Independently produced by Richard and Joseph E. Levine, it was the second film based on a book by Ryan to be adapted for the screen (after The Longest Day) (1962).[6] It was the second film based on the events of World War II's failed Operation Market Garden, following Theirs Is the Glory (1946).[7] A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States,[8] the film was shot on location in the Netherlands, in many of the real locations where the historical events took place.
Though it received a tepid critical response, A Bridge Too Far received several awards. At the 31st BAFTA Awards it won four out of eight nominated categories, including Best Supporting Actor for Edward Fox and Best Score for John Addison—who himself had served in the British XXX Corps during Market Garden. Attenborough was nominated for Best Direction, and the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture. It was a success at the box office, becoming the sixth most popular movie of 1977.
Plot
Operation Market Garden envisages 35,000 men being flown 300 miles (480 km) from air bases in England and dropped behind enemy lines in the Netherlands. Two divisions of US paratroopers are responsible for securing the road and bridges as far as Nijmegen. A British division, under Major-General Roy Urquhart, is to land near Arnhem and hold both sides of the bridge there, backed by a brigade of Polish paratroopers under General Stanisław Sosabowski. XXX Armoured Corps are to push up the road over the bridges captured by the American paratroopers and reach Arnhem two days after the drop.
As General Urquhart briefs his officers, some of them are surprised they are going to attempt a landing so far from their objective since the distance from their landing zone to the bridge will render their portable radios useless. Although the consensus is that resistance will consist entirely of inexperienced old men and Hitler Youth, reconnaissance photos show the presence of German tanks at Arnhem. General Browning nevertheless dismisses the photos and also ignores reports from the Dutch underground, believing the operation will be successful regardless.
The Arnhem bridge is the prime target, since it serves as the last means of escape for the German forces in the Netherlands and a direct route to Germany for the Allies. However the road to it is only a single lane linking the various key bridges and vehicles have to squeeze onto the verge to pass. The road is also elevated, causing anything moving along it to stand out.
Though the airborne drops catch the enemy by surprise and encounter little resistance, the Son bridge is demolished by the Germans just before it can be secured. Furthermore, troubles beset Urquhart's division, since many of the jeeps either do not arrive or are destroyed in an ambush, in addition to their nonfunctional radio sets.
Meanwhile, XXX Corps' progress is slowed by German resistance, the narrowness of the road and the need to construct a Bailey bridge to replace the one destroyed at Son. They are then halted at Nijmegen, where soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division perform a dangerous daylight river crossing to capture the Nijmegen bridge and XXX Corps is further delayed waiting for infantry to secure the town.
The Germans close in on the isolated British paratroopers occupying part of Arnhem at the bridge, and although Sosabowski's troops finally arrive after being delayed in England they are ultimately too late to reinforce the British. After days of intense fighting against SS infantry and panzers the outgunned troops are eventually either captured or forced to withdraw to Oosterbeek. Urquhart receives orders to retreat, while the other Allied commanders blame the various difficulties encountered for their failure to provide the needed support.
Urquhart escapes with less than a fifth of his original 10,000 troops while those who are too badly injured to flee stay behind to cover the withdrawal. On arrival at British headquarters Urquhart confronts Browning about his personal sentiments regarding the operation and the latter contradicts his earlier optimism regarding it.
Back in Oosterbeek Kate ter Horst, whose home has been converted into a makeshift hospital by the British, abandons its ruins. Passing through the front yard, now a graveyard for fallen troops, she and her children leave with an elderly doctor, pulling a few possessions in a cart, while wounded British troops sing "Abide with Me" as they await capture.
Senior Medical Officer, 1st Airborne Corps, RAMC, British Army.
Richard Kane
Colonel Weaver
Graeme Warrack
Senior Medical Officer, Headquarters RAMC, 1st British Airborne Division, at the Main Dressing Station in the Schoonoord Hotel of the Oosterbeek Perimeter.
Division Commander, US 82nd Airborne Division, US Army at the bridge across the River Maas in Grave, later at the Maas-Waal canal and the bridge across the River Waal in Nijmegen
Commanding Officer, 3rd Battalion, 504th PIR, 82nd Airborne, US Army seizing key bridges over the Maas-Waal Canal and the river assault crossing of the Waal.
Air filming was done in the first weeks of September 1976, culminating in a series of air drops of a total of 1,000 men.[c] Supplies were dropped from a number of Dakota aircraft. The Dakotas were gathered by the film company Joseph E. Levine Presents Incorporated. All aircraft were required to be CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) or FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) registered and licensed to carry passengers. An original deal for the purchase of 10 fell through when two airframes were rejected as passenger configured without the necessary jump doors. Eleven Dakotas were procured. Two ex-Portuguese Air Force, 6153 and 6171 (N9984Q and N9983Q), and two from Air Djibouti, operating from Djibouti in French Somaliland, F-OCKU and F-OCKX (N9985Q and N9986Q) were purchased by Joseph E. Levine. Three Danish Air Force K-685, K-687, and K-688, and four Finnish Air ForceC-47s, DO-4, DO-7, DO-10 and DO-12, were loaned for the duration of the parachute filming.
