by Ford, paid a record $1.8 million for the television rights for two screenings in the United States. as for the bridge on the River Kwai, it crossed the river only in the imagination of its author. Questions or feedback on our new site? On another occasion, they argued over the scene where Nicholson reflects on his career in the army. Nevertheless, the leeches in the recreated swamps were real. The Real Story Behind 'The Bridge On The River Kwai' - Coffee or Die Lean insisted that Laughton could lose weight before shooting began, but Columbia Pictures' insurance underwriters refused to cover him, saying he was too unhealthy to endure several months on location in the jungles of Ceylon. 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. The True Story of the Bridge over the River Kwai | CWGC Mortally wounded, he falls onto the plunger, the bridge is blown up, and the train with the dignitaries falls into the river. The train crashed into a generator on the other side of the bridge and was wrecked. Nicholson is shocked by the poor job being done by his men and orders the building of a proper bridge, intending it to stand as a tribute to the British Army's ingenuity for centuries to come. It was set up at the beginning of the Burma-Siams construction. Let's talk about British Food! 15. Cafes and tourist spots dot the banks of the Khwae Noi. Nicholson spots the wire and brings it to Saito's attention. Tonight, enjoy dinner at a hotel restaurant Overnight: Kanchanaburi 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. Thanbyuzayat was originally a POW administration headquarters and base camp. [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]. The film originally made thirty million dollars over its three million dollar budget and was rereleased in theaters just after Lean and Spiegel's Lawrence of Arabia came out. Is Bridge on River Kwai a true story? - IronSet But, what about the real men behind the real story of the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway? In 1984 the Academy Board of Governors voted posthumous Oscars to Foreman and Wilson, and their names were included on prints of the film beginning in the 1990s. Kanchanaburi is served by a rail service from Bangkok Noi . Disease was a huge killer among railway workers, but so was brutality. Although the film uses the historical setting of the construction of the Burma Railway in 19421943, the plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay are almost entirely fictional. Budget. [3] The cast includes William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa. Nicholson yells for help, while attempting to stop Joyce from reaching the detonator. Tooseys men stated this never happened. [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. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. 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. In early 1943, World War II British prisoners arrive by train at a Japanese prison camp in Burma. 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). Once Spiegel relented, he realized Holden was a box office draw and offered him a great deal: $300,000 salary (about $2.5 million in 2016 dollars), plus 10 percent of the gross. In a prison camp, British POWs are forced into labor. [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. 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 . The march was written in 1914 by Kenneth J. Alford, a pseudonym of British Bandmaster Frederick J. Ricketts. After Saito cuts a ceremonial ribbon, Nicholson spots a detonator wire. WILLIAM HOLDEN JACK HAWKINS 1957 BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI 8X10 PHOTO. It spans crosses the lazily winding Khwae Noi at Kanchanaburi, Thailand. 24. [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". In reality, Risaburo Saito was respected by his prisoners for being comparatively merciful and fair towards them. [35], Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey of the British Army was the real senior Allied officer at the bridge in question. The building of Bridge 277, the eponymous bridge that gave Leans film its name, was overseen by 2,000 British and Dutch prisoners of war. You can also take a boat down the Kwai River . 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. Read more. Bus Bangkok - Kanchanaburi $ 7.19 3h 30m. After Guinness was done with the scene, Lean said, "Now you can all fuck off and go home, you English actors. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British-American epic war movie directed by David Lean and starring William Holden, Jack Hawkins, and Alec Guinness, featuring Sessue Hayakawa. In the setting of World War II, a defeated unit British Soldiers is marched into a Japanese prison camp in western Thailand, with the purpose of constructing a bridge over the River Kwai to carry a new railway line to invade Burma. BANGKOK TO BRIDGE ON RIVER KWAI: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW - A Million Travels Unique to this film, in some ways, were other issues related to poorly made optical dissolves, the original camera lens and a malfunctioning camera. Although the obvious link was by sea, Allied submarines controlling the region made it too treacherous. Real Bridge on the River Kwai | New Scientist The official credit was given to Pierre Boulle (who did not speak English), and the resulting Oscar for Best Screenplay (Adaptation) was awarded to him. Aerial reconnaissance photo of the Steel Bridge taken during a bombing raid. Recognising Shears, Nicholson exclaims, "What have I done? 