Its estimated around 16,000 Allied prisoners of war were killed during construction of the Burma-Siam Railway. Burma-Siam Railway labourers and prisoners of war slept in rudimentary bamboo huts on filthy floors. The cemetery was established by the Army Graves Service to hold casualties made along the railways southern Bangkok to Nieke section. As it opens, two POWs, the American navy commander Shears (William Holden) and an Australian, are digging graves for their companions. The movie won seven Academy Awards, one for Best Picture. The rest were made of wood and local materials. 18. Log in. Corrections? Chandran Rutnam and William Holden while shooting The Bridge on the River Kwai. Neither of them got credit, though, as The Bridge on the River Kwai was released during the three-year period when people who'd ever been Communists (or who refused to answer questions about it before Congress) were ineligible for Academy Awards. A make-up man was also badly injured in the same accident. [30], A 1969 BBC television documentary, Return to the River Kwai, made by former POW John Coast,[33] sought to highlight the real history behind the film (partly through getting ex-POWs to question its factual basis, for example Dr Hugh de Wardener and Lt-Col Alfred Knights), which angered many former POWs. FIFTY years ago waves of Liberator bombers were deliberately destroying a remarkable feat of engineering. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a work of fiction, but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942 to 1943 for its historical setting. Victims were cremated and their remains are buried in the aforementioned graves. Kanburi wasnt a work camp as such. At the POW camp, Nicholson not only requires officers to work on the bridge but also pulls men from the hospital in order to meet Saitos deadline for the project. Disease was a huge killer among railway workers, but so was brutality. Tickets are 100 baht. This film is taken from a popular novel written by Pierre Boulle in 1952. He shows a rare sense of humor and a feeling for the poetry of situation; and he shows the even rarer ability to express these things, not in lines but in lives. The Bridge on the River Kwai / Trivia - TV Tropes 2. The bridges were quickly repaired with the use of POW labour from the camp at Tha . In a 1988 interview with Barry Norman, Lean confirmed that Columbia almost stopped filming after three weeks because there was no white woman in the film, forcing him to add what he called "a very terrible scene" between Holden and a nurse on the beach. Bridge on the River Kwai - Thaizer Cast the Expert: Percy Herbert, who played the role of a prisoner of war in the film, actually spent four . Find the latest updates on the work of the Special Committee. Alec Guiness overseeing men working on the tracks in a scene from the film 'The Bridge On The River Kwai', 1957. The Bridge on the River Kwai - filming locations - SCEEN IT The action of the movie takes place in a Japanese prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in . [65], On 2 November 2010 Columbia Pictures released a newly restored The Bridge on the River Kwai for the first time on Blu-ray. In early 1943, World War II British prisoners arrive by train at a Japanese prison camp in Burma. 24. Sam Spiegel bought the railroad train from the Ceylonese government. Kanchanaburi town is located around 130 kilometres northwest of Bangkok. Best 17 The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Quotes After the war, their remains were moved from these makeshift cemeteries and graveyards to purpose-built Commission sites. He insisted that Lean add a scene where Shears, the American played by William Holden, cozies up to a nurse (Ann Sears). We want to hear from you! David Lean is taken that story and directed it in 1957. Toosey in fact did as much as possible to delay the building of the bridge. Nicholson suddenly realizes that his pride in the bridges construction has blinded him to his military duty. Mitch Miller had a hit with a recording of both marches. Leadership Analysis: The Bridge On The River Kwai. The story about this bridge has also been made into a Hollywood movie such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957), which is based on the novel of the same name and another movie . After the enlisted men are marched to the bridge site, Saito threatens to have the officers shot, until Major Clipton, the British medical officer, warns Saito there are too many witnesses for him to get away with murder. Other parts have been placed in various local war museums. Train crossing the wooden bridge which spanned the Mae Klong River (renamed Kwai Yai River in 1960). He, Shears, and Joyce reach the river in time with the assistance of Siamese women bearers and their village chief, Khun Yai. Pitted against the warden, Colonel . This records the names of 11 Indian army men buried in Muslim cemeteries throughout Thailand whose graves could not be maintained. Kwai's composer, Malcolm Arnold, wove the march into his Oscar-winning score so seamlessly that modern viewers may assume it was original to the film. Allied bombers struck the wooden bridge and its concrete counterpart in February 1945 with one of the earliest uses of guided bombs in history. Two bridges were built, the first made of wood. The Bridge Over the River Kwai. The Mount Lavinia Hotel was used as a location for the hospital. [44], The film was re-released in 1964 and earned a further estimated $2.6 million at the box office in the United States and Canada[45] but the following year its revised total US and Canadian revenues were reported