35
The
Bridge on the River Kwai
Release date 2nd October 1957
Country : UK / USA
Running time : 161 mins
Genre : War
Starring Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins
Screenplay by Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman
Directed by David Lean
After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, Colonel Nicholson 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.
One of the great war films compelling to watch with fine performances particularly from the Academy Award winning Guinness. In the end he almost falls in love with the bridge they have built for the enemy and in the final sequence where he can't prevent its destruction it isn't clear whether he deliberately falls on the detonator. This ambiguity doesn't really harm the film and the destruction is appropriately spectacular.
Guinness was third choice for Colonel Nicholson behind Cary Grant and Laurence Olivier.
The screenwriters were uncredited at the time because they were blacklisted.
DVD
available from Columbia Tristar Home Video:Release date 2nd October 1957
Country : UK / USA
Running time : 161 mins
Genre : War
Starring Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins
Screenplay by Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman
Directed by David Lean
After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, Colonel Nicholson 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.
One of the great war films compelling to watch with fine performances particularly from the Academy Award winning Guinness. In the end he almost falls in love with the bridge they have built for the enemy and in the final sequence where he can't prevent its destruction it isn't clear whether he deliberately falls on the detonator. This ambiguity doesn't really harm the film and the destruction is appropriately spectacular.
Guinness was third choice for Colonel Nicholson behind Cary Grant and Laurence Olivier.
The screenwriters were uncredited at the time because they were blacklisted.
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Written content copyright Derek McLellan,2005.
Copyright © The Fedora Chronicles
