10 facts about the bridge on the river kwai

She recommended Lean to producer Sam Spiegel, who'd been turned down by Fred Zinnemann, William Wyler, and Carol Reed, and offered the directing job to Lean as a last resort. Interested in advertising on the world's largest website dedicated to all things Britain? Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [23], British composer Malcolm Arnold recalled that he had "ten days to write around forty-five minutes worth of music" much less time than he was used to. Japanese engineers had been surveying and planning the route of the railway since 1937, and they had demonstrated considerable skill during their construction efforts across South-East Asia. Like Chungkai and Kanchanaburi, Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery was originally part of the camp set up serving the Burma-Siams construction. Commonwealth war graves commission Caring for the fallen, Commonwealth war graves foundation Our charity site. Then he hired Lean to directand Lean didn't like Foreman's version. Cafes and tourist spots dot the banks of the Khwae Noi. Around 3,100 Commonwealth Burma war graves can be found at Thanbyuzayat, alongside roughly 620 Dutch burials. Nicholson advises Saito that the officers cannot be required to do manual labour according to the Geneva Convention. 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). 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 destruction of the bridge as depicted in the film is also entirely fictional. All Rights Reserved. Image: Bridge 277 aka the real Bridge over the River Kwai, Image: The iconic poster of the 1957 classic. Has two but they are small. train on the bridge over the river kwai in kanchanaburi, thailan - bridge over the river kwai stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images FLOATING HOUSES ON THE RIVER KWAI, KANCHANABURI, THAILAND. This article is part of our Classic Film Throwback series - By Sam Hendrian - "Madness. Omissions? Thanbyuzayat is in Myanmar. Desperate, he uses the anniversary of Japan's 1905 victory in the Russo-Japanese War as an excuse to save face; he announces a general amnesty, releasing Nicholson and his officers and exempting them from manual labour. From iconic memorials to local churchyards, there is unique heritage to explore across Great Britain. Mortally wounded, he falls onto the plunger, the bridge is blown up, and the train with the dignitaries falls into the river. rainy day Therefore, there are not many people. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Lets examine the history behind the film and the men who made it. Rather than draw on their own corps of manpower, which was busy fighting an eventual losing battle against encroaching Allied forces, it would put its legions of POWs and local forced labourers to work. (There were other verses, too, which treated in more depth the number, location, and status of Hitler's anatomy, but you get the idea.) Geoffrey Horne saved his life. THE HEAD OF COLUMBIA PICTURES FORCED LEAN TO ADD A LOVE SCENE. Disease was a huge killer among railway workers, but so was brutality. "[55], Balu Mahendra, the Tamil film director, observed the shooting of this film at Kitulgala, Sri Lanka during his school trip and was inspired to become a film director. It stars Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa, Jack Hawkins and William Holden. Warden, Shears, and two other commandos parachute into Thailand; one, Chapman, dies after falling into a tree, and Warden is wounded in an encounter with a Japanese patrol and must be carried on a litter. Workers died at a rate of 20 men per day. Camps were set up at 100-metre intervals. Burma-Siam Railway labourers and prisoners of war slept in rudimentary bamboo huts on filthy floors. Realising he has no choice, Shears volunteers. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and scooped up seven Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor. Starring Alec Guinness, it depicts the struggles and defiance of Japanese prisoners of war building the fictional Burma railway between 1943-44. It worked. Spiegel, the producer, bought the film rights to the book (the English version of which was called The Bridge Over the River Kwai) and hired Carl Foreman to write the script. Madness!" So go the tragic final words of David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), a spectacular and deeply-moving WWII adventure film that still entertains and challenges over sixty years later. Just two months later, Lieutenant Lamb was dead. The Japanese Railway Regiment forced thousands of allied POWs and natives to build the . The Bridge on the River Kwai is a classic 1957 British-American war film based upon the 1952 novel Le Pont de la Rivire Kwai by Pierre Boulle. Both the wooden and the adjacent steel bridge were subjected to numerous air raids between January and June 1945. This Week's Toybox is . Some 5,000 Commonwealth World War Two casualties are buried or commemorated in Kanchanaburi. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards, wining seven -- including Best Picture . This is now known as the Death Railway. 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. 