My All-Time Favorite War Movie!!!

Rating: 10/10 (8 November 2009)

"Great Expectations" director David Lean made what qualifies as the greatest World War II movie of all-time. I saw this fantastic film when Columbia Pictures released it, and the spectacle of an actual bridge being blown to smithereens with a real locomotive and freight cars on it captivated me at the tender age of four, and I have never forgotten it. I've seen it more times than I can remember, and this movie has never lost its allure for me. This stirring epic is based on Pierre Boulle's award-winning 1952 novel, but director David Lean and scenarists Michael Wilson of "A Place in the Sun" and Carl Foreman of "High Noon" took several liberties with the storyline. First, Boulle didn't obliterate the bridge. The British commandos were able to derail the train, but the bridge remained intact. Second, Colonel Nicholson discovered the sabotage, but he didn't collapse on the plunger and blow-up the bridge. Third, no Americans, specifically the character of Shears, appeared in the novel. Fourth, although there was a Shears, he was a British commando, but he tried to cross the river during the finale to kill Nicholson. Fifth, the British said that they had to send in commandos because the RAF couldn't fly the distance to bomb the bridge. In Boulle's novel, the British don't send in bombers because they felt the Japanese could repair any damage from bombing raids and have the bridge back in action. Nevertheless, this memorable film brims with irony and answers all the questions about life. This movie also immortalized the whistling march theme "Colonel Bogey March." Interestingly, former British POWs hated the movie and wanted to lambaste it, but they kept their silence for fear that their protests would provide more publicity for a movie that they felt deserved nothing in the way of publicity.
Nevertheless, "Bridge on the River Kwai" won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Photography, Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Music, and Best Editing. This is a beautiful movie and the cast is stupendous. Although Alec Guinness won the Oscar for Best Actor, I believe that the incomparable William Holden as the only American prisoner of war steals the movie hands down. Holden made a specialty of playing anti-heroic roles. As Shears, he is at his anti-heroic best. Sadly, Sessue Hayakawa did not win for Best Supporting Actor, but he makes a terrific adversary.
Essentially, David Lean's masterpiece is a drama about a clash of wills in the middle of the jungle during World War II. Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guiness of "Star Wars") and his British officers and enlisted men survive a grueling march through the jungle to a Japanese labor camp where camp commandant Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa)orders them to erect a bridge across the River Kwai. Saito stipulates in no uncertain terms that British officers will work alongside their men, but Colonel Nicholson refuses to abide by these terms. He cites the rules of the Geneva Convention. Saito's reaction is incredulity, "Do not speak to me of rules. This is war! This is not a game of "cricket!" Saito puts him in a sweat box and the intense heat very nearly kills Nicholson. Nonetheless, Nicholson refuses to give in to Saito's demands. Meanwhile, construction work on the bridge commences, but the Japanese make virtually no headway. At the same time, Shears engineers an escape from the camp and nearly dies in the process. The two British soldiers that accompany him die in the attempt. Natives find the destitute Shears washed up on the shores of their villages. They nurse Shears back to life, furnish him with supplies, and send him on his way. Eventually, he reaches British lines. Back at the Kwai camp, Saito loses the battle of wills and releases Nicholson and agrees that the British officers do not have to work Ironically, Nicholson decides to embrace the bridge construction so as to occupy his men and prove to the Japanese that the British soldier is the best soldier in the world. When Nicholson's chief medical officer, Major Clipton (James Donald of "The Great Escape") suggests that helping the Japanese erect a bridge could qualify as treason, Nicholson reminds him that they were ordered to surrender to the enemy. Nicholson goes on to say, "If you had to operate on Saito, would you do your job or would you let him die?Would you have it be said that our chaps can't do a better job? You're a fine doctor, Clipton, but you've a lot to learn about the army." Nicholson and his officers devise a way of building a suitable bridge and one of Nicholson's engineers tells him that a similar bridge built of wood survived 300 years. Nicholson becomes so obsessed with the project that he eventually has his own officers pitch in and finish it.
The British decide to dispatch a team of commandos led by Major Warden (Jack Hawkins of "Shalako") to destroy the bridge. Warden convinces a reluctant Shears to lead them to it since he knows the way. Shears explains that he cannot because he isn't really an officer. It seems that when his ship sank, he swam ashore, appropriated an officer's insignia and impersonated an officer, erroneously believing he would receive better treatment than an enlisted man. Such was not the case. Warden informs him that they knew about his masquerade. He also gives Shears the simulated rank of major for the mission. Reluctantly, Shears agrees to lead Force 316 through the jungle to the bridge. They bail out over enemy territory and then they have to take an entirely different route because the route that Shears took is swarming now with Japanese. Our heroes have to make a forced march through swamps with leeches, across mountains, and eventually they reach the bridge.
This movie ranks as the greatest war movie ever made.