8. Visiting The Bridge On The River Kwai, Kanchanaburi 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. Return trains are 12.55 and 15.15. Instead, the Lt. Col would stand up for his men when necessary to try to alleviate some of their hardships. This was an entertaining story. "[47] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". ABC, sponsored by Ford, paid a record $1.8 million for the television rights for two screenings in the United States. It is also known as the "River Kwai March". The movie was mainly filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and also in England. After Guinness was done with the scene, Lean said, "Now you can all fuck off and go home, you English actors. Some sections, such as the infamous Hellfire Pass, required carving through tough sheer rock. The Bridge on the River Kwai Movie Review | Common Sense Media 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". Spiegel sent the screenplay to the Japanese government ahead of time, hoping to get their cooperation with the production. The Bridge on the River Kwai: Fact and fiction - Sentinelassam By 1944, its operational capacity was being massively hampered by the damage caused by air raids. 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. Has only got one ball! These problems resulted in a number of anomalies that were very difficult to correct, like a ghosting effect in many scenes that resembles colour mis-registration, and a tick-like effect with the image jumping or jerking side-to-side. Lean filmed the scene from behind Guinness and exploded in anger when Guinness asked him why he was doing this. 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. Young: "Donald, did anyone whistle Colonel Bogey as they did in the film?" 17. For the novel, see, American theatrical release poster, "Style A", A transcript of the interview and the documentary as a whole can be found in the new edition of John Coast's book, Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, 11th greatest British film of the 20th century, the highest-grossing film of 1957 in the United States and Canada, Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, Best Sound Track Album, Dramatic Picture Score or Original Cast, AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition), "Complete National Film Registry Listing", "New to the National Film Registry (December 1997) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin", "Columbia Earns as It Holds Coin Due Bill Holden on 10% of 'Kwai', "Flashback: A look back at this day in film history (, "Sri Lanka to rebuild bridge from River Kwai movie", "Film locations for David Lean's The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957), in Sri Lanka", "How Father Brown Led Sir Alec Guinness to the Church", "sic - correct spelling is Siegertsz. Alec Guiness overseeing men working on the tracks in a scene from the film 'The Bridge On The River Kwai', 1957. Read more. Its telling that the railway workers had to see to their own medical care. 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. Find out how you can apply to become a CWGC Volunteer. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and scooped up seven Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor. Bridge on the River Kwai; the true story - Digger History - Colonel Saito, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai '. [39], The major railway bridge described in the novel and film did not actually cross the river known at the time as the Kwai. Lean wanted to use the tune in Kwai, figured those lyrics wouldn't pass the censors (or the approval of the composer's widow), and opted to have the troops whistle it instead. WILLIAM HOLDEN JACK HAWKINS 1957 BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI 8X10 PHOTO | eBay Thank God that I'm starting work tomorrow with an American actor (William Holden). International shipment of items may be subject to customs processing and additional charges. Wrote Guinness: "I felt like turning around and getting back on the plane and paying my own fare home!" The Burma-Siam Railways construction necessitated construction of over 670 bridges and numerous cuttings. 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. 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Warden tells the Siamese women that he had to prevent anyone from falling into enemy hands, and leaves with them. He'd just been through a costly divorce from actress Ann Todd. Although the obvious link was by sea, Allied submarines controlling the region made it too treacherous. Allied bombers struck the wooden bridge and its concrete counterpart in February 1945 with one of the earliest uses of guided bombs in history. It begins with British troops being marched into the prison camp after their surrender to the Japanese at Singapore. Around 90,000 forced labourers are thought to have died building Death Railway. As shown in the movie, Guinness played the scene without flinching. 938 Bridge Over The River Kwai Premium High Res Photos - Getty Images The Bridge over the River Kwai - Wikipedia Harry Cohn, the vulgar (but successful) man who ran Columbia Pictures at the time, was furious when he read the script and saw no . He joined up in 1940 and served in the Middle East with the 2/2nd Pioneer Battalion before transferring back to the Dutch East Indies in early 1942. Servicemen who survived the death marches, appalling working conditions, and savage treatment by their guards thought the film nor book reflected the realities of their experience. as for the bridge on the River Kwai, it crossed the river only in the imagination of its author. as soon as he signed, Lean borrowed $2,000 from Columbia Pictures to get his teeth fixed. It was initially scripted by screenwriter Carl Foreman, who was later replaced by Michael Wilson. Thanbyuzayat is in Myanmar. [Ronald Searle, To the Kwai and Back: War drawings 1939-45, London, Collins, 1986, 104] 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' is now the best-known site on the Burma-Thailand railway but its fame is due more to a fictional film than its significance in World War II. Best time to visit Bridge Over The River Kwai (preferred time): 09:00 am - 01:00 pm. . 