Skip to main content

The 2nd Annual William Holden Blogathon: «The Bridge on the River Kwai» (1957)

Directed by David Lean, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) begins as a group of British World War II prisoners, including Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) and Major Clipton (James Donald), arrive at a Japanese POW camp in Burma. The commandant, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), informs them that all prisoners, regardless of rank, are to work on the construction of a railway bridge over the River Kwai, which will be a vital link for the Japanese in the war. Citing the Geneva Conventions, Nicholson defies Saito and orders his officers to remain behind while the enlisted men go to work. As punishment, Saito leaves the officers standing all day in the intense tropical heat and locks Nicholson in an iron box.

Alec Guinness as Nicholson, Sessue Hayakawa as Saito and William Holden as Shears.
 
At one point, three prisoners — among them United States Navy Commander Shears (William Holden) — attempt to escape. Two are shot dead, but Shears manages to get away, although badly wounded. He stumbles into a village of natives, who help him leave by boat. Back at the camp, the prisoners are working as little as possible and sabotaging whatever they can. Shocked by the poor job being done by his his men, Nicholson orders his officers to build a proper bridge, reasoning that it will raise the morale of the POWs.
 
Meanwhile, Shears is enjoying his stay in Ceylon when British Major Warden (Jack Hawkins) orders him to join a commando mission to destroy the bridge before it is completed. Shears and Canadian Lieutenant Joyce (Geoffrey Horne) plant explosives on the bridge towers below the water line, but Nicholson spots the wire connecting them to the detonator and brings it to Saito's attention. Stunned that their own man is about to uncover the plot, Joyce breaks cover and stabs Saito to death. In the ensuing fight, Joyce, Shears and Nicholson are mortally wounded, the latter by a mortar fired by Warden. Nicholson then stumbles towards the bomb detonator and collapses on the plunger, blowing up the bridge and sending a passing train into the river.
 
SHEARS: I'm not going to leave you here to die, Warden, because I don't care about your bridge and I don't care about your rules. If we go on, we go on together. 

Born in Avignon in 1912, Pierre Boulle enlisted with the French Army in Indochina at the outbreak of World War II in 1939. After German troops occupied France in 1940, he joined Charles de Gaulle's Free French forces in Singapore, where he received training as a spy and saboteur, learning the art of derailing trains and blowing up bridges from a British commando team.

When Singapore fell to the Japanese in February 1942, Boulle was ordered to return to Indochina, which was by then ruled by pro-Nazi Vichy France. He was assigned to establish contact with the French Resistance fighters there, but ended up being captured by Vichy partisans. He spent the next two years at a POW camp, where he was subjected to severe hardship and forced labour. He escaped in 1944 and, at the end of the war, was repatriated to France. In 1948, he moved to Paris and became a novelist. Years later, he reflected that his decision to pursue a writing career was a «worthy conclusion» of his wartime experiences. 
 
LEFT: British soldiers surrendering to the Japanese after the fall of Singapore. RIGHT: Prisoners of war carrying railway sleepers in Burma.
 
In 1952, Boulle published the novel Le Pont de la Rivière Kwaï, which was partly inspired by his own experience as a POW, transposed to a Japanese prison camp. It also drew on the infamous Death Railway, the 300-mile long railway built between Thailand and Burma by the Empire of the Japan in 1943. Forced labour was used in the construction of the line, resulting in the loss of 14,000 Allied prisoners. According to the author, the character of Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson was modeled in part on the Vichy French officer who presided over Boulle's trial and sentenced him to hard labour. Published in Britain in 1954 with the title The Bridge on the River Kwai, the novel became a massive international bestseller, winning the French Prix-Sainte-Beuve.
 
The Bridge on the River Kwai came to the attention of American screenwriter Carl Foreman, who had received an Oscar nomination for penning the hugely successful High Noon (1952). At the time, Foreman was living in exile in England, having been blacklisted in Hollywood as a result of an investigation into Communist influences within the film industry. He was employed as a writer by London Films, the production company founded by Alexander Korda, who saw enough potential in the material to purchase the rights to the book. Ultimately, Korda sold the rights to Horizon Pictures, the company formed by Austrian-born American producer Sam Spiegel to make The African Queen (1951) with Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Spiegel made a deal with Columbia Pictures to finance and distribute the film and set out to find a director.

