Credit: DVDtown.com
Director:
Richard Attenborough
Cast:
Dirk Bogarde …. Lt. Gen. Browning
James Caan …. SSgt. Eddie Dohun
Michael Caine …. Lt. Col. J.O.E. Vandeleur
Sean Connery …. Maj. Gen. Roy Urquhart
Edward Fox …. Lt. Gen. Brian Horrocks
Elliott Gould …. Col. Robert Stout
Gene Hackman …. Maj. Gen. Stanislaw Sosabowski
Anthony Hopkins …. Lt. Col. John Frost
Hardy Krüger …. Maj. Gen. Ludwig
Ryan O’Neal …. Brig. Gen. James Gavin
Laurence Olivier …. Dr. Jan Spaander
Robert Redford …. Maj. Julian Cook
Maximilian Schell …. Lt. Gen. Wilhelm Bittrich
Liv Ullmann …. Kate Ter Horst
Denholm Elliott …. RAF meteorologist officer
Peter Faber …. Capt. Harry Bestebreurtje
Christopher Good …. Maj. Carlyle
Frank Grimes …. Maj. Fuller
Jeremy Kemp …. RAF briefing officer
Wolfgang Preiss …. Field Marshal Gerd Von Rundstedt
The Movie
With the invasion of Normandy in 1944, momentum in WWII had finally swung back to the side of the Allies. France had been rescued and Europe had become an even playing field again. In September of 1944, the Allies launched a plan that would end the war by Christmas of that year. Operation Market Garden was a daring strategy that had Allied forces dropped simultaneously throughout Europe in order to secure a series of important bridges to strangle the Nazi War Machine. This would unfortunately be one of the most devastating losses of the war for British, US, and Polish Troops.
After his success with the novel and film The Longest Day, writer Cornelius Ryan took on the task penning his novel A Bridge Too Far, chronicling the horrors and the heroism of Operation Market Garden. Once again, the writer’s work was to be turned into a major motion picture, but regrettably Ryan was dying. On the author’s deathbed, he made Producer Joseph E. Levine promise to make the film and make it right.
Levine had produced over forty pictures in his time, but had not had a huge hit in some time. Past glories such as The Producers and The Graduate had turned into forgettable larks such as Thumb Tripping and The Day of the Dolphin, so in many ways, A Bridge Too Far was Levine’s big comeback film. The Producer banked on the film being a hit, so he put one of the biggest budgets in movie history behind an all star cast, one of Hollywood’s hottest writers and a relatively untested director.
What was left is a film that was a huge worldwide smash, but one where critics and audiences were split down the middle on. The film is meticulous in its narrative about nearly every important event that occurred during Operation Market Garden. From the pre-invasion planning of British officers to the introductions of the many, many characters on screen all the way to the Allied retreat the film gives an honest account of the events of September 1944.
The lineup put together by Levine for this picture was an amazing achievement in and of itself. The cast list includes Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine, James Caan, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Ryan O’Neal, Anthony Hopkins, and the casting coup de grace at the time, Robert Redford. All of these actors all manage to even give memorable performances, but also cause a problem. With so many high profile actors on the payroll, the film gets a little distracting at times with another familiar face showing up seemingly every ten minutes. Also with the limited screen time for each, it’s hard to really feel for any characters in particular.
William Goldman, hot off his amazing success after screenplays for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, and Marathon Man, does what he can to satisfy all the egos involved and give them juicy parts to play. Fortunately for Goldman, many of the events described were so unbelievable that they made for fantastic material. Scenes like Caan’s SSgt. Eddie Dohun driving his dying commanding officer through enemy lines to the nearest M.A.S.H. unit are incredible stuff. So incredible that many critics thought events were made up, when in fact they were depicted as they actually occurred.
Richard Attenborough’s work here is exemplary is most regards, but the pacing of the film lacks enough enthusiasm to make the film as exciting as it could have been. Moments here and there are absolutely wonderful such as the segments mostly revolving around the battle for the small town of Arnhem, which involved Anthony Hopkins’ Lt. Col. John Frost (the film’s best performance) and Sean Connery’s Maj. Gen. Roy Urquhart. Also Robert Redford earns his big salary on this film with a touching portrayal of Maj. Julian Cook.
Too bad much of this is undone by the scale of the picture. Much like Operation Market Garden itself, A Bridge Too Far aspirations were too far reaching. Much like cinematic dinosaurs The Longest Day, Battle of the Bulge, and Battle of Britain, the film’s slow pace grinds all positive to a halt as it goes through the motions of historical accuracy. Levine may have gotten so caught up on casting so many names that he never stopped to look at if he should have or not.
If the film had focused on one particular story or character, A Bridge Too Far’s legacy may have been much more storied. To see an account of the events of Market Garden done much better, one has only to look at the forth episode on HBO’s Band of Brothers, entitled Replacements. The episode is an intimate look at the operation that is both engaging and exciting. As it is, A Bridge Too Far is great history, but lumbers too slowly to be great entertainment.
Score: 6.0/10
The DVD:
The Video
Once again, Sony and MGM have done a great job at restoration. The looks great and the Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio gives the film the epic look it was going for.
Score: 8.5/10
The Audio
The Dolby Digital 5.1 is beautiful here, bringing out the combat scenes, which are numerous. Bad sound can really make or break a War film and this track does A Bridge Too Far justice.
Score: 9.0/10
SPECIAL FEATURES: Audio Commentary, Feature-Length Trivia Track, A Bridge Too Far: Heroes from the Sky Documentary, 2 Featurettes, Behind-the-Scenes Photo Gallery
Audio Commentary with Screenwriter William Goldman and Key Crew Members – Screenwriter William Goldman gets really angry on this track. You can really feel years of frustration finally pouring out of him as he curses at critics who said he had sensationalized the events of Market Garden. “You can’t make this stuff up!” is often his defense as he watches Caan and Redford at their heroic best.
Feature-Length Trivia Track – This brings up some neat tidbits of info. One interesting piece of the track talks about how Col. Robert Stout (Elliott Gould) is the only character in the film that isn’t based on a real person. He’s a composite of several people.
A Bridge Too Far: Heroes from the Sky Documentary – This is a pretty thorough 45 minute documentary on the production of the film. It goes into great detail about Joseph E. Levine’s tremendous job at just getting the film to screen.
A Distant Battle: Memories of Operation Market Garden Featurette – This is very similar to a Featurette on MGM’s Battle of Britain DVD. It features candid interviews with veterans of Market Garden, both Allied and German. There are some really interesting stories here, one even has a German and an American POW becoming friends.
Richard Attenborough: A Filmmaker Remembers Featurette – This Featurette has the Oscar Winning Director speaking very highly of Levine. Also there is a portion where he talks about how badly he wanted Steve McQueen for a role in the picture, but the actor refused to do films with ensemble casts.
Behind-the-Scenes Photo Gallery – There are dozens of photos here focusing on the film’s production
Score: 8.0/10