22. David Leans 1957 epic Bridge on the River Kwai is regarded as one of the all-time great war films. Some Thailand River cruises begin in Bangkok and lead along the Mekong River to destinations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Everywhere in the jungle, the graveyards made their appearance; starting in a small way they gradually grew bigger, until when the railway was completed at the end of the year, thousands of bodies lay in the jungle from one end to the other.. The Bridge On The River Kwai Trivia: Fun And Interesting Facts About The Bridge On The River Kwai: Fascinating Facts About The Bridge on the River Kwai - Kindle edition by Randolph, Amanda. Neither of them got credit, though, as The Bridge on the River Kwai was released during the three-year period when people who'd ever been Communists (or who refused to answer questions about it before Congress) were ineligible for Academy Awards. Pride, Fatalism, and Human Connection in 'The Bridge on the River Kwai Copyright 2020 Tons Of Facts. [23], British composer Malcolm Arnold recalled that he had "ten days to write around forty-five minutes worth of music" much less time than he was used to. The Real Story Behind 'The Bridge On The River Kwai' - Coffee or Die The Bridge Over the River Kwai. The film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Guinness), not to mention a handful of Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and even a Grammy nomination for its soundtrack. [14][15], The film was an international co-production between companies in Britain and the United States. Construction of the Burma-Siam railway began in October 1942 and would end in October 1943. Contact us, Image: Rows of graves at Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Image: Kanchanaburi Dutch Memorial commemorates Dutch POWs who died building Death Railway, Image: Chungkai War Cemetery's Cross of Sacrifice, Image: The Pavilion at Chungkai War Cemetery, Image: The cemetery's horticulture gives Chungkai a sense of serenity, Image: The Stone of Remembrance at Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, Image: Headstones and horticulture at Thanbyuzayat, Get the latest CWGC news and see some of our recent work, Report of the Special Committee to review historical inequalities in Commemoration, Discover world war casualties who lived in your area, The True Story of the Bridge over the River Kwai, Why and how were restoring the Menin Gate: What you need to know about this amazing project, A push through the desert: How The Allies Captured Jericho in 1918, Visit Commonwealth war graves in Arras, France. Its estimated around 16,000 Allied prisoners of war were killed during construction of the Burma-Siam Railway. Thanks to the film, the Bridge, situated in the Thai town of Kanchanaburi a couple of hours drive from Bangkok, is one of Thailand . Only minor damage was inflicted. US Navy Commander Shears tells of the horrific conditions. The bridges were quickly repaired with the use of POW labour from the camp at Tha . Despite the nightmarish conditions, and equipped only with the most basic of tools, the POWs pulled off an amazing feat of engineering. Joyce, manning the detonator, breaks cover and stabs Saito to death. The destruction of the bridge as depicted in the film is also entirely fictional. Real Bridge on the River Kwai. There are tourist trains to Nam Tok stopping at stations in between daily from the River Kwai Bridge station at 06.05, 11.00 and 14.30. But Laughton, a fine actor with such credits as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) on his resume, was in poor physical shapegreat for playing the corpulent Henry VIII in Young Bess (1953), not so great for playing a British military officer in a prison camp. He served as an adviser during the making of the movie. Casualties commemorated at Chungkai are mostly men who died in the field hospital set up by prisoners. Tickets are 100 baht. 12. During WW II, Japan constructed the meter-gauge railway line from Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma. Unique to this film, in some ways, were other issues related to poorly made optical dissolves, the original camera lens and a malfunctioning camera. ", 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. The Bridge on the River Kwai Facts for Kids - Kiddle The camp commander, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), informs the prisoners that they will all begin working on the building of a railway bridge the following day. The story is fictional but uses the construction of the Burma Railway, in 1942-1943, as its historical setting, and is partly based on Pierre Boulle's own life experience working in Malaysia rubber . rainy day Therefore, there are not many people. Two bridges were built; one was made of wood, one was made of concrete and steel. Initial estimates from Japanese engineers suggested it would take five years. He knew that the railway ran parallel to the Kwae for many miles, and he therefore assumed that it was the Kwae which it crossed just north of Kanchanaburi. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The action of the movie takes place in a Japanese prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in . The Bridge on the River Kwai. Pay on the train. Here is 'Minder' telling me to get the timber off the base and start cutting up the dowels. At their head was Lieutenant-Colonel Phillip Toosey. The Bridge on the River Kwai was actually one of the reasons movies started becoming prime-time television programming. 