LEFT: David Lean during the making of The Bridge on the River Kwai. RIGHT: David Lean and William Holden on a break from filming.

Failing to interest such major figures as Howard Hawks, William Wyler, Fred Zinnemann and John Ford, Spiegel turned to English director David Lean, who had received Oscar nominations for Brief Encounter (1945), Great Expectations (1946) and Summertime (1955). In trouble with British tax authorities and in the process of divorcing his second wife, Lean liked the story and the idea of shooting the film in a foreign land, but he loathed Foreman's script.

When Lean met Spiegel in New York, he assured the producer that he would «rescue Col. Nicholson from being depicted either as a lunatic or a traitor [...] and give his character a sympathetic and heroic dimension.» Spiegel then asked Foreman to write a second draft of the script, but Lean was still not satisfied with it. Ultimately, he decided to revise the screenplay himself, calling in the help of backlisted writer Michael Wilson, who had won an Oscar for penning the acclaimed drama A Place in the Sun (1951). In the end, however, Spiegel credited the film to neither Lean nor Wilson, but to Boulle, who did not speak a single word of English.
 
Alec Guinness as Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai.
 
Several actors were approached to play the role of Colonel Nicholson, who oversees the construction of the bridge. Academy Award winner Charles Laughton was first proposed, but he was deemed «too fat» to be credible as a half-starved POW. Noël Coward, Ralph Richardson, Anthony Quayle, Ray Milland, James Mason, Ronald Colman and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. were all suggested, but they were either unavailable, considered unsuitable for the part or simply turned down the offer. Spiegel then gave the role to Alec Guinness, but he initially declined.

Although Lean had previously directed Guinness in Great Expectations and Oliver Twist (1948), he was unenthusiastic about the Oscar-nominated actor. «I don't think he will give us the 'size' we need,» Lean said. «He could do it, of course, but in a different way from what we have visualized.» However, Spiegel persisted and over dinner persuaded Guinness to change his mind. The actor recalled, «I started out maintaining that I wouldn't play the role and by end of the evening we were discussing what kind of wig I would wear
 
William Holden as Commander Shears in The Bridge on the River Kwai.

To increase the film's potential in the United States market, a role was created for an American character, a naval prisoner-of-war named Shears, who escapes the Japanese labour camp only to be sent back on a mission to blow up the Kwai bridge. Spiegel originally offered the part to Cary Grant, but he hesitated in giving the producer an affirmative answer. By the time Grant was ready to accept, William Holden, Lean's choice, had already been signed. Apparently, Grant was so heartbroken that he begged Holden to withdraw from the project.

Beginning his career playing the lead role in Golden Boy (1939), Holden rose to the top ranks of Hollywood stardom with acclaimed performances in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Stalag 17 (1953), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Because of his box-office popularity, Holden was hired for $300,000 plus ten percent of the profits, making him one of the most expensive actors at the time. Holden immediately accepted the role of Shears. «I'm like the chorus girl who was offered an apartment, a diamond necklace, and a mink coat,» he said.
 
LEFT: Alec Guinness and Sessue Hayakawa in a scene from The Bridge on the River Kwai. RIGHT: Alec Guinness, William Holden and Jack Warden.
 
Spiegel coaxed the Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa out of retirement to portray Colonel Saito, the commandant of the prison camp. As part of Famous Players-Lasky, Hayakawa had been a Hollywood star in the early silent era, appearing most notably in Cecil B. DeMille's The Cheat (1915). In 1918, he became one of the first actors to form a production company, Haworth Pictures Corporation, which brought him even more fame and recognition. With the rise of «talkies,» however, his career slowed considerably and he made mostly European and Japanese films.

To play British medical officer Major Clipton, Lean brought in James Donald, whom he had directed in the patriotic war film In Which We Serve (1942). In turn, Spiegel hired newcomer Geoffrey Horne to play the young Lieutenant Joyce. Rounding out the cast was Jack Hawkins, who had become one of the most popular male stars in his native England as a result of his performance in another World War II picture, The Cruel Sea (1953). 
 