by Variety as $17,195,000. Thanbyuzayat is in Myanmar. The action of the movie takes place in a Japanese prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in Burma during World War II. Visiting The Bridge On The River Kwai, Kanchanaburi Everywhere in the jungle, the graveyards made their appearance; starting in a small way they gradually grew bigger, until when the railway was completed at the end of the year, thousands of bodies lay in the jungle from one end to the other.. Boulle was given sole credit on the film and was awarded the Oscar for best screenplay. Instead, the Lt. Col would stand up for his men when necessary to try to alleviate some of their hardships. Cutting the base board 1190 x 160 x 12 mm. In 1997, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Their taskmasters were relentless. [citation needed], Julie Summers, in her book The Colonel of Tamarkan, writes that Boulle, who had been a prisoner of war in Thailand, created the fictional Nicholson character as an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and scooped up seven Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor. Lean insisted that Laughton could lose weight before shooting began, but Columbia Pictures' insurance underwriters refused to cover him, saying he was too unhealthy to endure several months on location in the jungles of Ceylon. Workers died at a rate of 20 men per day. Did he really want the enemy to come in across it? Shears and two others escape. TakeMeTour's Review. Ten Interesting Facts about The Bridge on the River Kwai - Anglotopia.net The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) : ays - Internet Archive Some of the characters in the film use the names of real people who were involved in the Burma Railway. The Bridge on the River Kwai. Nicholson objects, informing Saito the Geneva Convention exempts officers from manual labour. The railway ran for 250 miles from Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma and is now known as the Death Railway. Shears, who is a British commando officer like Warden in the novel, became an American sailor who escapes from the POW camp. The elephants employed in helping build the bridge would take breaks every four hours and lie around the water, whether the crew wanted them to or not. During World War II, British soldiers added lyrics to the tune that went approximately along these lines: Hitler Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma, worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre. One of a number of Allied POW"s . It was not long before the Japanese army overrunning Java captured Lieutenant Lamb and his men. Thousands of Asian workers and POWs (prisoners of war) died while working on the project. comment. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay. Image: British troops surrender at Singapore. [27] Gavin Young[28] recounts meeting Donald Wise, a former prisoner of the Japanese who had worked on the Burma Railway. They would work in appalling conditions, given minuscule amounts of food, snatches of sleep, and little to no medical treatment. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma. The Bridge On The River Kwai was the first of David Lean's five epic films and the third of six movies that he made with Alec Guinness. [31], On a BBC Timewatch programme, a former prisoner at the camp states that it is unlikely that a man like the fictional Nicholson could have risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and, if he had, due to his collaboration he would have been "quietly eliminated" by the other prisoners. Shears tries to get out of the mission by confessing that he impersonated an officer, hoping for better treatment from the Japanese. [51] Time magazine praised Lean's directing, noting he demonstrates "a dazzlingly musical sense and control of the many and involving rhythms of a vast composition. Nicholson forbids any escape attempts because they were ordered by headquarters to surrender, and escapes could be seen as defiance of orders. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. What is it that makes the film 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' such an In reality, Risaburo Saito was respected by his prisoners for being comparatively merciful and fair towards them. Guinness, however, had his own reservations. The British soldiers were slaves; they did not help the Japanese. English / Japanese / Thai. The place is regarded as "The Symbol of Peace". Sri Lanka Filming Locations: The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) Posted on July 17, 2017 by tokyofox. Further afield, and appealing to my military family war history, is Kanchanaburi with its war cemetery and bridge over the Kwai river which is made famous by the Oscar winning film The Bridge on the River Kwai. The surviving sections stand as monuments to the men who suffered so much to build them. Those who were there did not think much of the novel or film of the Bridge of the River Kwai. He described the music for The Bridge on the River Kwai as the "worst job I ever had in my life" from the point of view of time. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . Lambs sister received a letter from him in September 1943, saying he was in excellent health and being treated well by his captors. [21] Guinness later reflected on the scene, calling it the "finest piece of work" he had ever done. The Bridge on the River Kwai Facts for Kids - Kiddle In fact, there were two: one a wooden railway bridge and the other a ferroconcrete structure built using imported bridge sections from Japanese-controlled Java. