Splendid effort to honour courage in war

Rating: 9/10 (17 August 2016)

This is one of my all-time favourite war epics. Its not just a movie it deserves the title 'Epic'.
An all star cast that works very well together. Excellent production values. Where the heck did they get ALL that equipment from? Extraordinary. A script that never flags, is always consistent, relevant, to the point and yet very humorous where it matters. It bears repeated watching. I'd place it alongside classics like 'The Longest Day', without any problem. There are probably historical inaccuracies to do with chronologies or issues not mentioned below, but I'm not bothered by them. If I wanted abs. historical accuracy I'd watch a documentary, not a movie.
I don't know if the following will be regarded as a spoiler so I'll put a warning just in case: There is to my mind only one problem with it, and this is no fault of the producers or the technical staff. It can't help being made in 1977. Unfortunately being filmed for the most part in urban settings, all those settings (architecture, clothing/hairstyles etc.) are contemporary to 1977, not to 1944. I've only just noticed it watching it now. It reminds of a similar problem with Anzio the movie with Robert Michum about the landings in Italy. The end scene of that film was entirely 1960s/70s. Spoilt the effect. But with 'A Bridge...', what could they do? It would have made an already vastly expensive undertaking costly beyond anyone's resources to have got everyone, all the Dutch civilians, to be kitted out in 1944 styles. And to build original looking sets for all the scenes. The expense would have been impossibly outrageous (before CG might have done the job). 1977 was probably the last time they could make an epic of WW2 with equipment available as originals or mock-ups. So, with that caveat, I give it a 9. It really deserves 10, but I think 9 says it all anyhow.