The Bridge On The River Kwai 1957

The Film:

This one (at least in my head), along with last year's winner, really marks the start of the Good Friday / Bank Holiday Monday type of Oscar Winner. By that I mean the sort of films that I remember vaguely because they were shown on precisely those sort of holidays. You can split them into three main categories - Musicals (I tend to remember those ones including, unfortunately, next year's winner), Family Adventures (like last year's winner) and the more "Serious" dramas that were, nonetheless, seen as suitable afternoon viewing. Bridge on the River Kwai fits firmly in this category.

I know I've seen it. I know it was when I was too young to understand it. I remember that it's very hot and sweaty, there's lots of men in khaki, the whistle a lot, build a bridge and then blow it up, and Alec Guinness steals the show. I also know that I found it a bit too long and boring when I was about 10-ish. And because it's a David Lean film that means, in my experience, that there's about a 50:50 chance that I'm still going to find it a bit too long and boring even now. Although I am quite looking forward to finding out.....

The Ceremony:

Valet parking attendants all lined up and ready!

The awards were given out at the Pantages Theater in LA on March 26th 1958. For reasons I haven't yet discovered, they did away with the New York awards this year (and in subsequent years) and they also didn't have a main host this year. There are six named hosts, including Bob Hope and Donald Duck!

A couple of other interesting points.... It was the first year where the Best Picture and Best Director nominations lists were identical (ie they only covered five films between them)

Secondly, the Adapted Screenplay award was given to someone who couldn't speak a word of English, for writing a screenplay that was almost entirely in the English language. Pierre Boulle wrote the original book that Bridge on the River Kwai was based on, but the screenplay writers were both blacklisted, so he was given the credit and the award! (They now officially all share the award between them)


Other Notable Winners That Night:

Paul Newman showing why he never goes out for burgers!

It's still nearly thirty years before the beautiful Mr Newman gets his Oscar but I'm not going to pass up the chance of including a picture of him (there will be one next year as well!) so here's one to celebrate Mrs Newman's Oscar. Joanne Woodward won for The Three Faces of Eve.

Most of the other big awards went to Bridge on the River Kwai (including one to Alec Guinness) - the only other film to take home more than one award was Sayonara, another film with military themes, Japanese characters and sadistic officers. I'm sure there's something to be written about why these themes dominated this era - maybe another time....

Best Song:

It's Frankie again. Not a song I know, or a film I'm familiar with (All The Way from "The Joker Is Wild") - but this clip has me interested in finding out more:

What We Could/Should Have Been Watching:

Whodunnit?

Having seen Bridge on the River Kwai again, I'm going to agree with the Academy on this one, but I love a good courtroom drama, and two of the best are among the nominations for Best Picture this year. I've not seen the other two nominees, Sayonara and Peyton Place (although I probably should watch Peyton Place one day), but I'd have been very happy watching Witness For The Prosecution or 12 Angry Men again.

Did he do it?

They are both very different films in both tone and setting - but they are both really well paced and acted and build up suspense really well. WitnessFTP was one of the earliest films to have a big "don't give away the ending..." marketing ploy, which apparently worked really well. It's years since I saw it and it's on my list of things to watch again very soon, as I work through my Billy Wilder box set.

I love Wilder and would happily have given him twice as many Oscars as he actually won, but I think 12 Angry Men has the edge over him here, because it's far less showy and so well done. I can't believe Henry Fonda didn't even get a nomination for his performance in this!

Our Verdict:

A job well done??

I was mostly right in my recollections - this is indeed a hot and sweaty film, with lots of men in khaki who sometimes whistle, build a bridge and then (some other men in khaki) blow it up. And Sir Alec does indeed steal the show. Where I was wrong was in it being too long and boring. It wasn't boring in the slightest. It probably could have lost about 20 minutes or so of its 160 minutes, but I actually didn't notice that it was running towards three hours by the end. And, to be fair, it wouldn't be a proper David Lean film if it was much shorter. All in all, I was far more impressed with this film than I was expecting to be.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the river......

The characters are generally well written and acted throughout - especially Guinness' Lt Colonel Nicholson and his Japanese counterpart. William Holden does a really good job as the token American (token character and token actor!). He manages to make something likeable and well-rounded out of what could have just been a posturing gung-ho maverick - and he does so without ever attempting any scene stealing from Guinness or Hawkins. It could very easily have become too macho or too much of a typical male-dominated wartime action film - with impressive set pieces, a lot of waffly nonsense about the horrors/glories (delete as appropriate) of war, or any other of many things that put me off most war films. It's true that it's very male dominated. There's only one named female character (who Holden has a fling with in Ceylon) and then a couple of local women who carry their bags for them through the jungle. However, this didn't bother me as much as I thought it was. It wasn't about "men", it was about these individual people and how their different characters coped (or didn't) under physically and mentally extreme and unusual circumstances.

Unusually (for me, anyway) I found the first half of the film to be much darker, more harrowing, challenging and difficult - and much preferred the second half, where the action was. Having said that, the earlier scenes are the ones that have stuck with me. The horrendous conditions that Nicholson is subjected to and his stubborn refusal to give any ground at all in order to stop his punishment is really well filmed and acted - and really helps you to understand and sympathise with Nicholson and the seemingly odd (and even possibly deranged) decisions that he makes later on.

I think this face completely sums up the brilliance of
Alec Guinness' performance!

It might seem slightly inappropriate, but there were several times throughout the film where Nicholson reminded me of later comic creations who are also slightly-psychotic sticklers for rules. In the early scenes when Nicholson keeps literally reaching for his rule book I couldn't help utter the phrase "Space Corps Directive Number...." and from that point I was reminded of Arnold Rimmer. In the second half the film, his walk, his stance and his physical tics whilst surveying his handiwork on the bridge looked so much like Mr Mackay from Porridge. On second thoughts, maybe that's not so inappropriate. Alec Guinness has created a character here that could just as easily exist in other contexts where people are put under some form of extreme stress and seek comfort in rules and conformity. There is far less separating good drama and good comedy than we sometimes realise.

Ey up, what's this rope doing here?

I find myself in danger of rambling on and on about this film. I've still got plenty I could say about Nicholson's counterpart Colonel Saito (arguably a very similar character, just with a Japanese sense of honour, rather than a British one), or about the journey of the explosives party to their inevitable catastrophic meeting (a bit like Titanic and Iceberg....only done well!), or about Major Clipton and his voice of reason (sadly not listened to enough).

This probably means that the film has more than done its job. It was compelling, interesting, thought provoking (we talked about it afterwards more than any other film this decade) and therefore a very worthy winner. I will almost certainly watch it again, and I recommend that others do the same - even if (especially if) its "not your sort of film". If you think that, you're probably wrong....