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - IMDb Unique to this film, in some ways, were other issues related to poorly made optical dissolves, the original camera lens and a malfunctioning camera. Full scale plan drawing for the main cantilever bridge design. Copyright 2020 Tons Of Facts. [Ronald Searle, To the Kwai and Back: War drawings 1939-45, London, Collins, 1986, 104] 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' is now the best-known site on the Burma-Thailand railway but its fame is due more to a fictional film than its significance in World War II. At all. Or maybe you have a story for us or would like to work together. Along with 1,250 other POWs, he died while in transit from Singapore to Japan aboard the Rakuyo Maro transport ship after it was torpedoed by a US submarine. The Bridge on the River Kwai was selected in 1997 for preservation in the National Film Registry. This was an incorrect assumption. 6 Interesting And Awesome Facts About Dondokomon From Digimon, 20 Amazing And Fun Facts About San Bernardino, California, United States, 26 Fun And Fascinating Facts About The Gods Of Egypt Movie, 15 Interesting And Fun Facts About Napa, California, United States, 20 Interesting And Amazing Facts About National City, California, United States, 15 Interesting And Fascinating Facts About Needles, California, United States, 15 Interesting And Amazing Facts About Nevada City, California, United States, 15 Amazing And Interesting Facts About Newark, California, United States. It had previously belonged to an Indian maharajah and had seen 65 years of active service. He was contracted for $150,000 to be paid in installments. The movie was mainly filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and also in England. David Lean was completely at home in the hot and humid Ceylon jungle. Laughton was in his habitually overweight state, and was either denied insurance coverage, or was simply not keen on filming in a tropical location. Read the response of the CWGC to the findings of the Special Committee. Just a stone's throw from the Menin Gate, visit our Information Centre to learn more about the CWGC. Bangkok-Kanchanaburi, by train or private transport, for the Bridge on River Kwai; Kanchanaburi-Nam Tok, by train or private transport, for Death Railway and Hellfire Pass; You can book your bus tickets online and in advance here. Construction of the Burma-Siam railway began in October 1942 and would end in October 1943. Highly competent work is also done by William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa". This meant that some of the British prisoners were actually natives of the region wearing make-up to appear Caucasian. At its behest, Sam Spiegel asked David Lean to incorporate a love scene. [14][15], The film was an international co-production between companies in Britain and the United States. Use our postcode search tool to discover more about the war dead from your local area. [48], Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the film as "a towering entertainment of rich variety and revelation of the ways of men". By 1944, its operational capacity was being massively hampered by the damage caused by air raids. The official credit was given to Pierre Boulle (who did not speak English), and the resulting Oscar for Best Screenplay (Adaptation) was awarded to him. The plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay were almost entirely fictional. It was set up at the beginning of the Burma-Siams construction. We worked at bayonet point and under bamboo lash, taking any risk to sabotage the operation whenever the opportunity arose. [56] Warren Buffett said it was his favorite movie. Harry Cohn, the vulgar (but successful) man who ran Columbia Pictures at the time, was furious when he read the script and saw no love interest. Since it first graced the silver screen won the admiration of audiences everywhere and continues to do so. While the story is fiction, the broader setting--including the construction of the Burmese railway--is based on historical events. Casualties commemorated at Chungkai are mostly men who died in the field hospital set up by prisoners. The film was directed by David Lean and starred William Holding, Jack Hawkins and academy award winner Sir Alex Guinness. The film won seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) at the 30th Academy Awards. The correct name for the River Kwai is Khwae Noi, meaning small tributary, which merges with Khwae Yai River to create the Mae Kong River. At their head was Lieutenant-Colonel Phillip Toosey. The finished screenplay had significant contributions from both Wilson and Foreman, though each went to his grave insisting he was the more important contributor. Nicholson undertakes the construction of a well-made bridge, at first thinking it a good way to improve the morale and discipline of his regiment but gradually coming to regard the structure not as a part of the enemy war effort but as a monument to British ingenuity. Toosey was very different from Nicholson and was certainly not a collaborator who felt obliged to work with the Japanese. River Kwai (Kanchanaburi): All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go - Tripadvisor The actual name of "Bridge on the River Kwai", on the 258 mile long Burma Railway between Ban Pong, Thailand, and Thanbyuzayat, Burma, built from 1940-1944, was called Bridge 277. That evening, the officers are placed in a punishment hut, while Nicholson is beaten and locked in an iron box. Despite the discomfort the rest of the crew were experiencing, Lean was thrilled about the shoot and never complained