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. But in Bangkok I was told that David Lean, the film's director, became mad at the extras who played the prisonersusbecause they couldn't march in time. 10. : 1942: Boldly advancing through Asia, the Japanese need a train route from Burma going north. Surviving veterans consider Toosey one of the finest officers they ever served under. Last survivor of the Bridge On The River Kwai Japanese railway Geoffrey Horne saved his life. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - IMDb [7][8] In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Bridge on the River Kwai the 11th greatest British film of the 20th century. 23. [64] The image was restored by OCS, Freeze Frame, and Pixel Magic with George Hively editing. Approximately 5 kilometres north of Kanchanaburi there were two bridges that were built by POWs during the war. Both writers had to work in secret, as they were on the Hollywood blacklist and had fled to England in order to continue working. Over a muddy jungle river called Kwai, a Japanese colonel, Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), must complete a railroad bridge vital to Japan's war effort. The river is the Mae Klong River which passes through a valley of the Khwae Noi River (little tributary). 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. The Bridge on the River Kwai was actually one of the reasons movies started becoming prime-time television programming. Prisoners, including the sick, were marched to camps further along Death Railway. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, wining seven -- including Best Picture . Rather than draw on their own corps of manpower, which was busy fighting an eventual losing battle against encroaching Allied forces, it would put its legions of POWs and local forced labourers to work. 25 March 1995. That evening, the officers are placed in a punishment hut, while Nicholson is beaten and locked in an iron box. The Bridge on the River Kwai / Trivia - TV Tropes The Bridge on the River Kwai, Kanchanaburi, Thailand - Travel [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. The Burma-Siam Railway was 250 miles of railway constructed by Allied prisoners of war alongside forced Asian labourers. They remain standing at attention throughout the day. The rest were made of wood and local materials. Writers: Pierre Boulle (novel), Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson (screenplay), Academy Award nominations (* denotes win), https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Bridge-on-the-River-Kwai-film-by-Lean, Filmsite - The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), BFI Screenonline - The Bridge on the River Kwai, Turner Classic Movies - The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). 12. "[55], Balu Mahendra, the Tamil film director, observed the shooting of this film at Kitulgala, Sri Lanka during his school trip and was inspired to become a film director. While the British prisoners celebrate their accomplishment that night, the commandoes wire the bridge with explosives to be detonated by a plunger operated by a hidden soldier, timed to collapse the bridge just as an inaugural train carrying Japanese dignitaries is crossing it. The Kwai Bridge: The Reel and the Real - The New York Times What is it that makes the film 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' such an He didn't like the screenplay because it reduced Nicholson to secondary status. As the train approaches, they hurry down to the riverbank to investigate. Forced labourers were labourers taken from the populations of Japan-conquered territories. (This can be compared to a scene in the 1927 movie, The General, which starred Buster Keaton.). Bridge Over The River Kwai Address: Tha Makham, Kanchanaburi, Thailand. 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. The Bridge Over the River Kwai won seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) in 1958. Kanburi wasnt a work camp as such. [26], A memorable feature of the film is the tune that is whistled by the POWsthe first strain of the "Colonel Bogey March"when they enter the camp. 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. His first epic was his twelfth film: The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness and William Holden as P.O.W. 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. Has something sim'lar The film "The Bridge on the River Kwai" dramatized the WWII story of the Thailand-Burma Railway, yet it was largely fictional. No visit to the Western Front is complete without a trip to The CWGC Visitor Centre. 60,000 or so Allied prisoners of war, including British, Australian, Dutch and some US troops, alongside more than 200,000 civilian labourers were pressed into service. 28 Fun And Interesting Facts About The Bridge On The River Kwai Moreover, Kanchanaburi has an annual "Bridge Over the River Kwai" week, which has a sound show to relive the moments of World War II. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. The Bridge of the River kwai It is a tourist attraction of Kanchanaburi. Lamb, as he was known, had been a politician before calling up, serving the state legislature in Victoria, Australia. The Bridge over the River Kwai met its fate in 1945. The movie, based on the novel Le Pont de la rivire Kwa (1952) by French novelist Pierre Boulle, was adapted for the screen by Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman, who were both at the time on the Hollywood blacklist. The Bridge On The River Kwai | Film Locations 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. 