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. [12], William Holden's deal was considered one of the best ever for an actor at the time, with him receiving $300,000 plus 10% of the film's gross receipts. The cast includes William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and . [41] According to Variety, the film earned estimated domestic box office revenues of $18,000,000[42] although this was revised downwards the following year to $15,000,000, which was still the biggest for 1958 and Columbia's highest-grossing film at the time. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. For the scenes where William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Geoffrey Horne and the native girls had to wade through swamps, they were wading through specially created ones. Only in 1984 did the Academy rectify the situation by retroactively awarding the Oscar to Foreman and Wilson, posthumously in both cases. The cemetery itself is located just outside the town of Kanchanaburi at the point where the Kwai splits into the Mae Khlong and Kwai Noi rivers. 14- "Be happy in your work.". The real Bridge on the River Kwai. While Nicholson disapproves of acts of sabotage and other deliberate attempts to delay progress, Toosey encouraged this: termites were collected in large numbers to eat the wooden structures, and the concrete was badly mixed. Lean liked that draft even less. Some Thailand River cruises begin in Bangkok and lead along the Mekong River to destinations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In 1997, this film was deemed "culturally . Following the raids, Thanbyuzayat was evacuated. In 1942 Japan seized Myanmar from British control and quickly decided to build a rail link to Thailand in order to maintain a secure supply route to their forces. 11. Shears tries to get out of the mission by confessing that he impersonated an officer, hoping for better treatment from the Japanese. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 in the United States and Canada and was also the most popular film at the British box office that year. The surviving sections stand as monuments to the men who suffered so much to build them. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942-43 for its historical setting. He, Shears, and Joyce reach the river in time with the assistance of Siamese women bearers and their village chief, Khun Yai. First Joyce and then Shears are killed in the ensuing gunfire. The ending of that was sort of the story of life. A Cholera epidemic swept through Nieke Camp between May-June 1943. 21. [38] Some Japanese viewers also disliked the film for portraying the Allied prisoners of war as more capable of constructing the bridge than the Japanese engineers themselves were, accusing the filmmakers of being unfairly biased and unfamiliar with the realities of the bridge construction, a sentiment echoed by surviving prisoners of war who saw the film in cinemas. 15. Victims were cremated and their remains are buried in the aforementioned graves. They were soon sent to Thailand to begin labouring on the Death Railway. 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. [27] Gavin Young[28] recounts meeting Donald Wise, a former prisoner of the Japanese who had worked on the Burma Railway. At all. But poor old Goebbels The cemetery was established by the Army Graves Service to hold casualties made along the railways southern Bangkok to Nieke section. Nicholson's obsession with the bridge eventually drives him to allow his officers to volunteer to engage in manual labor. It was filmed in Kitulgala which is 60 . Dying, Nicholson stumbles toward the detonator and falls on the plunger, blowing up the bridge and sending the train hurtling into the river. [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". [22], Lean nearly drowned when he was swept away by the river current during a break from filming.[23]. 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. 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 . The actual bridge on the River Kwai is located in Thailand, and stretches over a part of the Mae Klong river, which was renamed Khwae Yai (Thai for big tributary). Updates? Other parts have been placed in various local war museums. Also, in the novel, the bridge is not destroyed: the train plummets into the river from a secondary charge placed by Warden, but Nicholson (never realising "what have I done?") Boulle based his novel, published in 1952, on his own experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, and on an infamous construction project that he wasn't involved with. The documentary itself was described by one newspaper reviewer when it was shown on Boxing Day 1974 (The Bridge on the River Kwai had been shown on BBC1 on Christmas Day 1974) as "Following the movie, this is a rerun of the antidote."[37]. The key sites containing Thailand and Burma war graves related to Death Railway and the Bridge on the River Kwai are: Kanchanaburi War Cemetery is located a short distance from the former Kanburi POW camp. [64] The image was restored by OCS, Freeze Frame, and Pixel Magic with George Hively editing. Just as in Love is a Many Splendored Thing, normally hairy chested William Holden had to have a full body wax for his many shirtless scenes in the movie. For all the death and misery caused by its building, the Burma-Siam Railway only ever carried two Japanese divisions and 500,000 tons of supplies before VJ Day brought the war in Asia to a close. - Colonel Saito, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai '. They were supported by an unknown number of Malaysian labourers. Leadership Analysis: The Bridge On The River Kwai. Nevertheless, the leeches in the recreated swamps were real. For many, its their first exposure to the horrors prisoners of wars suffered in the Far East. Japanese guards were known for their cruelty and would frequently torture and assault their prisoners. Supplying it by ship was the only practical solution. 