This is a strangely dull story about a Naval Reserve pilot (William Holden) called reluctantly back to service during the Korean War. This is largely (and the movie admits it in its opening tagline) a Cold War propaganda piece intended to make the U.S. Navy look good. There's nothing wrong with that, except that one would have expected a better story to accomplish the purpose. I thought that the plot lacked any real excitement or drama, and found the acting to be plodding for the most part (and I must say that Mickey Rooney seemed to be to be totally miscast as a brawling, hero helicopter pilot.) The other thing about the movie that I found strange was that, despite the title, the importance of the Bridges at Toko-Ri was never really explained. Admiral Tarrant (Frederic March) makes the bold statement that if those bridges are destroyed, the Communists would realize that the Allies were serious and they'd give up, but I never really understood why he would have thought those bridges were THAT important. Overall, I found this movie both uninspired and uninspiring. It wasn't awful, it was just awfully boring! Rating: 3/10
Review of The Bridges at Toko-Ri
