BRIDGES AT WAR NIGHT ON TCM
Don't know if anyone else has noticed, but tonight seems to be "bridges at war" night over at TCM. By way of a thank-you we've decided to offer up a bit of info on two of the best war films ever made to the curious but uninitiated.
First up we have . . . The Bridge Over the River Kwai
David Lean's gratifying but often maddening 1957 account of a British major (a pre Obi Wan Alec Guinness) whose defiance of a Japanese POW-camp commandant takes a peculiarly and particularly British counterproductive turn. (read: the bridge) A post "Sunset Boulevard" William Holden is the American ordered to lead a commando raid intended to set things right. "The Bridge Over the River Kwai" is one of those consistently involving, often surprising films that manages an epic sweep but balances it with the sharply focused adversarial personal relationship of Guinness to the Japanese commandant (Sessue Hayakawa, who is sharply effective) Then there's a the part where it's score is so justifiably recognizable that every eighties refugee knows it by heart.
In all, it's a superb melding of extravagant entertainment and adult drama.
Next you'll get a shot at . . . The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Mark Robson 1954 chronicle of the outbreak of the Korean War . . . the tale of a midwestern lawyer in the Air Force Reserve who's called back to active duty as a carrier-based jet pilot. Slick, big-budget adventure surprises with its tightly focused look at the flier (also the aforementioned William Holden, giving another one of his best performances), who wonders just how in hell he got there, and if he’s going to get out alive to see his wife and daughter again. The climax, featuring Holden and Mickey Rooney (making one of his many comebacks), is unbearably tense.
Not that Robson's direction is shabby but in your humble narrator's opinion its unusually intelligent script, courtesy of Valentine Davies (adapting James Michener's novel) is the real hero here.
First up we have . . . The Bridge Over the River KwaiDavid Lean's gratifying but often maddening 1957 account of a British major (a pre Obi Wan Alec Guinness) whose defiance of a Japanese POW-camp commandant takes a peculiarly and particularly British counterproductive turn. (read: the bridge) A post "Sunset Boulevard" William Holden is the American ordered to lead a commando raid intended to set things right. "The Bridge Over the River Kwai" is one of those consistently involving, often surprising films that manages an epic sweep but balances it with the sharply focused adversarial personal relationship of Guinness to the Japanese commandant (Sessue Hayakawa, who is sharply effective) Then there's a the part where it's score is so justifiably recognizable that every eighties refugee knows it by heart.
In all, it's a superb melding of extravagant entertainment and adult drama.
"The fact is, what we're doing could be construed as - forgive me sir - collaboration with the enemy. Perhaps even as treasonable activity. Must we work so well? Must we build them a better bridge than they could have built for themselves?"
Next you'll get a shot at . . . The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Mark Robson 1954 chronicle of the outbreak of the Korean War . . . the tale of a midwestern lawyer in the Air Force Reserve who's called back to active duty as a carrier-based jet pilot. Slick, big-budget adventure surprises with its tightly focused look at the flier (also the aforementioned William Holden, giving another one of his best performances), who wonders just how in hell he got there, and if he’s going to get out alive to see his wife and daughter again. The climax, featuring Holden and Mickey Rooney (making one of his many comebacks), is unbearably tense.
"I'm a lawyer from Denver, Colorado."
"Then what are you doing in a smelly ditch in Korea, Sir?"
"I was just asking myself that same question. "
Not that Robson's direction is shabby but in your humble narrator's opinion its unusually intelligent script, courtesy of Valentine Davies (adapting James Michener's novel) is the real hero here.
