BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, THE 53
to stop him from detonating the bomb. Joyce informs Nicholson that he is also a
British officer and was sent to eliminate the bridge. Joyce is killed by the Japa nese,
and Shears is fatally shot while swimming across the river. Nicholson recognizes
his friend and exclaims, “What have I done?” Warden fires his mortar at Nichol-
son, who then throws himself on the detonator just in time to blow up the bridge
that he has just completed and watch the train careen into the river.
Reception
The Bridge on the River Kwai had its world premiere in London on 2 October 1957
and opened in the United States on 14 December 1957. With its catchy theme song
(“Col o nel Bogey March”), exotic setting, engrossing story, and stunning wide- screen
cinematography, the movie was a huge commercial success, posting $33.3 million
($290 million in 2017 dollars) in worldwide box office receipts against a $3 million
production bud get. Nominated for eight Oscars, it won seven: Best Picture (Sam
Spiegel); Best Director (David Lean); Best Actor (Alec Guinness); Best Adapted
Screenplay (Michael Wilson, Carl Foreman, and Pierre Boulle); Best Music, Scor-
ing (Malcolm Arnold); Best Film Editing (Peter Taylor); and Best Cinematography
( Jack Hildyard). The movie also won three BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, three
New York Film Critics Circle Awards, and a Grammy. With few exceptions,
con temporary American reviews tended to be extravagant, for example, Bosley
Crowther’s: “Brilliant is the word, and no other, to describe the quality of skills
that have gone into the making of this picture, from the writing of the script out
of a novel by the Frenchman Pierre Boulle, to direction, per for mance, photograph-
ing, editing and application of a musical score” (Crowther, 1957). British critics
were typically more circumspect in their appraisal. For example, the anonymous
reviewer for The Times wrote, “When one remembers A Walk in the Sun, or even
The Red Badge of Courage [Bridge on the River Kwai] is no masterpiece... There is
too much suspicion of appeal to a world market for distribution, too great a readi-
ness to be deflected by the sirens of Cinemascope and Technicolor, although these
are splendidly exploited at times” (2 October 1957).
Real History Versus Reel History
Actual conditions under which Allied POWs toiled were infinitely worse than what
is depicted in the film, and the real bridges took far longer to build. The film’s more
egregious inaccuracy, though, is its depiction of the British POW commander. Julie
Summers, the grand daughter of Nicholson’s real- life counterpart, Lt. Col. ( later
Brigadier) Sir Philip John Denton Toosey (1904–1975), reports that when her grand-
father “first saw the film and he saw the ridicu lous stormy row between Saito and
Nicholson, he turned round to his daughter and he said, ‘That was never like that.
You could never have confronted the Japa nese and caused them to lose face. That
would have been fatal, I would not have survived’ ” (quoted by Summers, 2012).
Once Lt. Col. Nicholson bends Saito to his will, Nicholson’s nationalistic hubris
drives him to unwittingly collaborate with the Japa nese by building them an
excellent railway bridge in rec ord time. This, also, is far from the historical truth.
Lt. Col. Toosey was not confrontational, but he was no collaborationist either