War movie of the traditional sort

Rating: 7/10 (7 December 2008)

Film Review: "A Bridge Too Far" (Seen Nov 2008)
In the 1950s and early 1960s it seemed that almost every second movie was about the Second World War, but by the time this one, the story of the unsuccessful Allied attempt to outflank the Germans and secure the Rhine bridges in August 1944, was made (mid 70s) interest had waned somewhat and this movie was not a box office success, unlike "The Longest Day", the story of the D-Day invasion in 1944. from the same writers.
The basic structure used here is a number of interweaving stories; we see the action from the point of view of the top brass, the field commanders, the ordinary soldiers, and the civilians caught up in the battle. Almost all of this is from the allied point of view, though there are some scenes with the German high command (Hardy Kruger and Maximillian Schnell) which are inexplicably in German, with no sub-titles (I watched the film on Turner Classic Movies in Budapest). We viewers of course have the benefit of hindsight, but it has to be said that the British generals involved, especially General Browning (Dirk Bogarde), were over-confident in what was a very risky operation. The Americans, (embodied in Ryan O'Neal, a ridiculously young general) and the British field commanders (Michael Caine, Sean Connery and Antony Hopkins were more realistic. The weather held back Polish reinforcements (improbably commanded by Gene Hackman), the operation's plans fell into the hands of the Germans (who initially thought they were a ruse), the radios were defective, and the Allied intelligence as to the location of German tanks was also defective.
The film succeeds as a spectacle. There are plenty of big bangs, bullets and so forth, and the devastation of modern warfare graphically illustrated. There are so many big-name actors one has a hard time remembering them all, though some are unmissable, such as Laurence Olivier as a Dutch doctor. It is of course the story of an allied defeat, but in some ways more interesting than if the operation had succeeded (by this time in 1944 an Allied victory in Europe was in sight and only significant German thrust occurred afterwards the "Battle of the Bulge" in the Ardennes in late 1944). One learns more from failure than success. Somehow the Polish commander got the blame for the failure, though General Browning was sidelined afterwards as well.
At the end of the day a war movie is a war movie. This is not "Apocalypse Now" but is above average for the genre. If it had been made in the 1960s it would have been acclaimed, but by the late 70s our view of war had changed, as the success of "Apocalypse" demonstrated.