The Bridge on the River Kwai

See also AZON. The character of Crabbin was originally meant to be two characters, to be played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, who were an established comedy duet in films. The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. As well as Welles' contributions, there were other significant changes between Greene's screenplay and the film. At about the same time a new release of the film finally gave them proper screen credit. (The impact of Lime's statement is in some ways enhanced by the fact that the cuckoo clock is in fact a German invention, and the Swiss do not even have that to their credit.). Only in 1984 did the Academy rectify the situation by awarding the Oscar to Foreman and Wilson retrospectively (and posthumously in both cases, although Foreman did live long enough to know that it was going to happen). Greene has confessed that this remark was not his own invention, but rather Welles' contribution to the script.

Pierre Boulle, who did not speak English, was given screen credit for adapting his own novel, and the Oscar was awarded to him. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.".
The screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, were on the Hollywood blacklist and could only work secretly. "In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.
Award nominations:. Back on the ground, he makes the now famous remark:.
Award wins:. Looking down upon the people beneath from his vantage point on top of the Riesenrad, the large Ferris wheel in the Prater amusement park, Lime compares them to ants.

One memorable feature of the movie is the tune that is whistled by the POW's—the "Colonel Bogey March"—and is now widely associated with the movie, and even sometimes referred to as the "River Kwai March." Besides serving as an example of British fortitude and dignity in the face of privation, it suggested (whether or not intended by the screenwriters) a specific symbol of defiance to many movie-goers of the period: WW II veterans (and many of their baby-boom sons) thought of the tune as that of a mockery of Japan's principal ally. In 1999 it came first in a BFI poll of British films, while in 2004 the magazine Total Film named it the third greatest British film. (Buster Keaton's The General includes an almost identical scene.). The film was also voted the best British film of all time by the British Film Institute, and in public opinion polls is consistently placed in the top ten British films of all time. The destruction of the bridge in the film was accomplished by blowing up a full-sized bridge as a real train drove over it. This may have been the first time such a scene had been attempted without model shots since the silent film era. The film won the 1949 Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the Cannes Film Festival, a British Academy Award for Best Film, and an Academy Award for Best Black and White Cinematography in 1950. The steel bridge has been repaired and is still in use. A single, The Third Man Theme, released in 1950 (Decca in UK, London Records in USA) became a bestseller, and later an LP was released.

In reality, a parallel steel bridge was added a few months after the wooden bridge was completed, and both were destroyed by Allied aerial bombing, the steel bridge first. The distinctive musical score was composed and played on the zither by Anton Karas (1906 – 1985).
The plot of the film is built around a fictional destruction of the wooden bridge by prisoner sabotage. The atmospheric use of black and white cinematography (by Robert Krasker), harsh lighting, distorted camera angles, combined with the unique musical theme and excellent performances from the cast, all serve to convey the atmosphere of post-War Vienna, creating the tension inherent in the story, and making this one of Reed's best-loved films.
. He was a very bad shot and a very bad judge of character, but he had a way with Westerns (a trick of tension) and with girls (I wouldn't know what).". About a hundred thousand conscripted Asian labourers and 16,000 prisoners of war died on the whole project, which was nicknamed the Death Railway. I don't think he said a word to her: it was like the end of a story.

This was part of a project to link existing Thai and Burmese railway lines to create a route from Bangkok, Thailand to Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar) to support the Japanese occupation of Burma. He caught her up and they walked side by side. The story is based on a real event, the building in 1942 of a railway bridge over the Mae Klong (not the Kwai) in the Thai town of Kanchanaburi. Anna does walk away from Lime's grave in the book, but the text continues: "I watched him striding off on his overgrown legs after the girl. It was filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and England. Perhaps the most fundamental difference is the end of the novella, in which it is implied that Anna and Rollo/Holly are about to begin a new life together, in stark contrast to the unmistakable snub that makes the end of the movie so memorable. An Anglo-American film in English based on the book appeared in 1957 and the name was changed slightly, to The Bridge on the River Kwai. The film portrays a group of British captives in a Japanese POW camp forced to build a railway bridge spanning the River Kwai in Thailand. Popescu's character is an American called Cooler.

Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai (The Bridge over the River Kwai) is a novel by Pierre Boulle, published in 1954, that won France's "Prix Ste Beuve." It dramatizes the plight of Allied prisoners of war during World War II forced to build the 258-mile Death Railway by Japanese forces. Martins' first name is Rollo rather than Holly. Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album, Dramatic Picture Score or Original Cast (Malcolm Arnold). Other differences include the nationality of both Martins and Lime (they are English in the book. Golden Globe Award Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Sessue Hayakawa). A small portion of his narration (given to Martins in the American release, and to an unidentified, unseen and never-returned-to character voiced by Carol Reed in the British release) is retained in a modified form at the very beginning of the movie, the part in which a voiceover declaims: "I never knew the old Vienna...". Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Sessue Hayakawa). The narrator in the novella is Calloway, which gives the book a slightly different emphasis from the screenplay.

Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay - Pierre Boulle - Carl Foreman - Michael Wilson. Before writing the screenplay, Greene worked out the atmosphere, characterisation and mood of the story by writing a novella. This was written purely to be used as a source text for the screenplay and was never intended to be read by the general public, although Penguin Books later published it. Academy Award for Original Music Score - Malcolm Arnold. Most noticeably, the opening monologue, spoken by Reed himself in the original, was re-recorded by Joseph Cotten. Academy Award for Film Editing - Peter Taylor. This probably served to reduce the strongly anti-American tone of the original. Academy Award for Best Cinematography - Jack Hildyard. The US version of The Third Man emphasises Martins' point of view much more strongly than the cut that was shown in British cinemas.

New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Actor (Alec Guinness). It is a common misconception that Harry Lime himself is the "third man". Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama (Alec Guinness). It is this "third man", Joseph Harbin, that the title of the film (which is essentially an elaborate MacGuffin) refers to. Academy Award for Best Actor (Alec Guinness). Martins' investigation leads to another eyewitness not associated with Lime who claims that there was a third man who helped carry Lime's body. New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Director (David Lean). All eyewitnesses to the accident happen to be friends or associates of Lime.

Golden Globe Award for Best Director - Motion Picture (David Lean). On several accounts, two of Lime's friends carried Lime's body off the street after the accident. Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (David Lean, Assistants: Gus Agosti & Ted Sturgis). Martins is told that Lime was struck by a truck while crossing a street. Academy Award for Directing (David Lean). He finds that there was more to Lime than he knew and that he was accused of being a black-market racketeer, trafficking in poor quality penicillin. New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Film. At the beginning of the film, Martins discovers that his old friend Harry Lime, whom he had not seen in several years, has died under mysterious circumstances just prior to Martins' arrival in Vienna.

Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama. The story is set in a bomb-damaged Vienna just after the Second World War and is told from the point of view of a mildly successful pulp author, Holly Martins, who is searching for his friend Harry Lime. BAFTA Award for Best Picture. The screenplay was written by novelist Graham Greene. Academy Award for Best Picture. The Third Man (1949) is a film noir directed by Carol Reed. M.R.B. Chakrabandhu  : Yai. Although it can be said that because Joseph Harbin was actually the one that was hit by the truck, and Harry Lime apparently helped carry Harbin away, perhaps it is not entirely unreasonable to refer to Harry as the "Third Man.".

Miura. This is due in part to the greater fame of Welles, and also to the fact that the film's photography is heavily influenced by Welles's style. Keiichiro Katsumoto  : Lt. Many people erroneously believe that Orson Welles directed the film himself. Kanematsu. A television series was later created out of the film, with Michael Rennie starring as Harry Lime. Heihachiro Okawa  : Capt. A radio drama series called The Third Man and centring on the adventures of Harry Lime (voiced by Welles) prior to his "death in Vienna" ran for a number of seasons.

Ann Sears  : Nurse at Ceylon hospital. Siegfried Breuer as Popescu. Baker. Ernst Deutsch as Kurtz. Harold Goodwin  : Pvt. Winkel. Percy Herbert  : Pvt. Grogan. Erich Ponto as Dr.

John Boxer  : Maj. Hughes. Paine. Green. Bernard Lee as Sgt. André Morell  : Col. Wilfrid Hyde-White as Crabbin. Reeves. Trevor Howard as Major Calloway.

Peter Williams  : Capt. Alida Valli as Anna Schmidt. Geoffrey Horne  : Lt. Joyce. Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins. Clipton. Orson Welles as Harry Lime. James Donald  : Maj.

Warden. Jack Hawkins  : Maj. William Holden  : Shears. Saito.

Sessue Hayakawa  : Col. Alec Guinness  : Colonel Nicholson.