The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 epic film about a World War II Japanese prisoner of war camp in Burma.  It won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture (Sam Spiegel, producer), Best Director (David Lean) and Best Actor (Alec Guinness).  The film was number one at the box office in 1958 with $18,000,000 in ticket sales.

The Bridge on the River Kwai is really two stories, intertwined, with two protagonists, who finally meet up briefly at the climax.  

In the first story, American Navy Commander Shears (William Holden) is a POW held by the Japanese at the camp which is surrounded by a jungle making it almost impossible to escape from.  However, Shears escapes, although badly wounded.  "He stumbles into a village of natives, who nurse him back to health and then help him leave by boat."

Some time later, Shears arrives at a British military compound in Ceylon where he receives further medical attention.  He enjoys his recuperation while fooling around with a beautiful nurse.

However, Shears is eventually ordered to join a British commando unit whose mission is to go back to the very POW camp he escaped from in order to destroy the railroad bridge over the River Kwai the Japanese are forcing British POWs to build which would connect Bangkok (Thailand) and Rangoon (Burma).  The unit needs to arrive the day a military train will cross the bridge for the first time.

The four members of the commando unit are reduced to three when one is killed on a parachute jump.  Later, the leader, Major Warden (Jack Hawkins), is wounded during an encounter with Japanese soldiers.  The three push on towards the bridge with the help of a Siamese village elder and some women "bearers."

The second story relates to a large unit of British POWs, led by Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (Guinness), recently captured and taken to the POW camp (the one Shears escaped from shortly after their arrival) in order to build the railroad bridge.  

Initially, there is a test of wills between Nicholson and Colonel Saito, the camp commandant (Sessue Hayakawa), over whether British officers will work along side enlisted men (a violation of the Geneva Convention).  First, Nicholson is threatened with execution and then tortured.  Finally, Saito gives in.

While building the bridge, Nicholson sees it as an opportunity to prove British superiority over the Japanese.  He also sees it as a chance to leave behind something of his making.  Nicholson seems to forget that the Japanese are his enemy and that the bridge is an aid in their war effort.

At the climax of the two stories, on the evening before the military train will cross the recently finished bridge, the British commandos (including Shears) set their explosives below the water line, hidden from the Japanese.  Over night the water level drops, exposing them to view.  

When Nicholson walks over the bridge in the morning on a final inspection of his masterpiece, he sees the wires which connect the explosives to a detonator.  He calls their attention to Saito and the two follow where the wires lead.  When they get close to the detonator, the commando there leaves his post and kills Saito.  

Nicholson then calls for other Japanese soldiers to come to his assistance to save the bridge.  They kill the commando.  At this point, Shears swims across the river (Kwai) from his position to kill Nicholson and detonate the explosives.  Before he can, Shears is also killed by the Japanese, but not before Nicholson recognizes him ("You?") and comes to his senses.

"What have I done?"

Warden fires a mortar which mortally wounds Nicholson.  "The dying colonel stumbles towards the detonator and collapses on the plunger just in time to blow up the bridge and send the train hurtling into the river (Kwai) below."  What an ending!