Aircraft 6171 doubled as the camera ship on most formations, with a camouflaged Piper Aztec, G-AWDI. A camera was mounted in the astrodome, one on the port upper mainplane surface, with a third camera on the outside of the forward port cabin window and a fourth under the aircraft centre section. In addition, centre escape hatches were removed to make additional camera ports available, provided that no troops were aboard during filming. A second Aztec, G-ASND, was a backup camera ship on some shots, but it was not camouflaged. An Alouette, G-BDWN, was also employed. After a mishap with G-AWDI, two locally hired Cessna 172s, PH-GVP and PH-ADF, were also used. Ten Horsa glider replicas were built, but a windstorm damaged almost all of them. Seven or eight were hastily repaired for the shoot. The replica gliders were tail-heavy and required a support post under the rear fuselage, with camera angles carefully chosen to avoid revealing this. Dakota 6153 was fitted with tow gear and Horsa replicas were towed at high speed, though none went airborne. A two-seat Blaník sailplane, provided by a member of the London Gliding Club, Dunstable, was towed aloft for the interior takeoff shots.
Shooting of a scene in Deventer on May 18, 1976. German vehicles are crossing the bridge.
Four Harvards portrayed American and German fighters. Their original identities were PH-KLU, PH-BKT, B-64 and B-118, the former two aircraft loaned by the Royal Netherlands Air Force. These were flown by members of the Gilze Rijen Aero Club, which also provided an Auster III, PH-NGK, which depicted an Auster V, RT607, in wartime camouflage. Spitfire Mk. IX, MH434, depicting a photo reconnaissance variant, coded AC-S, was lent by the Hon. Patrick Lindsay, and was flown by aerobatic champion Neil Williams.[15]
Sufficient American tanks, jeeps, and trucks of World War II vintage were found because many of the vehicles were being discarded from European military (almost entirely reserve) units, especially from Greece and Turkey.
The scenes set around the Arnhem bridge were shot in Deventer, where a similar bridge over the IJssel was still available. Although a replica of the original road bridge in Arnhem existed, by the mid-1970s modern urban development surrounded it, making it impossible to use as a setting for a 1940s city. A few scenes were shot in Zutphen, where the old municipality house and the main church can be seen. Additional scenes were filmed at Twickenham Studios.[8]
The Motion Picture Association of America initially gave the film an R rating for its use of the F-word and depictions of war violence, but United Artists lobbied it to change it to a PG rating so that younger audiences could see the film. Cuts were also made to the film when released in the United Kingdom to avoid an AA rating from the British Board of Film Censors.[8]
Finance
In order to keep costs down, all the star-name actors agreed to participate on a "favoured-nation" basis (i.e. they would all receive the same weekly fee), which in this case was $250,000 per week (the 2012 equivalent of $1,008,250 or £642,000).[16]
Shooting of the American-led assault on the Bridge at Nijmegen was dubbed the "Million-Dollar Hour". Because of heavy traffic, the crew had permission to film on the bridge only between eight and nine o'clock on October 3, 1976. Failure to complete the scene would have necessitated rescheduling at a cost—including Redford's overtime—of at least a million dollars. For this reason, Attenborough insisted that all actors playing corpses keep their eyes closed.[5]
After United Artists agreed to pay $6 million for US and Canada distribution rights,[17] the film went on to become the sixth most popular movie at the 1977 U.S. box office.