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. Colonel Nicholson, arrive at a Japanese prison camp in Thailand. The rail link, however, would . A small tourist train offers rides across the bridges span, while pedestrians can also travel over it on foot. You carry it in your pack like the plague. The film"s story was loosely based on a true World War II incident, and the real-life character of Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey. The filming of the bridge explosion was to be done on 10 March 1957, in the presence of S.W.R.D. Part of this project was building bridges over Thailand's Kwai Yai, at a place named Tamarkan, which is near a town named Kanchanaburi. Please note the delivery estimate is greater than 10 business days. The Bridge on the River Kwai is a British 1957 movie from Columbia Pictures, based on Pierre Boulle's 1952 book The Bridge over the River Kwai (French: Le Pont de la Rivire Kwai). Explore the CWGC Archive through our online portal. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Questions or feedback on our new site? 1957 World War II film directed by David Lean, This article is about the film. [34] According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission: The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need for improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. The Bridge on the River Kwai. Construction of the Burma-Siam railway began in October 1942 and would end in October 1943. Under cover of darkness, Shears and Joyce plant explosives on the bridge towers. The place: Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma. Use our search tools to explore our records and find out about those we commemorate. "[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. Bus Bangkok - Kanchanaburi $ 7.19 3h 30m. There were no facilities on the island of Ceylon to process film rushes, so the days filming had to be flown to London to be processed and then flown back out to Ceylon. His compassion and insistence on equality amongst the ranks ensured he protected his men as best he could. Approximately 5 kilometres north of Kanchanaburi there were two bridges that were built by POWs during the war. It was more of a transit hub where prisoners were moved to other work areas along the railway route. Its construction came about because Japan needed another supply route to link Singapore and Malaysia to its possessions in Burma following Singapores fall in February 1942. The Bridge on the River Kwai was actually one of the reasons movies started becoming prime-time television programming. In early 1943, World War II British prisoners arrive by train at a Japanese prison camp in Burma. Starring Alec Guinness, it depicts the struggles and defiance of Japanese prisoners of war building the fictional Burma railway between 1943-44. The adventure war film The Bridge on the River Kwai may have swept the board of awards and attracted acclaim as one best films of the 20th century, but the War Office was very nervous "it would . The year: 1943. Chandran Rutnam and William Holden while shooting The Bridge on the River Kwai. [63], The film was restored in 1985 by Columbia Pictures. Beijing Kwai Technology Co.'s app Kuaishou, or Kwai, is arranged for a photograph on a smartphone in Hong Kong, China, on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018.. After Saito cuts a ceremonial ribbon, Nicholson spots a detonator wire. Some sections, such as the infamous Hellfire Pass, required carving through tough sheer rock. Casualties commemorated at Chungkai are mostly men who died in the field hospital set up by prisoners. [19], Guinness later said that he subconsciously based his walk while emerging from "the Oven" on that of his eleven-year-old son Matthew,[20] who was recovering from polio at the time, a disease that left him temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. (He didn't attend the Oscars, either.) On 16 October 1943, the two ends of the Burma-Thailand railway were joined at Konkoita in Thailand. The Bridge On The River Kwai Film Facts. The Burma-Siam Railway was 250 miles of railway constructed by Allied prisoners of war alongside forced Asian labourers. The film "The Bridge on the River Kwai" dramatized the WWII story of the Thailand-Burma Railway, yet it was largely fictional. As a result, Boulle, who did not speak English, was credited and received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; many years later, Foreman and Wilson posthumously received the Academy Award.[4]. To learn more about the men behind the real story of the Bridge on the River Kwai, and to discover the casualties, please use our Find War Dead tool. Over a muddy jungle river called Kwai, a Japanese colonel, Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), must complete a railroad bridge vital to Japan's war effort. 