Facts > Films > The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Facts
| Director(s) | David Lean |
| Producer(s) | Sam Spiegel |
| Featured Cast | William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald |
| Total Facts | 81 |
David Lean initially wanted Nicholson's soldiers to enter the camp while singing "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball", a popular (during World War II) parody version of the "Colonel Bogey March" poking fun at Adolf Hitler and various other Nazi leaders. Sam Spiegel told him it was too vulgar, and the whistling-only version was used instead.
David Lean was completely at home in the hot and humid Ceylon jungle. Despite the discomfort the rest of the crew were experiencing, Lean was thrilled about the shoot and never complained about his living conditions.
David Lean was initially opposed to the idea of Alec Guinness playing Colonel Nicholson. He felt that Guinness lacked the "size" that the role required. But Sam Spiegel was keen on hiring the actor. Spiegel invited Alec Guinness to dinner, hoping to entice him to take the part. At the start of the meal, Guinness was emphatic that he would not play the role. By the end of the evening, the two men were discussing what sort of wig Guinness would wear. Such were the persuasive powers of Sam Speigel.
John Ford, like Howard Hawks, was considered as a director before David Lean was chosen.
John Gielgud was the first choice to play Major Warden (played by Jack Hawkins in the film) but rejected the role, saying it was "anybody's part".
Ann Sears had to dye her hair blonde for the film.
Carl Foreman had originally written the part of Shears with Humphrey Bogart in mind.
Carl Foreman wrote the screenplay with Humphrey Bogart in mind for the role of Shears, but Columbia Studios head Harry Cohn refused to allow Bogart out of another project. Cary Grant then was briefly considered to star as Shears, but his flop in a serious role in Crisis concerned the producer, Sam Spiegel. The role of Nicholson was offered to Laurence Olivier who turned it down. Alec Guinness was the next choice.
Sam Spiegel bought the railroad train from the Ceylonese government. It had previously belonged to an Indian maharajah and had seen 65 years of active service. Spiegel had it refurbished completely and then had one mile of railway track laid for it.
Sam Spiegel had made the decision to credit Pierre Boulle as screenwriter despite the French writer's lack of involvement in the film. (Both Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson were blacklisted so therefore ineligible for screen credit.) This was a sharp point of dispute with David Lean who felt at the very least that he and Wilson should have received credit. The dispute continued to escalate and actually became physical at the Academy Awards that year. It is said that Spiegel and Lean dueled with the two Oscars they had just won.
Sam Spiegel was en route from Paris to London when he bought the then much-talked about novel by Pierre Boulle out of curiosity. By the time he arrived in London, he had read the novel and decided what his next film was going to be. He immediately flew back to Paris for a meeting with a surprised Boulle who agreed to sell him the film rights.
Alec Guinness initially turned down the role of Colonel Nicholson, saying, "I can't imagine anyone wanting to watch a stiff-upper-lip British colonel for two and a half hours." He had also clashed with David Lean when they made Oliver Twist.
Alec Guinness never saw the bridge blow. He had completed all his scenes and returned to England when the explosion was filmed.
Alec Guinness was always the first choice to play Colonel Nicholson, although he actually turned the part down when first offered it as he disliked the character and thought Pierre Boulle's original novel to be anti-British. Charles Laughton, James Mason, Ralph Richardson, Noel Coward and Anthony Quayle were all approached. It was only after Jack Hawkins had been cast in the part of Major Warden that Guinness reconsidered his position, largely at Hawkins' instigation.
Laurence Olivier was offered the part of Colonel Nicholson but turned it down in order to direct The Prince and the Showgirl instead. In retrospect, Olivier said that it was a sensible decision to go off and do love scenes with Marilyn Monroe rather than tough it out in the jungles of Ceylon with David Lean.
William Holden shaved his chest for his many "beefcake" scenes in the movie.
William Holden, then a major star, was brought into the project to provide "box office appeal" after Cary Grant turned down the role. He received $300,000 up front, and was guaranteed a 10% share of the profits, to be paid at the rate of $50,000 a year. This is one reason why Holden sued to stop the first American TV showing of the film in 1966, claiming it would hurt future box office receipts, on which he was dependent (The lawsuit was unsuccessful). Because the film made so much money, his shares eventually accumulated to the point where the studio was making more off the interest on the unpaid balance than Holden was paid per year. A settlement was reached where Holden was paid a lump sum, and any future payments were willed to a motion picture relief fund.
Charles Laughton was announced as the star, but decided he couldn't handle the heat of Ceylon and withdrew. Among the actors considered as replacements were Ronald Colman, Noel Coward, Ralph Richardson, Ray Milland and James Mason.
Charles Laughton was considered for the part of Nicholson but David Lean knew that the sizable Laughton would have had to lose a lot of weight in order to be taken seriously as a POW.
Howard Hawks was asked to direct, but declined. After the box-office failure of Land of the Pharaohs, he didn't want a second one in a row, and he thought the critics would love this movie but the public would stay away. One particular concern was the all-male lead roles.
Fred Zinnemann was another choice to direct; Sam Spiegel very much wanted him to take the job, due to his box-office clout, but Zinneman didn't understand the novel and declined. Orson Welles was reportedly approached to co-star and direct, but Welles, too, dropped out after reading the script. William Wyler was considered but never formally approached. Ultimately, Spiegel explained the decision to hire David Lean as being "In absence of anybody else."
Sessue Hayakawa edited his copy of the script to contain only his lines of dialog. This way, he remained oblivious to the real nature of his character's fate.
Sessue Hayakawa was 68 years old when he was cast as Saito. Having limited command of the English language, he focused only on those pages of the script in which he had dialog - the rest of the pages he tore out. The complete script was about one inch thick; Hayakawa's with the pages torn out was about an eighth of that.