Reception
The film received a favourable, but a tepid response from critics.[18] Critics agreed that the film was impressively staged[19] and historically accurate, although many found it too long and too repetitive. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 59% of 29 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The website's consensus reads: "A Bridge Too Far is a war movie too long, although top-notch talent on both sides of the camera keeps the end result consistently watchable."[20], while it has a score of 63/100 on Metacritic based on reviews from 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[21]
Vincent Canby of The New York Times said further, "The movie is massive, shapeless, often unexpectedly moving, confusing, sad, vivid and very, very long."[22]James Caan and Anthony Hopkins were cited by many critics for the excellence of their performances in a film with hundreds of speaking roles and cameos by many of the period's top actors.[18]
Generals Urquhart and Horrocks acted as military advisers to the film, adding to its historical accuracy. However, some reviewers suggested that the film contains historical inaccuracies and needs to be viewed as a 'Hollywood' interpretation of events. Robin Neillands commented, "A countless number of veterans have urged me to ignore most of the story in the film A Bridge Too Far".[23]
Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote "A picture of conventional length on this subject might have scored some conventional ironies. But why did anyone think that a film about a failed WWII operation, without any novelty of information or deepening of history or even differently spectacular action, should run five minutes less than three hours? A Film Too Long".[24]
Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four, describing it as
such an exercise in wretched excess, such a mindless series of routine scenes, such a boringly violent indulgence in all the blood and guts and moans they could find, that by the end we're prepared to speculate that maybe Levine went two or even three bridges too far. The movie's big and expensive and filled with stars, but it's not an epic. It's the longest B-grade war movie ever made.[25]
Gene Siskel gave the film two-and-a-half out of four and wrote,
More often than not, A Bridge Too Far isn't a story; it's a parade of famous faces. As for the battle footage, it is more often tedious than glamorous. The paratroop landing provides a spectacular five minutes. Other action footage is routine.[26]
John Pym of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that "by the end of this extravagant film, we have a fair idea of the who-did-what logistics of a costly military operation. The root problem with A Bridge Too Far, however, is that the top-heavy complement of stars never allows for any focus of attention."[27]Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote,
In strictly cinematic terms, the appeal of A Bridge Too Far is easy to state: it is spectacular in the size and range of its effects, earnestly well-acted by a starry and able cast, well-paced and swift despite its length, and marked by an evident attempt to give the balanced truth of a tragic episode from history.[28]
Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "an unusually conscientious and impressive war epic" that justified its high budget...
in terms of careful period recreation, visual spectacle (the sequences depicting paratroop landings are particularly awesome), the mixture of exciting combat episodes with vivid human interest vignettes, an effort to establish a coherent, many-faceted view of a complicated and ill-fated military adventure, and a generally superior level of filmmaking intelligence and craftsmanship.[29]
A "making-of" documentary included in a special edition DVD of A Bridge Too Far says that, at the time of its release, "the film was shunned by American critics and completely ignored at Oscar time for daring to expose the fatal inadequacies of the Allied campaign".[30]
Accolades
Awards and nominations received by A Bridge Too Far
To promote the film, scriptwriter William Goldman wrote a book titled Story of A Bridge Too Far as a favour to Joseph E. Levine.[31] It was published in December 1977 and divided into three sections:
"Reflections on Filmmaking in General and A Bridge Too Far". This section features some essays later reprinted in Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade.[31]
"A Bridge Too Far: The Story in Pictures" – 150 sequential photographs from the film with Goldman's captions.
"Stars and Heroes" – some of the movie's actors and the men they play tell Goldman their thoughts on the film and the battle.
Notes
^Carried the primary responsibility for the 'Garden' ground offensive part of the operation
^Escaping in 1941 to the UK, he studied at the Royal Military Academy and later, in Edinburgh, he was trained as an OSS agent and assigned to operations behind enemy lines in occupied Holland.
^A member of the 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment claims there were no more than 200 men involved. Parachute drops were conducted by the 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment, only 100 jumpers plus support, 10 man sticks per Dakota.[citation needed]
^McKenna, A. T. (2011). "Joseph E. Levine and A Bridge Too Far (1977): A Producer's Labour of Love". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 31 (2): 211–227. doi:10.1080/01439685.2011.572606. S2CID144254805.
^ "Theirs Is the Glory." Arnhem, Hurst and Conflict on Film, Co-authored by David Truesdale and Allan Esler Smith. Page x, Introduction. Published 2016 by Helion and Company. ISBN978-1-911096-63-4
^Fox had known General Horrocks as a friend before working on the film and took care to portray him accurately. Later he would cite this as his favourite film role. A Bridge Too Far (1977) British Film Institute, archived from the original on March 12, 2008, retrieved October 19, 2009
^O.B.E. (Military Division) of the Order "in recognition of gallant and, distinguished services in Sicily" Supplement to The London Gazette, March 23, 1944
^The major did not die of wounds at Brigade HQ but was taken prisoner, moved to the St Elizabeth Hospital and later conducted an escape (Operation Pegasus) with the Dutch Resistance to bring out 138 escapees of the battle, returning to his post with the remnants of his company Evasion Report: 21st September – 23rd October 1944 (www.pegasusarchive.org)
Ambrose, Stephen E. & Immerman, Richard H., Ike's spies: Eisenhower and the espionage establishment, University Press of Mississippi, 1999. ISBN0-385-14493-8OCLC6863017
Further reading
Arthur, Max. Forgotten Voices of the Second World War: A new history of world war two in the words of the men and women who were there, Ebury Press, 2004 ISBN0091897351OCLC57691717
Waddy, Colonel John (1977), "The Making of a Bridge Too Far", After the Battle (17), London: Plaistow Press: 10–34