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). The railway route, which ran through Burma and Thailand, had been planned by the British. Desperate, he uses the anniversary of Japan's 1905 victory in the Russo-Japanese War as an excuse to save face; he announces a general amnesty, releasing Nicholson and his officers and exempting them from manual labour. For one sunset scene, David Lean specifically traveled 150 miles to capture it. Death Railway: History of the Bridge on The River Kwai 27. $ 3 million (estimated) 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 ). His compassion and insistence on equality amongst the ranks ensured he protected his men as best he could. It stars Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa, Jack Hawkins and William Holden. Some Thailand River cruises begin in Bangkok and lead along the Mekong River to destinations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. But poor old Goebbels 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. Its telling that the railway workers had to see to their own medical care. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI: Honor, Duty, and Madness In 1942 Japan seized Myanmar from British control and quickly decided to build a rail link to Thailand in order to maintain a secure supply route to their forces. Just two months later, Lieutenant Lamb was dead. Ironically, Allied bombing raids of the region between March and June 1943 contributed to casualties sustained around Thanbyuzayat. After the war, their remains were moved from these makeshift cemeteries and graveyards to purpose-built Commission sites. Updates? The Bridge on the River Kwai - Wikipedia It is close to, but not over the country's border with Myanmar. Initial estimates from Japanese engineers suggested it would take five years. This Week's Toybox is . At one point during filming, David Lean nearly drowned when he was swept away by a river current. Also, in the novel, the bridge is not destroyed: the train plummets into the river from a secondary charge placed by Warden, but Nicholson (never realising "what have I done?") By the end, prisoners working on the rail route werent calling it the Burma-Siam Railway. This film is produced by Sam Spiegel, and the music is composed by Malcolm Arnold for . [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. Bridge on the River Kwai - silverfox175 (There were other verses, too, which treated in more depth the number, location, and status of Hitler's anatomy, but you get the idea.) 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. Parts of the Burma-Siam railway still stand. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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)). Explore the CWGC Archive through our online portal. See some of the commonly asked questions about the Special Committee. The Kwai River Bridge was part of the meter-gauge railway constructed by the Japanese during World War Two. The weather is good, not hot The train passes at 10 AM and the train returns at 4 PM. 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. From iconic memorials to local churchyards, there is unique heritage to explore across Great Britain. 2. rainy day Therefore, there are not many people. [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. When Columbia Pictures read the script for Kwai, it was concerned that the story was too much about men and had no love interest. Weill you be in London for the Coronation in 2023? Also, the dense surrounding jungle renders escape virtually impossible. Has no balls 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. The casualties of the Burma-Siam railway were often buried in camp burial grounds located close to where they originally fell. The Burma-Siam Railroad and the Bridge over the River Kwai Guide Around 90,000 forced labourers are thought to have died building Death Railway. Bridge On The River Kwai is an Epic war-based film. ", 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. It would be a massive undertaking. The action of the movie takes place in a Japanese prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in . 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. Did he really want the enemy to come in across it? 14- "Be happy in your work.". Nicholson suddenly realizes that his pride in the bridges construction has blinded him to his military duty. This story is retold in: Anecdotal Tit Bits: Making "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "links for research, Allied POWs under the Japanese", "The Colonel of Tamarkan: Philip Toosey and the Bridge on the River Kwai", "The Colonel of Tamarkan: Philip Toosey and the, "Once-Stupendous-Now-Modest $2,700,000 Budget Kept Secret; 'River Kwai's' Sockfull Gross", "Screen: 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' Opens", "Film Reviews: The Bridge on the River Kwai", "Balu Mahendra, who made his visuals speak, dies at 74", "Warren Buffett carries an American Express card and about $400 in cash", "How Cartrivision's 1972 VCR ForesawAnd ForfeitedThe Time-Shifted Future", "Movies | Disc & Digital | Sony Pictures", "Wayne and Shuster Show, The Episode Guide (19541990) (series)", Lost and Found: The Story of Cook's Anchor, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Drama, National Board of Review Award for Best Film, New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Bridge_on_the_River_Kwai&oldid=1138405911, Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award-winning