Spectacular warfare movie follows the Allied troops attempting to capture key bridges behind enemy lines in a complicated airdrop

Rating: 7/10 (14 March 2013)

Action , thrills and heroic feats in the Operation Market Garden . This Blockbuster is one of the biggest war films ever made. It's a magnificent film , recreating the known airborne offensive . What happened during those desperate days that could have changed the course of war is now history . A historic telling of the failed attempt to capture several bridges to Germany in World War II in a campaign called Operation Market-Garden . This good warlike movie well directed by Richard Attemborough is set during WWII in the important campaign called Market Garden , the largest airborne invasion though failed , as out of the sky comes the screen's most incredible spectacle of men and war . A disastrous Allied push to get soldiers behind enemy lines and capture an early bridgehead on the Rhine . In a last attempt to end the war , Winston Churchill conceives an extraordinary plan , 35000 soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines in the occupied Holland by the Germans . It was a flop by the allies to finish the war quickly by securing three bridges allowing access over the Rhine towards Germany , being the most important battle ,¨the bridge of Arnhem¨. This historic recounting was an unsuccessful operation by British and Us forces to cross the Meuse , Waal and Neder-Rijn rivers in Holland Sept 1944 . British airborne forces were to capture vital bridges at Arnhem to open the way for an armored thrust from the south . When the airborne operation failed, the armoured force was unable to reach Arnhem and the whole operation collapsed . Into British and American Army there are commandos and small units led on daring missions .
This exciting , overproduced wartime story is plenty of action , emotion , realized in documentary style , though sometimes results to be lifeless and overlong . Another picture of a famous battle ; it is an explosive combination of warlike feats , tanks , guns , blowing-up , and officer staff . This stirring film contains an excellent plethora of players with the traditional all-star-cast , being special mention the followings : Gene Hackman as Major General Sosabowski , Sean Connery as Major General Urquhart , Ryan O'Neal as Brigadier General Gavin , Wolfgang Preiss as Field Marshal Von Rundstedt and Dirk Bogarde , who served in intelligence with the British army, as Lieutenant General Browning . There are 14 Oscar-winners associated with the movie, seven of them actors . Despite the fact that the film was made more than 30 years after the actual battle, a number of its principal characters were able to be employed as military consultants during production. Impressive production design and lots of extras and stunts , as according to stunt arranger Vic Armstrong, they used over 100 stunt men in this film . The producers were only able to locate four of the many Sherman tanks seen on the screen , the rest were plastic molds set on top of 88" Land Rovers. Lavishly produced by Joseph E Levine and faithfully based on the fine Cornelius Ryan novel . Spectacular cinematography by Geoffrey Unsworth , filmed in Panavision and some prints run 158 minutes . Evocative as well as thrilling musical score by John Addison , this composer was a member of XXX Corps during the actual operation. The motion picture was professionally directed by Richard Attemborough .
The flick was based on historical events , these are the followings : Operation Market Garden (17–25 September 1944) was an unsuccessful Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and Germany in the Second World War. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time. Field Marshal Montgomery's goal was to force an entry into Germany and over the Rhine. He wanted to circumvent the northern end of the Siegfried Line and this required the operation to seize the bridges across the Maas (Meuse River) and two arms of the Rhine (the Waal and the Lower Rhine) as well as several smaller canals and tributaries. Crossing the Lower Rhine would allow the Allies to encircle Germany's industrial heartland in the Ruhr from the north. It made large-scale use of airborne forces, whose tactical objectives were to secure the bridges and allow a rapid advance by armored units into Northern Germany.Initially, the operation was marginally successful and several bridges between Eindhoven and Nijmegen were captured. However, Gen. Horrocks' XXX Corps ground force's advance was delayed by the demolition of a bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal, as well as an extremely overstretched supply line, at Son, delaying the capture of the main road bridge over the Meuse until 20 September. At Arnhem, the British 1st Airborne Division encountered far stronger resistance than anticipated. In the ensuing battle, only a small force managed to hold one end of the Arnhem road bridge and after the ground forces failed to relieve them, they were overrun on 21 September. The rest of the division, trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge, had to be evacuated on 25 September. The Allies had failed to cross the Rhine in sufficient force and the river remained a barrier to their advance until the offensives at Remagen, Oppenheim, Rees and Wesel in March 1945. The failure of Market Garden ended Allied expectations of finishing the war by Christmas 1944.