Review of A Bridge Too Far (1977) by Jake G — 20 Jan 2010

So picture me, about 10 at the time, reclining on a sofa watching a World War II epic film, that has so far been a perfect PG war movie-- gratuitous violence, but more of the kind that involves explosions and disappearing men, or sudden groans and clutched stomachs. Plenty of war's bloody aftermath, the black blood stains and swathed heads that the makeup department excels at, but nothing really gruesome. No liasions with German farm girls, either, just a sexless shoot-the-nazis fest.

And then: a grunt, played by the inimitable James Caan, with clenched jaw and steely eye, demands medical attention for a superior officer who could not possibly still be alive. The doctor wipes his hands of blood on his apron and flatly denies him. Dozens of soldiers lay despondent, dead and dying, and this man has clearly had it up to his neck. But the soldier is resolute, follows the doctor into the makeshift operating room, and makes his plea once again. Again, the doctor, equally resolute, denies him.

The soldier looks down, thinks for a moment, and says the last thing my underage ears expected to hear.

"I want you to treat him, or I'll blow your fucking head off.".

James Caan, 9 mm raised, is clearly no man to tussle with. The doctor takes another look at the man, his calm but desperate countenance, and says he'll see what he can do.

An hour after the operation, the doctor steps outside to deliver the news to the waiting grunt. Good news, his officer will be fine, but Doc doesn't mince words-- what Caan did was unacceptable, absolute insubordination, a crime that is punishable by military law. The doctor motions an MP over, and sentences him. Five seconds in prison.

Having decided he's done the right thing, and now that Caan has served his term, he asks him confidentially whether he really would have shot him. "You wouldn't have, right?" he all but asks. Caan looks at him, again with a steely eye and clenched jaw, and simply replies, "Thank you, sir" and walks away.

There are many powerful images and scenes in A BRIDGE TOO FAR, but all these would be lost on me that day. Not only had I heard the word "fuck" in a movie for the first time, I had also realized that most of the things that happen in my favorite World War Two flicks are bullshit. Sure, perhaps actual locations and equipment are used, and maybe a battle scene is fairly accurately portrayed, but all these movies are lacking in the raw human emotion that war brings out in men. War movies would go on to explore that theme, that war is indeed hell, but this was arguably the first time we got to see it realistically in a Hollywood production. And not during a big battle scene, with plenty of explosives and gunfire, but during a quiet, minor scene.

A BRIDGE TOO FAR would have other elements worth championing, such as a perspiring Robert Redford hailing Mary on a plastic boat while crossing a waterway that's being all-out pounded by German artillery. Or Sean Connery shooting an oblivious German soldier through a glass window, then hiding with another man in then attic of an unassuming Dutch couple. But other scenes did approach the staidness of the period, the good but not great, unfortunately punchless films like Sam Fuller's BIG RED ONE.

But perhaps a scene, or several scenes, really can make a movie alone, and A BRIDGE TOO FAR is proof of that tenet. For World War Two movie aficionados, at least, this is recommended viewing, a film that finds a crucial medium between the higher up's war and that of the man in the trenches.