David Lean, Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa and William Holden on location in Ceylon.
 
The Bridge on the River Kwai was shot on location in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) between November 1956 and May 1957. By all accounts, filming was an unpleasant experience. The heat, the humidity, the poisonous snakes and the logistical demands of building such a complex set in the middle of the jungle were made worse by ill-temper and bad luck. First, a car crash killed one of the assistant directors, broke the back of the make-up artist and seriously injured another assistant. Then half of a two-man crew working on the generator fell sick and the second man did the job alone, resulting in a union strike which had to be settled in London.

There were also major disagreements between Lean and Guinness over how the actor should play Nicholson. Throughout filming, the relationship between the two degenerated to a point where they were not on speaking terms. The day before Holden's arrival on the set, Guinness had a bitter dispute with Lean about how a certain scene should be shot. After filming it, Lean said, «Now you can all fuck off and go home, you English actors. Thank God I'm starting work tomorrow with an American actor. It'll be such a pleasure to say good-bye to you guys.» On the other hand, Holden and Lean got on well from the start. The director later said that Holden was «highly professional. Worked like hell, never late, knew his lines. [...] He had a huge talent and because it was apparently effortless, Bill never got the credit he deserved
 
LEFT: Preparing a scene on the bridge set. RIGHT: Alec Guinness and Sessue Hayakawa.
 
The film's climatic scene — the destruction of the Kwai bridge just as a train full of Japanese troops crosses it for the first time — was filmed on March 11, 1957. Standing 425 feet (129 meters) long and 90 feet (27 meters) high, the wooden bridge was designed by art director Donald Ashton, with the help of engineer Keith Nelson, and built at a cost of $52,085, a small part of the film's $2.8 million budget. As Ashton explained, «It was cheap because we used local labour and elephants; and the timber was cut nearby

The 65-year-old train, which Spiegel obtained from the Ceylonese government, had once belonged to an Indian maharaja. In order to capture the one-time event from different angles, five CinemaScope cameras were planted in dugouts at strategic points around the bridge. When Lean gave the order to detonate the explosives, big chunks of wood, travelling at 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour, came hurtling through the air and the train plummeted into the ravine.
 
Posters for The Bridge on the River Kwai.
 
The Bridge on the River Kwai premiered in London on October 2, 1957 and in New York City on December 18. It was widely praised on both sides of the Atlantic and became the biggest moneymaker of 1958 in the United States, grossing $18,000,000 at the box-office.

At the 30th Academy Awards held at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, in March 1958, the film was nominated in eight categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Guinness), Best Supporting Actor (Hayawaka), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing and Best Cinematography. It won every single award, except for Best Supporting Actor, which was given to Red Buttons for Sayonara (1957). Apparently, Guinness later admitted to feeling guilty by his win since he thought Holden was the real star of the film. Holden congratulated him, exclaiming, «You keep the Oscar, I will keep my ten percent!»
 

This post is my contribution to The 2nd Annual William Holden Blogathon hosted by The Wonderful World of Cinema. To view all entries, click HERE.


______________________________________________
SOURCES:
Alec Guinness: The Authorised Biography by Piers Paul Read (Simon & Schuster, 2003)
Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean by Gene D. Phillips (The University Press of Kentucky, 2006)
William Holden: A Biography by Michelangelo Capua (McFarland & Company Inc., 2010)

Comments

  1. Great and well-researched article Cátia! I really enjoyed what I read. It was interesting and I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know about the film. Somehow I have some difficulties picturing Cary Grant in Bil's role O_o.
    Thanks so much for your participation to the blogathon!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Golden Couples: Gary Cooper & Patricia Neal

It was April 1948 when director King Vidor spotted 22-year-old Patricia Neal on the Warner Bros. studio lot. A drama graduate from Northwestern University, she had just arrived in Hollywood following a Tony Award-winning performance in Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest . Impressed by Patricia's looks, Vidor approached the young actress and asked if she would be interested in doing a screen test for the female lead in his newest film, The Fountainhead (1949). Gary Cooper had already signed as the male protagonist, and the studio was then considering Lauren Bacall and Barbara Stanwyck to play his love interest.          Neal liked the script and about two months later, she met with the director for sound and photographic tests. Vidor was enthusiastic about Patricia, but her first audition was a complete disaster. Cooper was apparently watching her from off the set and he was so unimpressed by her performance that he commented, « What's that!? » He tried to con

