Review of A Bridge Too Far (1977) by Frances H — 19 Apr 2016

Richard Attenborough has made some of my favorite films, such as Gandhi and The Great Escape, but this is a very important film of a kind that doesn't often come along. Usually the winning side of a war writes the history and takes all the praise for itself.

Seldom in film does the winning side look at its mistakes so closely as in this film. Perhaps that is why it did not make a great deal of money, and got no recognition by the Academy or Golden Globes and BFTA for the excellence of it's actors, directing and script.

A Bridge Too Far shows how one man's mistake and inability to look at the evidence of the Dutch Resistance cost 13,000 to 20,00 some men their lives. I doubt that if I were General Browning or Field Marshall Montgomery that I could live with that fact.

I have to wonder how they slept at night. It is easy to make a movie that shows the brilliant strategy of those in charge of your side in a war that you win. It is harder to point out that leaders on the winning side made major mistakes.

One thing about the 1970s, the filmmakers did not show war to be a glorious experience where your side's leaders are always right. So we got films such as this one, films that tell the truth and show war for what it is.

The Vietnam War had taught us a lesson. When I compare this film to the 1940s They Died With Their Boots On and others such as M*A*S*H, Patton, Apocalypse Now, and Catch 22, one can see how opinions about war had changed, but not enough to make this great movie a box office hit, especially since this film talks critically about real failure in WWII by leaders who would be somewhat idealized after the war.

At least now it gets the recognition it deserves.