performance, Films featuring a Best Drama Actor Golden Globe winning performance, Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award, Films whose cinematographer won the Best Cinematography Academy Award, Films whose director won the Best Directing Academy Award, Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe, Films whose editor won the Best Film Editing Academy Award, Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award, Films with screenplays by Michael Wilson (writer), United States National Film Registry films, World War II films based on actual events, Short description is different from Wikidata, Album articles lacking alt text for covers, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Best DVD Original Retrospective Documentary/Featurette, Online Film & Television Association Awards, This page was last edited on 9 February 2023, at 14:21. He had basically retired when Lean approached him to play Colonel Saito in Kwai, a performance that earned Hayakawa an Oscar nomination. The cemetery was established by the Army Graves Service to hold casualties made along the railways southern Bangkok to Nieke section. 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. Want to work for the CWGC? 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". Like Chungkai and Kanchanaburi, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery was originally part of the camp set up serving the Burma-Siams construction. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Thousands of Asian workers and POWs (prisoners of war) died while working on the project. [54] Slant magazine gave the film four out of five stars. The steel bridge was repaired and is still in use today. Best 17 The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Quotes The British soldiers were slaves; they did not help the Japanese. Of course, he could not save many of his men from expiring, but he did their best to make conditions more comfortable. She spent most of the next 42 years working as a copy editor and editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. [13], Many directors were considered for the project, among them John Ford, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, Fred Zinnemann, and Orson Welles (who was also offered a starring role). The conditions to which POW and civilian labourers were subjected were far worse than the film depicted. Lean filmed the scene from behind Guinness and exploded in anger when Guinness asked him why he was doing this. [40], The Bridge on the River Kwai was a massive commercial success. The film"s story was loosely based on a true World War II incident, and the real-life character of Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey. All but a small section of the route was built in dense, malarial jungles, in sweltering heat and monsoon rains. Nicholson will not cooperate and finally insists that the bridge can be built only under his command. You carry it in your pack like the plague. Sign-up for free daily emails with the latest news about British culture, heritage, and history! A regiment of British prisoners arrives, whistling the Colonel Bogey March, under the command of Colonel Nicholson (Sir Alec Guinness). The movie was mainly filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and also in England. According to one biographer, he was "broke and needed work; he had even pawned his gold cigarette case." In 1997, the movie was deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Or maybe you have a story for us or would like to work together. 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. However, in 1943 a railway bridge was built by Allied POWs over the Mae Klong river renamed Khwae Yai in the 1960s as a result of the film at Tha Ma Kham, five kilometres from Kanchanaburi, Thailand. [27] Gavin Young[28] recounts meeting Donald Wise, a former prisoner of the Japanese who had worked on the Burma Railway. The Bridge on the River Kwai is now widely recognized as one of the greatest films ever made. They built a railway to link Bangkok to Rangoon. Lets examine the history behind the film and the men who made it. 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 railway ran for 250 miles from Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma and is now known as the Death Railway. Its this structure, Bridge 277, that still stands and is a famous local tourist attraction. Ten Interesting Facts about The Bridge on the River Kwai - Anglotopia.net The Bridge On The River Kwai is the World War II Oscar winner about an Army colonel (Alec Guinness) obsessed with proving British superiority over his Japanese captors by showing that his . Nicholson's obsession with the bridge eventually drives him to allow his officers to volunteer to engage in manual labor. Their roles and characters, however, are fictionalised. 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). Allied bombers struck the wooden bridge and its concrete counterpart in February 1945 with one of the earliest uses of guided bombs in history. 17. The rail link, however, would . [39], The major railway bridge described in the novel and film did not actually cross the river known at the time as the Kwai. 20. Pitted against the warden, Colonel . The two did not collaborate on the script; Wilson took over after Lean was dissatisfied with Foreman's work. Real Bridge on the River Kwai. Written 20 October 2021. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a work of fiction, but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942 to 1943 for its historical setting.