25. Like thousands of other POWs, Lamb was kept in degrading conditions, refused medical treatment and barely fed. David Lean is taken that story and directed it in 1957. Just a stone's throw from the Menin Gate, visit our Information Centre to learn more about the CWGC. Victory over the Japanese navy at Midway in June 1942 had created a turning point in the Far East and Pacific. The line passing through the scenic Three Pagodas Pass runs for 250 miles. Its this structure, Bridge 277, that still stands and is a famous local tourist attraction. 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. Their roles and characters, however, are fictionalised. . 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. For the scene when Colonel Nicholson emerges from the oven after several days confined there, Alec Guinness based his faltering walk on that of his son Matthew Guinness when he was recovering from polio. US Navy Commander Shears tells of the horrific conditions. The screenplay was instead credited to the novelist, Boullewhich was quite a feat, since he didnt speak or read English. Lean wanted to use the tune in Kwai, figured those lyrics wouldn't pass the censors (or the approval of the composer's widow), and opted to have the troops whistle it instead. It was 425 feet long, 90 feet high, and cost $52,085 out of the film's $2 million budget. Sri Lanka Filming Locations: The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) Posted on July 17, 2017 by tokyofox. US $4.49 Standard Shipping from outside US. The site's critical consensus reads, "This complex war epic asks hard questions, resists easy answers, and boasts career-defining work from star Alec Guinness and director David Lean. This, plus the fact that he loved to travel, plus the fact that shooting a film in Southeast Asia would be good for him tax-wise, motivated him to accept a project that was bound to be grueling. The screenplay was based on French author Pierre Boulle"s 1954 novel of the same name. He is commemorated on the Labuan Memorial, Malaysia. Cutting the base board 1190 x 160 x 12 mm. Search by location, regiment, nationality, and more fields to find the war dead involved in building the blood-soaked Burma-Siam Railway. He was a huge star, drawing a weekly salary of $5000 in 1915 (adjusted for inflation: $119,000) and appearing in more than 60 films between 1914 and 1924. Lean wanted Holden, a big star and recent Oscar winner (for Stalag 17), to play American prisoner Major Shears, over the objections of producer Spiegel, who wanted Cary Grant. Thousands of Asian workers and POWs (prisoners of war) died while working on the project. [39], The major railway bridge described in the novel and film did not actually cross the river known at the time as the Kwai. In 1984 the Academy Board of Governors voted posthumous Oscars to Foreman and Wilson, and their names were included on prints of the film beginning in the 1990s. John Coast, a young British officer who went on to become a successful filmmaker who spent three and half years as a Japanese POW, said: As nobody should ever have need telling, the picture is a load of high-toned codswallop.. Only he survives, though he is wounded. The Bridge over the River Kwai met its fate in 1945. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay. Subsequent releases of the film finally gave them proper screen credit. Recognising Shears, Nicholson exclaims, "What have I done? The movie is based on the novel "Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai" by Pierre Boulle. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. 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. The story is fictional but uses the construction of the Burma Railway, in 1942-1943, as its historical setting, and is partly based on Pierre Boulle's own life experience working in Malaysia rubber . [7][8] In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Bridge on the River Kwai the 11th greatest British film of the 20th century. Contact us, Image: Rows of graves at Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, Image: Kanchanaburi Dutch Memorial commemorates Dutch POWs who died building Death Railway, Image: Chungkai War Cemetery's Cross of Sacrifice, Image: The Pavilion at Chungkai War Cemetery, Image: The cemetery's horticulture gives Chungkai a sense of serenity, Image: The Stone of Remembrance at Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, Image: Headstones and horticulture at Thanbyuzayat, Get the latest CWGC news and see some of our recent work, Report of the Special Committee to review historical inequalities in Commemoration, Discover world war casualties who lived in your area, The True Story of the Bridge over the River Kwai, Why and how were restoring the Menin Gate: What you need to know about this amazing project, A push through the desert: How The Allies Captured Jericho in 1918, Visit Commonwealth war graves in Arras, France. In the film, Lt. Col Nicholson is seen collaborating with his captors, even under duress. 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. "[47] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 87 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". After the war, their remains were moved from these makeshift cemeteries and graveyards to purpose-built Commission sites. Also, the dense surrounding jungle renders escape virtually impossible. $ 3 million (estimated) The Bridge on the River Kwai is a British 1957 movie from Columbia Pictures, based on Pierre Boulle 's 1952 book The Bridge over the River Kwai ( French: Le Pont de la Rivire Kwai ).

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