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. Pitted against the warden, Colonel . Where Is the River Kwai Located? - The Bridge on the River Kwai 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. The plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay were almost entirely fictional. Nicholson spots the wire and brings it to Saito's attention. Construction began before anyone had been cast. Aerial reconnaissance photo of the Steel Bridge taken during a bombing raid. Some of the characters in the film use the names of real people who were involved in the Burma Railway. The train crashed into a generator on the other side of the bridge and was wrecked. [18] The bridge in the film was near Kitulgala. [65], On 2 November 2010 Columbia Pictures released a newly restored The Bridge on the River Kwai for the first time on Blu-ray. [46], On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 96% based on 93 reviews, with an average rating of 9.4/10. But whats the real story? The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. The Japanese did indeed force British, Dutch, Australian, and American prisoners to build the Burma Railway, resulting in some 13,000 POW deaths and at least 80,000 civilian deaths. 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. David Lean's classic 1957 World War II movie Bridge on the River Kwai depicted the horrors endured by the Allied prisoners of war (POWs) forced to build the Thailand-Burma railway by the Japanese Imperial Army. Bridge Over The River Kwai Address: Tha Makham, Kanchanaburi, Thailand. Thanbyuzayat was originally a POW administration headquarters and base camp. While the story is fiction, the broader setting--including the construction of the Burmese railway--is based on historical events. Search by location, regiment, nationality, and more fields to find the war dead involved in building the blood-soaked Burma-Siam Railway. Geoffrey Horne saved his life. 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.Although the film uses the historical setting of the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942-1943, the plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay are almost entirely fictional. The place: Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma. The filming of the bridge explosion was to be done on 10 March 1957, in the presence of S.W.R.D. [50] William Holden was also credited for his acting for giving a solid characterization that was "easy, credible and always likeable in a role that is the pivot point of the story". Its construction came about because Japan needed another supply route to link Singapore and Malaysia to its possessions in Burma following Singapores fall in February 1942. Death Railway was bombed heavily by the Allies from 1943 onwards. Japanese guards were known for their cruelty and would frequently torture and assault their prisoners. The Bridge on the River Kwai Facts for Kids. The prisoners of war who had . Bridge over the River Kwai, Kanchanaburi, Thailand. $ 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 ). The Bridge on the River Kwai is a British 1957 World War II film by David Lean based on the novel The Bridge Over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. 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. 9. The Bridge on the River Kwai Ceylon Guide Assistant director John Kerrison was killed in a car crash on the way to one of the locations. It was 425 feet long, 90 feet high, and cost $52,085 out of the film's $2 million budget. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial, Malaysia. Death Railway: History of the Bridge on The River Kwai Goering The Bridge on the River Kwai - Wikipedia We hadn't much breath left for whistling. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942-43 for its historical setting. The adventure war film The Bridge on the River Kwai may have swept the board of awards and attracted acclaim as one best films of the 20th century, but the War Office was very nervous "it would . The Bridge on the River Kwai is a classic 1957 British-American war film based upon the 1952 novel Le Pont de la Rivire Kwai by Pierre Boulle. [10], Although Lean later denied it, Charles Laughton was his first choice for the role of Nicholson. Imperial Japanese Army Command deemed this unacceptable. Leadership Analysis: The Bridge On The River Kwai. British and American intelligence officers conspire . Workers died at a rate of 20 men per day. Written 20 October 2021. At all. There were no facilities on the island of Ceylon to process film rushes, so the days filming had to be flown to London to be processed and then flown back out to Ceylon. 27. [41] According to Variety, the film earned estimated domestic box office revenues of $18,000,000[42] although this was revised downwards the following year to $15,000,000, which was still the biggest for 1958 and Columbia's highest-grossing film at the time. 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. Shears tries to get out of the mission by confessing that he impersonated an officer, hoping for better treatment from the Japanese. He didn't like the screenplay because it reduced Nicholson to secondary status. 28 Fun And Interesting Facts About The Bridge On The River Kwai Lets examine the history behind the film and the men who made it. [31][32] Some consider the film to be an insulting parody of Toosey. [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. Major Warden of SOE invites Shears to join a commando mission to destroy the bridge just as it is completed. Nevertheless, the leeches in the recreated swamps were real. All Rights Reserved. Chungkai War Cemetery is something of a sister site to Kanchanaburi. He described the music for The Bridge on the River Kwai as the "worst job I ever had in my life" from the point of view of time. 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. The documentary itself was described by one newspaper reviewer when it was shown on Boxing Day 1974 (The Bridge on the River Kwai had been shown on BBC1 on Christmas Day 1974) as "Following the movie, this is a rerun of the antidote."[37]. Bridge On The River Kwai is an Epic war-based film. Cafes and tourist spots dot the banks of the Khwae Noi. TakeMeTour's Review. 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 . We worked at bayonet point and under bamboo lash, taking any risk to sabotage the operation whenever the opportunity arose. His first epic was his twelfth film: The Bridge on the River Kwai, starring Alec Guinness and William Holden as P.O.W.