Golden Couples: Henry Fonda & Barbara Stanwyck

In the mid- and late 1930s, screwball comedy was in vogue and practically every actress in Hollywood tried her hand at it. Barbara Stanwyck never considered herself a naturally funny person or a comedienne per se , but after delivering a heart-wrenching performance in King Vidor's Stella Dallas (1937), she decided she needed a « vacation » from emotional dramas. In her search for a role, she stumbled upon a « champagne comedy » called The Mad Miss Manton (1938), originally intended as a Katharine Hepburn vehicle. Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda as Melsa and Peter in The Mad Miss Manton .   Directed by Leigh Jason from a script by Philip G. Epstein, The Mad Miss Manton begins when vivacious Park Avenue socialite Melsa Manton finds a corpse while walking her dogs in the early hours of the morning. She calls the police, but they dismiss the incident — not only because Melsa is a notorious prankster, but also because the body disappears in the meantime. Sarcastic newspaper editor

Film Friday: «Who Was That Lady?» (1960)

Theatrical release poster Directed by George Sidney , Who Was That Lady? (19 60 ) begins when che mistry p rofessor David Wilson (Tony Curtis) is caught by his wife Ann (Janet Leigh) kissing one of his female st u de nts. To stop her from divo rcing him , he a sk s for hel p from his good friend, television writer Michael Haney (Dean Mart in), who invents a crazy story that Davi d is working undercover with the FBI and kissed the student — a foreign agent — in the line of du ty. To convince Ann, Mi ke tricks Schult z (William Newel l), a prop man at the T V studio, into fabricating an FBI identification card for David and s up plying him with a g un. Ann is so t hrilled by the idea of being married to a secret agent t hat she forgives David. Meanwhile, Mike sets up a date wi th the Coogle sisters, Gloria (Barbara N ichols) and Florence ( Joi Lan sing), and takes David along , telling Ann that the girls are foreign agents. Just as Ann realizes that her h usband ha s

Christmas in Old Hollywood

The beautiful Elizabeth Taylor with an extremely cute little friend. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall with their son Stephen (early 1950s). Here they are again. What an adorable picture! Paulette Goddard looking rather uncomfortable next to her Christmas tree. Boris Karloff and Ginger Rogers at a Hollywood Christmas party in 1932. The adorable Shirley Temple chatting with Santa. Here she is again with a dolly friend. Look how cute she looks here, modeling a new Christmas dress (1935). The fur-tastic Joan Crawford. Doris Day asking us to "do not disturb until Christmas." Don't worry, Doris, we shall not. Though it's past Christmas now, so I'm sure Doris won't mind if we disturb just a little bit. Priscilla Lane looking sparkling drapped in her garlands. A VERY young Carole Lombard sitting next to her tree (1920s). Jean Harlow looking stunning as always. Janet Leigh looking extra cute unde

Films I Saw in 2020

For the past four years, I have shared with you a list of all the films I saw throughout 2016 , 2017 , 2018 and 2019 , so I thought I would continue the «tradition» and do it again in 2020. This list includes both classic and «modern» films, which make up a total of 161 titles. About three or four of these were re-watches, but I decided to include them anyway. Let me know how many from these you have seen. As always, films marked with a heart ( ❤ ) are my favorites. Sherlock Jr. (1924) | Starring Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire and Joe Keaton The Crowd (1928) | Starring James Murray, Eleanor Boardman and Bert Roach Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) | Starring Henry Fonda, Alice Brady and Marjorie Weaver Brief Encounter (1945) | Starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard and Stanley Holloway The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) | Starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman The Girl He Left Behind (1956) | Starring Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood Gidget (1959) | Starring Sandra Dee, Cliff Robertson an