about his living conditions. Although the film uses the historical setting of the construction of the Burma Railway in 19421943, the plot and characters of Boulle's novel and the screenplay are almost entirely fictional. Nevertheless, the leeches in the recreated swamps were real. After a few days, the British medical officer Major Clipton (James Donald) tries to persuade both Saito and Nicholson to compromise, but both are unyielding. In the movie the bridge is destroyed by commandos. Roger Ebert focused on the symbolism of the bridge in this 1999 description: "[The war] narrows down to a single task, building a . Surviving veterans consider Toosey one of the finest officers they ever served under. These problems resulted in a number of anomalies that were very difficult to correct, like a ghosting effect in many scenes that resembles colour mis-registration, and a tick-like effect with the image jumping or jerking side-to-side. Why visit the Bridge on the River Kwai | Audley Travel The Bridge On The River Kwai is the World War II Oscar winner about an Army colonel (Alec Guinness) obsessed with proving British superiority over his Japanese captors by showing that his . The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. Bridges beyond the River Kwai | Michigan Today Spiegel sent the screenplay to the Japanese government ahead of time, hoping to get their cooperation with the production. After the final scene was shot, producer Sam Spiegel shipped the movie footage on five different planes to minimize the risk of loss. For many, its their first exposure to the horrors prisoners of wars suffered in the Far East. However, in 1943 a railway bridge was built by Allied POWs over the Mae Klong river renamed Khwae Yai in the 1960s as a result of the film at Tha Ma Kham, five kilometres from Kanchanaburi, Thailand. 10. Bridge Over The River Kwai, Kanchanaburi | Ticket Price | Timings So Spiegel hired another writer, Calder Willingham, to give it a crack. Answer (1 of 7): David Lean made some excellent films His Dickens films of the 1940's are classic black and white versions of OLIVER TWIST and GREAT EXPECTATIONS He discovered color and the wide screen in the 1950's and 1960's Besides BRIDGE, Lean also did LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DR ZHIVAGO Peo. 26. They included Chinese, Malayan, Burmese, Thai, Indonesian and Singaporean people. In the setting of World War II, a defeated unit British Soldiers is marched into a Japanese prison camp in western Thailand, with the purpose of constructing a bridge over the River Kwai to carry a new railway line to invade Burma. (Spiegel got a British military adviser to help with that side of things, too.). The Bridge over the River Kwai - Wikipedia The Bridge on the River Kwai Facts for Kids. The separate dialogue, music and effects were located and remixed with newly recorded "atmospheric" sound effects. David Lean's classic 1957 World War II movie Bridge on the River Kwai depicted the horrors endured by the Allied prisoners of war (POWs) forced to build the Thailand-Burma railway by the Japanese Imperial Army. [64] The image was restored by OCS, Freeze Frame, and Pixel Magic with George Hively editing. - Colonel Saito, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai '. The young soldier from Suffolk was dispatched to work on the bridge over the River Kwai, one of the railway's most daunting engineering projects. The cast includes William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and . Geoffrey Horne saved his life. Nicholson will not cooperate and finally insists that the bridge can be built only under his command. Death Railway was bombed heavily by the Allies from 1943 onwards. It is a landmark of Kanchanaburi Province. And a bloke called George Siegatz[29] an expert whistlerbegan to whistle Colonel Bogey, and a hit was born.". "[57], Some Japanese viewers have disliked the film's depiction of the Japanese characters and the historical background presented as being inaccurate, particularly in the interactions between Saito and Nicholson. . POWs and indentured labourers were worked to death while busy constructing the railway simultaneously. A Smith article describes bridge on River Kwai, near Kanchanaburi, Thailand, built by Allied POWs during Japanese occupation of Thailand in World War II and subject of famous film The Bridge on . Kwai River Bridge history. 11. The Bridge on the River Kwai: Fact and fiction - Sentinelassam 28 Fun And Interesting Facts About The Bridge On The River Kwai The movie is best known for the "Colonel Bogey March", the song that is whistled by the POWs. [9], The film was relatively faithful to the novel, with two major exceptions. Where Is the River Kwai Located? - The Bridge on the River Kwai Nicholson is shocked by the poor job being done by his men and orders the building of a proper bridge, intending it to stand as a tribute to the British Army's ingenuity for centuries to come. But in 1966, the film aired on American . Bangkok - Kanchanaburi More info / Tickets. ABC, sponsored by Ford, paid a record $1.8 million for the television rights for two screenings in the United States. US $4.49 Standard Shipping from outside US. Brigadier Varley would survive the hellish building work along the Burma-Siam Railway but not the war. The process of adapting Pierre Boulle's French-language novel Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai was difficult (more on that later), but the two writers ultimately responsible for it were Carl Foreman (High Noon) and Michael Wilson (A Place in the Sun).
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