The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

After settling his differences with a Japanese PoW camp commander, a British colonel 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.

Director:

David Lean

Writers:

Pierre Boulle (novel), Carl Foreman (screenplay)

Stars:

William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins

Top Rated Movies #136 | Won 7 Oscars. Another 23 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
William Holden	...	Cmdr. Shears
Alec Guinness	...	Colonel Nicholson
Jack Hawkins	...	Major Warden
Sessue Hayakawa	...	Colonel Saito
James Donald	...	Major Clipton / Doctor
Geoffrey Horne	...	Lieutenant Joyce
André Morell	...	Colonel Green (as Andre Morell)
Peter Williams	...	Captain Reeves
John Boxer	...	Major Hughes
Percy Herbert	...	Grogan
Harold Goodwin	...	Baker
Ann Sears	...	Nurse
Heihachirô Ôkawa	...	Captain Kanematsu (as Henry Okawa)
Keiichirô Katsumoto	...	Lieutenant Miura (as Keiichiro Katsumoto) (as K. Katsumoto)
M.R.B. Chakrabandhu	...	Yai

Storyline

The film deals with the situation of British prisoners of war during World War II who are ordered to build a bridge to accommodate the Burma-Siam railway. Their instinct is to sabotage the bridge but, under the leadership of Colonel Nicholson, they are persuaded that the bridge should be constructed as a symbol of British morale, spirit and dignity in adverse circumstances. At first, the prisoners admire Nicholson when he bravely endures torture rather than compromise his principles for the benefit of the Japanese commandant Saito. He is an honorable but arrogant man, who is slowly revealed to be a deluded obsessive. He convinces himself that the bridge is a monument to British character, but actually is a monument to himself, and his insistence on its construction becomes a subtle form of collaboration with the enemy. Unknown to him, the Allies have sent a mission into the jungle, led by Warden and an American, Shears, to blow up the bridge.

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Plot Keywords:

bridge | jungle | allies | construction | sabotage | 

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Taglines:

It spans a whole new world of entertainment!

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for mild war violence

Details

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English Japanese Thai

Release Date:

14 December 1957 (USA)

Also Known As:

El puente sobre el río Kwai

Filming Locations:

Kalugamuwa, Gelioya, Kandy, Sri Lanka

Box Office

Budget:

$3,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$27,200,000 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation, Horizon Pictures (II)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

161 min

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) (RCA Sound Recording) Mono (35 mm prints) (RCA Sound Recording) 4-Track Stereo (Linear PCM)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

To keep costs down, producer Sam Spiegel decided not to hire any extras, using crew members and Ceylon locals instead. This meant that some of the British prisoners were actually natives of the region wearing make-up to appear Caucausian.

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Goofs

At the beginning of the film after the train has stopped at the end of the track and prisoners are being lead screen right, at the point where the credit for "CONSTRUCTION MANAGER - PETER DUKELOW" comes up, the Japanese soldier just right to that credit is holding a US Thompson machine gun.

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Quotes

Major Reeves: By the way, sir, I meant to tell you, there are trees in this forest very similar to elm. And the elm piles of London Bridge lasted six hundred years.
Colonel Nicholson: Six hundred years, Reeves?
Major Reeves: Yes, sir.
Colonel Nicholson: Six hundred years... That would be quite something.

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Crazy Credits

And introducing Geoffrey Horne

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Connections

Referenced in The Wild Bunch (1969)

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Soundtracks

Radio Dance Music
(uncredited)
Music by Dave Shand

User Reviews

A powerful film experience

I heard a film critic once say that there really aren't "war movies"; there are only "anti-war" movies. I'm still not sure what I think of that claim, but having seen - The Bridge on the River Kwai- enough times in the past several years, I think I'm persuaded that it's at least half right. -Kwai-, I believe, is both a "war" and "anti-war" movie, and, in my view, it succeeds admirably at both.

There is almost no element of -Kwai- that is not praise-worthy. David Lean's direction is tight and evocative. The cinematography is great (even though the color seems increasingly drained in film versions that I have seen). The acting is top-notch. I honestly believe that this is Alec Guiness's best performance, and Sessue Hayakawa is also highly sympathetic and believable. William Holden and Jack Hawkins round out the cast nicely.

The musical score is also right on. Simply put, -Kwai- is an excellently constructed film made by people who obviously cared a great deal about it. As a result, the viewer comes to care a great deal about it as well.

Clearly -Kwai- is an anti-war film. There is no glorification here. War is brutal, period. It's brutality is not captured here in terms of gory carnage or senseless battles. Instead, the psychological dimension of brutality comes across clearly. Yet, -Kwai- also shows the resilience of the human spirit as well as its complexity. One is left wondering if participation in World War II not only psychologically brutalized the characters played by Guiness, Hayakawa, and Holden but also if it simultaneously uplifted them. The paradox is striking to me each time I view this film. War can act both as a positive and negative catalyst, and it can do both of these things at the same instant.

So, is -The Bridge on the River Kwai- a war movie or an anti-war movie? I think Lean clearly preferred the latter, but the subject matter and his approach to it may have landed somewhere in between.

Regardless, -Kwai- is a fantastic film experience and is not to be missed. It is, simply put, my very favorite film--bar none.