Review of The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) by John T — 23 Jul 2013

My choice as the best of the post war prison of war movies - better than The Great Escape and Stalag 17 - was very loosely based on the plight of British and Allied prisoners of war forced by the Japanese to build the Burma Railway. Alec Guinness shines in his portrayal of "Colonel Nicholson", who undergoes more than his fair share of torture and abuse at the hands of the Japanese "Colonel Saito", played by Sessue Hayakawa. The two end up in battle of wills: Saito's need to complete a railway bridge and Nicholson's desire to maintain the morale and military discipline of the British and Allied prisoners. It was a truly remarkable performance by Guinness, well deserving of his Academy Award for Best Actor.

While not having as much screen time as Guinness, William Holden still played an integral role as "Commander Shears", a soldier impersonating an officer who is drafted into in a mission to destroy the River Kwai bridge. Jack Hawkins rounds out the main cast, as "Major Warden", the hard-nosed leader of the Allied Commando team assigned to blow up the just-finished Kwai railway bridge.

The one drawback was Col. Nicholson's zealous attitude toward constructing the bridge which was in contradiction to the real senior Allied officer at the bridge, British Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey, upon which the story was based. It seemed at times that he was more obsessed over the successful construction of the bridge than the Japanese were. I find it unlikely that a man like the Nicholson could have risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the British Army; and if he had, due to his collaboration, I'm sure he would have been eliminated by the other prisoners.