The Bridge on the River Kwai

I watched this right after I watched Around the World in 80 Days. TCM was nice of enough to show them both on TV and I got to DVR them both. It made for a long day since Around the World in 80 Days is 3 hours and The Bridge on the River Kwai is 2 hours and 45 minutes. It also showed the contrast between a great movie and an ok movie. While Around the World in 80 Days is considered one of the least deserving movies to win The Bridge on the River Kwai is one of the best.

The movie is about British soldiers in a Japanese POW camp on a jungle island during WWII.  It starts out as a battle of wills between the British and Japanese Colonels. The British Colonel Nicholson played by Alec Guinness is brought to the camp with his men and instantly clashes with Colonel Saito the commander of the POW camp. Nicholson is very strong minded and by the book. He clashes with Saito over the Saito's plan to have his entire troops build a bridge. Nicholson refuses to have himself and his officers help in the manual labor saying it is against the Geneva Convention(he actually hands Saito his copy of the convention rules.) This leads Nicholson to be put in isolation for a while. When Saito realizes he can not finish the bridge on schedule he gives in to Nicholson and lets Nicholson take control over the bridge construction.  Nicholson sets out to prove how superior English workmanship is and plans to build the best bridge they can.  This becomes an obsession for Nicholson and he makes sure every little detail is perfect in his words "
One day the war will be over. And I hope that the people that use this bridge in years to come will remember how it was built and who built it. Not a gang of slaves, but soldiers, British soldiers" But unbeknownst to him the allied have a plot to blow up the bridge with the help of an American who escaped the camp.

All the acting in this movie is great. The battle of wills in the beginning of the movie is some of my favorite parts. I love to see two great actors just play off each other like that. Its great watching each men slowly go mad, especially Alec Guinness' Nicholson. Slowly watching him become more and more obsessed with this bridge and how it will be a lasting testament to the British men and himself.  William Holden as the American who escapes is also great in the movie and brings some of the comic relief to the movie. Overall it is a great movie. David Lean directed his first of many great epic movies.

The movie won 7 Academy Awards, besides best picture it won Best Actor for Alec Guinness, Best Director for David Lean, Best Music, and Best Editing. The Best Screenplay Oscar had gone through some changes over time. For a while there were three categories Best Original Story, Best Screenplay Adapted, and Best Original Screenplay. In 1957 it merged into the modern day categories of just Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay. The Bridge on the River Kwai won Best Adapted Screenplay that year but not without some controversy. While Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson helped Pierre Boulle write the screenplay only Pierre Boulle was given on screen credit and therefore the only one that got the award. This was due to Carl Foreman and Michael Wislon being black-listed for appearing in front of the House of Un-American Committee. Foreman and Wilson were both posthumously given the award in 1984. 

Losing to the The Bridge on the River Kwai was another great movie 12 Angry Men. Which if it had been nominated any other year hopefully would have won. Also not nominated but one of the only Stanley Kubrick movie I like was Paths of Glory.  Another good movie that was nominated for Best Picture was Witness for the Prosecution a twisty murder mystery.