Calder Willingham also worked on the script although he and David Lean didn't get on.
Ian Watts, longtime professor of English at Stanford, and author of the landmark "The Rise of the Novel", was a prisoner in the camp, helped with the construction of the bridge, and served as an advisor during the making of the film.
After a successful stunt test for the film's climax, where a Japanese soldier falls off the bridge into the river, stuntman Frankie Howard was swept under the strong current during the actual shooting of the scene. Prop man Tommy Early dove in to save him but was also pulled under. Once they stopped struggling against the current, both men were carried to a point in the river where they were rescued. Unfortunately, Howard later died from a stomach illness while in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases back home in England.
After filming was completed on the exploding bridge sequence, which cost an enormous amount of money and time, rumor has it that the footage disappeared somewhere between Ceylon and London. It was finally discovered two weeks later, sitting in the intense heat out on the runway at the airport in Cairo, Egypt. Miraculously, the footage was undamaged.
After the bridge was blown, souvenir hunters swarmed all over the set, claiming pieces of timber.
After the final scene was shot, producer Sam Spiegel shipped the film footage on five different planes to minimize the risk of loss.
Although a major player in Hollywood, producer Sam Spiegel was based in London. Upon meeting Spiegel, David Lean was won over by the man's larger-than-life personality and charm. Their working relationship however would not always be harmonious.
Around the time that he was offered The Bridge on the River Kwai, David Lean had little money and was very much in need of a new project. He was contracted for $150,000 to be paid in installments. As soon as he signed, Lean borrowed $2000 from Columbia Pictures to get his teeth fixed.
Assistant director John Kerrison was killed in a car crash on the way to one of the locations. A make-up man was badly injured in the same accident.
At one point during filming, David Lean nearly drowned when he was swept away by a river current. Geoffrey Horne saved his life.
At one point, Sam Spiegel wanted Humphrey Bogart to star and Nicholas Ray to direct.
During shooting, Alec Guinness continued to have doubts about his performance and the direction he was getting from David Lean. To put Guinness at ease, Lean decided to show the actor a rough cut of certain sequences. One night, Lean ran over an hour's worth of footage for Guinness with the actor's wife and son also attending. During the screening, nothing was said. At the end, the Guinness family thanked Lean and promptly walked out, leaving the director without a clue as to what to think of their reaction (or lack of). Later that night, Lean received a visit from his lead actor who told him that he and his family had decided that Nicholson was the best thing that Guinness had ever done.
For one sunset scene, David Lean specifically traveled 150 miles to capture it.
For the scene when Colonel Nicholson emerges from the oven after several days confined there, Alec Guinness based his faltering walk on that of his son Matthew Guinness when he was recovering from polio. Guinness regarded this one tiny scene as some of the finest work he did throughout his entire career.
For the scenes where William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Geoffrey Horne and the native girls had to wade through swamps, they were wading through specially created ones. The real swamps in Ceylon were deemed to be too dangerous. Nevertheless, the leeches in the recreated swamps were real.
In order to save money, Sam Spiegel actively looked into making the film in Yugoslavia. Naturally, a European location simply couldn't match the jungle setting the film required.
In the scene where Colonel Nicholson ruminates on the completed bridge to Saito, actor and director argued over how the scene should be shot. Guinness wanted a close-up of his face, while Lean insisted on shooting him from behind. Nevertheless, Guinness loved his dialog and deliberately timed his delivery to coincide with the setting of the sun.
Initially Alec Guinness had doubts about playing the role of Colonel Nicholson. Guinness had become a much-loved figure on screen, appearing in a series of popular comedies. The Colonel Nicholson character seemed humorless, unlovable and perhaps even dull. To remedy this, Guinness tried to interject some humor into his portrayal of the Colonel. David Lean was very much opposed to this idea, insisting that it be played straight. Thus began an argument between the two men that continued through shooting.
It was David Lean's suggestion to have the British soldiers march into the POW camp singing "Colonel Bogey" at the start of the film. Producer Sam Spiegel was opposed to including the song and felt it would have not meaning to most audiences. The song was in fact a British military march. At first, Spiegel tried to convince Lean that the song would cost too much money to license, but eventually Lean got his way.
It was Percy Herbert who suggested the idea of using Kenneth Alford's "Colonel Bogey March" to David Lean.
It was Jack Hawkins' suggestion that the film be shot in Ceylon, rather than Burma.
On the first take of the final bridge sequence, the explosions on the bridge didn't detonate. The train crossed over safely, only to crash down a hill on the other side.
Original novelist Pierre Boulle actually had been a prisoner of war in Thailand. His creation of Colonel Nicholson was an amalgam of his memories of various French officers who collaborated with his captors.
Prior to casting Alec Guinness, Sam Spiegel tried to persuade American actor Spencer Tracy to play the part of Colonel Nicholson. Tracy had read the book and told Spiegel emphatically that the part must be played by an Englishman.
Producer Sam Spiegel - in his efforts for securing rights, casting, locations, etc. - flew around the world 4 times in the 3 years it took to get the film from page to screen.
Producer Sam Spiegel brought David Lean and Carl Foreman together for a brief period of time to work on the screenplay. The tension between Lean and Foreman was apparent, much to Spiegel's delight. Spiegel felt that the best screenplays were born out of friction and discord. In this case, tensions became too great and Foreman left the project.
Producer Sam Spiegel wanted to release the movie by the December 31, 1957 deadline for the movie to be eligible for Academy Award consideration for that year, but by early-December 1957, the movie had yet no music score and no composer. Spiegel hired Malcolm Arnold to compose the score, which Arnold completed in a mere ten days. The movie was released prior to the 1957 Academy Award consideration deadline, and Arnold was rewarded with the 1957 Academy Award for Best Music Score for his speedy effort.