Review of The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) by Darren G — 08 May 2011

Like 'Kings Of The Sun', which I recently reviewed here, 'The Bridges At Toko-Ri' was another fondly-remembered old movie from my childhood - especially for its stark and startling ending that wowed me the first time I saw it.

Recently, I saw 'Toko-Ri' again for the first time in...yikes, more than 20 years, and I was pleased that not only does it still hold up pretty well, but as with other golden oldies like 'Kings Of The Sun' some aspects have gotten better with age.

True, it has dated in some ways, especially during the sequence with Harry Brubaker (William Holden) meets with his family in Japan early in the film. Some of the drama gets heavy-handed; some of the dialogue sounds too overwrought and unsubtle (in one scene, Fredric March comes across as the most insensitive and depressing bastard on Earth); and some of the delivery is unintentionally hilarious. My favourite example of the latter is when Grace Kelly - sigh - delivers the following line with incredible breathlessness: "OhHarryyoumusttellmeaboutthosebridges!".

Fortunately, though, most of those problems are confined to one small part of the film, and the rest of 'The Bridges At Toko-Ri' is compelling, funny, gripping and moving - especially at the end.

As I mentioned in my review of 'Kings Of The Sun', one of the unexpected benefits of today's CGI is that it truly makes you appreciate great cinematography and special effects from movies in days gone by. A lot of 'Toko-Ri' takes place on a real-life aircraft carrier, and just watching what it was like keeping a ship of that size running smoothly is absorbing in itself. As well, most of the time when we see jets and helicopters flying, they're actual jets and helicopters flying - and while the bridges at Toko-Ri are models, they're very impressive works of art.

In a different context to how Grace said it, it was good to see those bridges again :).