Winner of so many awards, they would take up more than 2 pages of text!

Rating: 10/10 (23 September 2017)

Copyright 1958 by Horizon Productions. Released worldwide through Columbia Pictures Corp. New York opening: 18 December 1957. U.S. release: November 1957. U.K. release: 9 February 1958. Australian release: 8 March 1958. Sydney opening at the Lyceum. 14,506 feet. 161 minutes. (Available on a superb Columbia DVD).
SYNOPSIS: Captured British officer eventually agrees to co-operate with the Japanese in building a railway bridge across the River Kwai.
NOTES: Extraordinarily, Pierre Boulle himself, author of the 1955 novel, although he had absolutely nothing at all to do with the writing of the screenplay, was handed the annual Academy Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
The only other category for which the film was Oscar-nominated was Supporting Actor, in which Sessue Hayakawa was defeated by Red Buttons in "Sayonara".
On the other hand, this movie was the Winner of the British Film Academy Awards for Best Film, Best Screenplay (incorrectly awarded to novelist Pierre Boulle instead of Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson), Best Actor, Sir Alec Guinness.
Winner of the New York Film Critics Awards for Best Motion Picture, Best Direction, Best Male Performance (Sir Alec Guinness). Most Outstanding Directorial Achievement of 1957 — Directors Guild of America.
Best Film of 1958 — Film Daily poll of American film critics. Best Film of 1957, Best Director, Best Actor (Guinness), Best Supporting Actor (Hayakawa) — National Board of Review.
Number one attraction at the U.S. and Canadian box office for 1958 with an initial domestic rental gross exceeding $15 million. Number one box office hit in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, Burma and South Africa for 1958. Top of the foreign film rentals in India and second to Sayonara among foreign film releases in Japan.
Negative cost: only $2.9 million. Locations filmed in Burma. A major contribution to the music score's success is due to Malcolm Arnold's use of K.J. Alford's "Colonel Bogey March".
COMMENT: Although I'd agree with a minority of critics that William Holden, fine actor though he is, doesn't quite belong in this movie, it still ranks as an outstanding achievement in all departments. I'm inclined to agree for once with the Press Book superlatives, headlined here as BRITAIN'S GREATEST MOTION PICTURE TRIUMPH! Maybe a little less than "greatest" as there are a number of films including The Red Shoes, Great Expectations, The Winslow Boy, The Third Man, Henry V and Owd Bob which have equal if not superior claims. But a great British triumph certainly. Thanks mainly to Guinness, Hayakawa, Hildyard, Arnold, and Lean.
ANOTHER REVIEW: The movie holds up reasonably well. The conflict between three national types represented by Guinness, Hayakawa and Holden is not only well observed and sharply presented, but still holds true these twenty years later. Holden is not outdone or out- acted or even over-classed. In fact he holds up his end remarkably well. Hawkins does not have a principal role, but heads the A-1 support cast... Not only a marvelous technical triumph, but powerful, perhaps even too forceful entertainment (to use that word in its broadest sense). Only the somewhat ambiguously too-ironical conclusion fails to fully satisfy and drive the message really solidly home. — J.H.R. in Sydney Shout (December 1977).