Golden Couples: Clark Gable & Jean Harlow

  At the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony, MGM's hugely successful prison drama The Big House (1930) earned writer Frances Marion an Oscar for Best Writing. Hoping that she would be inspired to repeat that accomplishment, Irving Thalberg, head of production at Metro, sent Marion to Chicago, Illinois to research story ideas. While flicking through the pages of The Saturday Evening Post , she found an article revealing that, in a city where people distrusted the police, a small group of leading citizens met in secret to arrange their own justice for criminals. Marion took inspiration from that story and wrote The Secret Six (1931), in which Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone, stars of The Big House , play two mobsters prosecuted by a half a dozen vigilantes. Thalberg was pleased with the leading roles Marion wrote for Beery and Stone, but asked if she could also fill out one of the minor leads for Clark Gable , a tall, dark and handsome 30-year-old actor whom Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had recen

Wings of Change: The Story of the First Ever Best Picture Winner

Wings was the first ever film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since then, it has become one of the most influential war dramas, noted for its technical realism and spectacular air-combat sequences. This is the story of how it came to be made.   A man and his story The concept for Wings originated from a writer trying to sell one of his stories. In September 1924, Byron Morgan approached Jesse L. Lasky, vice-president of Famous Players-Lasky, a component of Paramount Pictures, proposing that the studio do an aviation film. Morgan suggested an «incident and plot» focused on the failure of the American aerial effort in World War I and the effect that the country's «aviation unpreparedness» would have in upcoming conflicts. Lasky liked the idea, and approved the project under the working title «The Menace.»   LEFT: Byron Morgan (1889-1963). RIGHT: Jesse L. Lasky (1880-1958).   During his development of the scenario with William Shepherd, a former war correspondent, Morga

80 Reasons Why I Love Classic Films (Part II)

I started this blog six years ago as a way to share my passion for classic films and Old Hollywood. I used to watch dozens of classic films every month, and every time I discovered a new star I liked I would go and watch their entire filmography. But somewhere along the way, that passion dimmed down. For instance, I watched 73 classic films in 2016, and only 10 in 2020. The other day, I found this film with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. that I had never heard of — the film is Mimi (1935), by the way — and for some reason it made me really excited about Old Hollywood again. It made me really miss the magic of that era and all the wonderful actors and actresses. And it also made me think of all the reasons why I fell in love with classic films in the first place. I came up with 80 reasons, which I thought would be fun to share with you. Most of them are just random little scenes or quirky little quotes, but put them together and they spell Old Hollywood to me. Yesterday I posted part one ; her

Top 10 Favourite Christmas Films

Christmas has always been a source of inspiration to many artists and writers. Over the years, filmmakers have adapted various Christmas stories into both movies and TV specials, which have become staples during the holiday season all around the world. Even though Christmas is my favourite holiday, I haven't watched a lot of Christmas films. Still, I thought it would be fun to rank my top 10 favourites, based on the ones that I have indeed seen. Here they are.  10. Holiday Affair (1949) Directed by Don Hartman, Holiday Affair tells the story of a young widow (Janet Leigh) torn between a boring attorney (Wendell Corey) and a romantic drifter (Robert Mitchum). She's engaged to marry the boring attorney, but her son (Gordon Gebert) likes the romantic drifter better. Who will she choose? Well, we all know who she will choose.   Holiday Affair is not by any means the greatest Christmas film of all time, but it's still a very enjoyable Yule-tide comedy to watch over the holi

The Sinatra Centennial Blogathon: Frank Sinatra & Gene Kelly

  In January 1944, MGM chief Louis B. Mayer happened to see a young crooner by the name of Frank Sinatra perform at a benefit concert for The Jewish Home for the Aged in Los Angeles. According to Nancy Sinatra, Frank's eldest daughter, Mayer was so moved by her father's soulful rendition of « Ol' Man River » that he made the decision right then and there to sign Frank to his studio. Sinatra had been on the MGM payroll once before, singing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in the Eleanor Powell vehicle Ship Ahoy (1942), although it is very likely that Mayer never bothered to see that film. Now that Frank was «hot,» however, Metro made arrangements to buy half of his contract from RKO, with the final deal being signed in February of that year. Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in  Anchors Aweigh Being a contract player at the studio that boasted «more stars than there are in the heavens» gave Frank a sudden perspective regarding his own talents as a film performer. The «g