Information
- BFI identifier24691
- Date1957 (Copyright)
1958-02-10 (Release) - Production countryUnited Kingdom, USA
- Production company
- SynopsisWar adventure based on real events during the Second World War. In Malaya, British prisoners of war (POWs) are forced by the Japanese to work on the Burma-Siam "death railway". When his men arrive at a POW camp, the British Colonel Nicholson refuses to comply with his captors' demands which contravene the Geneva Convention, and he is punished for this defiance. The camp leader Colonel Saito and Nicholson come, however, to an agreement that Nicholson will show what British soldiers are capable of, by leading his men to take on the building of a raliway bridge across the River Kwai nearby, a project currently being handled woefully by the Japanese. An American POW, Shears, who has escaped from the camp is sent back along with a small British commando force led by Major Warden in a bid to destroy the bridge, now dangerously near to completion. (Synopsis)
- Work historyDue to blacklisting, neither Carl Foreman nor Michael Wilson received script credit, which was given to author Pierre Boulle who had nothing to do with scripting this film. On 1985 restored version, script credits are amended.
- Genre
- Subject
- CreditsDirected by: David Lean
©/Production Company: Horizon Pictures (G.B.)
Presented by: Columbia Pictures Corporation
view all - Cast
Title
The Bridge on the River Kwai (Original)
EIDR identifier
10.5240/257C-777E-76A2-E7AA-6552-3Category
FictionThis work is included in the BFI Filmography.
- Collections
- Film / Video
35mm Colour Positive - Acetate - Combined - Viewing
35mm Colour Positive - Safety - Combined - Viewing
16mm Colour Positive - CTA - Combined - Viewing
view all - Scripts / DocumentsScript - Original story: Boulle, Pierre - SCR-1518
Script - Original story: Boulle, Pierre - SCR-1537
Script - Original story: Boulle, Pierre - SCR-1539
Script - Script type: Camera Scripts - SCR-20077
Ephemera: publicity - PBS-24691
Medium and small pressbooks held. See FILM AND TELEVISION EPHEMERA List. See the TEDDY DARVAS and CARL FOREMAN Collections.
view all - StillsPhotograph: production - Landscape - Colour - bfi-00o-5wu
Photograph: production - Landscape - Colour - bfi-00o-5wt
Photograph: production - Landscape - Colour - bfi-00o-5ws
Photograph: production - Landscape - Colour - bfi-00o-5wr
Photograph: production - Landscape - Colour - bfi-00o-5wq
view all - Articles
- Books
- +The Bridge on the River Kwai
Work - 24691 - 1957 (Copyright)
United Kingdom - Film - Fiction
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