Connection with the previous post (THE GREAT ESCAPE): Richard Attenborough starred in TGE and directed ABTF (with a cameo appearance).
RATINGS: IMDB ―7.4/10, Rotten Tomatoes ― 65%, ME ― 75%
Lt. General Horrocks: Kickoff will be at 14:35 hours tomorrow afternoon. The Irish Guards under the command of Col. Vandeleur will take the lead.
Lt. Colonel J.O.E. Vandeleur: [sotto voce] Christ, not us again.
Lt. General Horrocks: What'd you say to that, Joe?
Lt. Colonel J.O.E. Vandeleur: Delighted, sir, truly delighted.
Lt. General Horrocks: I've selected you to lead us, not only because of your extraordinary fighting ability, but also because, in the unlikely event the Germans ever get you, they will assume from your attire that they've captured a wretched peasant and immediately send you on your way.
Although they receive "Also Starring" billing, Denholm Elliott (R.A.F. Meteorological Officer) and Jeremy Kemp (R.A.F. Briefing Officer) only appear in one scene each, Wolfgang Preiss (Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt) only appears in two and Frank Grimes (Major Fuller) only appears in three.
Shooting of the American-led assault on the Bridge at Nijmegen was dubbed the "Million Dollar Hour". Because of the heavy traffic, the crew had permission to film on the bridge between 8:00-9:00 on October 3, 1976. Failure to complete the scene, would have necessitated rescheduling, at a cost, including Robert Redford's overtime, of at least a million dollars. For this reason, Sir Richard Attenborough insisted that all actors playing corpses keep their eyes closed.
A familiar story element in the World War II genre war film is the blowing-up of a bridge. This is especially common in films with the word "bridge" in the title, such as The Bridge at Remagen (1969) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Ironically, in this film, which features quite a lot of bridges in it, only the Son bridge is depicted as destroyed. Just as Colonel Stout (Elliott Gould) approaches the crossing, the bridge is blown up by German artillery (but the actual blowing-up is shown at sixty-eight minutes and thirty seconds into the film). The Germans also attempt to blow up the Waal Bridge at Nijmegen, but were unsuccessful when demolition charges fail to explode. In the case of this film, "A Bridge Too Far" refers to the over-ambitions of the Allied strategy in Operation Market Garden. In order for the campaign to be successful, the Allies needed to secure several enemy bridges in a very short period of time. They were tragically unsuccessful.
Final film of Hilary Minster.
According to Joseph E. Levine, the foreign star who distributors most wanted in the film was Robert Redford, followed by Sir Sean Connery.
Colonel Stout (Elliot Gould) is based on Colonel Robert Sink (1905 -1965) the commanding officer of the 506th Parachute Infantry. Sink would be played by Dale Dye in Band of Brothers (2001).
The scenes around the "Arnhem" bridge were actually shot in Deventer, where a similar bridge over the IJssel was still available. Although a replica of the original road bridge in Arnhem existed, it was, by the mid 1970s, sitting in modern urban surroundings, which could not be used to portray a 1940s city. A few scenes were shot in Zutphen, where the old municipal house (a white building which in the film featured the Nazi command center) and the main church can be seen.
Dirk Bogarde did this film, an all-star World War II epic, because he regretted turning down The Longest Day (1962).
The film is rather vague on how Colonel Frost's men reached the bridge at Arnhem, but the rest of the division failed to do so. What happened is that the three battalions of the 1st Parachute Brigade landed on the north bank of the Rhine (at Arnhem the Rhine flows roughly East-West), some miles west of Arnhem, from where they were supposed to converge on their objective along three separate roads. Two of the battalions almost immediately ran into some hastily improvised German defences, and there was much confused fighting for the rest of the day as they tried to find a way through or around them. Meanwhile, John Frost's 2nd Battalion, taking the southern route closest to the river, encountered no opposition until they reached the bridge. Shortly after this the Germans blocked the southern route, leaving 2nd Battalion cut off from the rest of the division.
Sir Sean Connery and Sir Michael Caine appeared in The Man Who Would Be King (1975).
Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) and Sir Anthony Hopkins (Colonel John Frost) played Professor Abraham Van Helsing in adaptations of Bram Stoker's "Dracula": Olivier in Dracula (1979) and Hopkins in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
Edward Fox (General Brian Horrocks), Sir Anthony Hopkins (Colonel John Frost), and Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) appeared in The Bounty (1984).
Maximilian Schell (General Wilhelm Bittrich), Liv Ullmann (Kate Ter Horst), and Jeremy Kemp (RAF Briefing Officer) appeared in Pope Joan (1972).
James Caan (Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun), Sir Sean Connery (Major General Roy Urquhart), and Robert Redford (Major Julian Cook) all appeared in films depicting the final days of the Cuban Revolution, from December 1958 to January 1959: Caan in The Godfather: Part II (1974), Connery in Cuba (1979), and Redford in Havana (1990).
Frank Jarvis worked nine months on this film.
At the time Sir Laurence Olivier filmed his role, he was involved in a series of filmed plays for British television, many of which aired in the U.S. as well. In fact, between scenes on-location, he flew to England to co-star with Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, and Maureen Stapleton in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Aircraft 6171 doubled as the camera ship on most formations, with a camouflaged Piper Aztec, G-AWDI. A camera was mounted in the astrodome, one on the port upper main plane surface, with a third camera on the outside of the forward port cabin window and a fourth under the aircraft center section. In addition, center escape hatches were removed to make additional camera ports available, provided that no troops were aboard during filming. A second Aztec, G-ASND, was a back-up camera ship on some shots, but it was not camouflaged. An Alouette, G-BDWN, was also employed. After a mishap with G-AWDI, two locally hired Cessna 172s, PH-GVP and PH-ADF, were also used. Ten Horsa glider replicas were built, but a wind storm damaged almost all of them. Seven or eight were hastily repaired for the shoot. The replica gliders were tail-heavy and required a support post under the rear fuselage, with camera angles carefully chosen to avoid revealing this. Dakota 6153 was fitted with tow gear and Horsa replicas were towed at high speed, though none went airborne. A two-seat Blaník sail-plane, provided by a member of the London Gliding Club, Dunstable, was towed aloft for the interior take-off shots.
James Caan, Sir Michael Caine, and Elliott Gould appeared in Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976).
The cast includes five actors who were knighted: Sir Sean Connery, Sir Michael Caine, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Laurence Oliver, and Sir Richard Attenborough.
Director Cameo ―
Richard Attenborough: One of the lunatics wearing glasses watching the soldiers. This was his only acting role in one of the films that he directed.
Trivia (From IMDB):
Dirk Bogarde's portrayal of General Browning was highly controversial, and several friends of the late General suggested that, had Browning still been alive in 1977, he would have sued Director Sir Richard Attenborough and Screenwriter William Goldman. Bogarde took issue with the portrayal during filming, having known Browning personally, as he was a member of Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery's staff during the war. Although Attenborough publicly took responsibility for the controversy, his relationship with Bogarde was never the same again.
During World War II, Dirk Bogarde, who played Lieutenant General Browning, served in intelligence with the British Army. He, and eight other intelligence officers, were sent to Arnhem by General Bernard L. Montgomery during the battle.
Film critics derided Producer Joseph E. Levine for casting thirty-five-year-old Ryan O'Nealto play an Army General. But in reality, Brigadier General James M. Gavin was only thirty-seven-years-old at the time of the battle. In fact, shortly after this battle, Gavin was promoted to Major General, and at thirty-seven, was the youngest man ever to hold that rank.
According to the DVD edition, the real-life Colonel John Frost chided Sir Anthony Hopkinsduring the filming, for running from house to house during the battle for Arnhem. According to Hopkins, Frost told him that a British officer would never have run, but would have shown disdain for enemy fire by walking from place to place. Hopkins claims he tried, but as soon as the firing started, instincts took over, and he ran as fast as he could.
The producers were only able to locate four of the many Sherman tanks seen on the screen. The rest were plastic molds set on top of 88" Land Rovers. Volkswagen Beetle chassis were used for German Kubelwagens. The tank treads didn't reach the ground, but the film is edited so that this isn't noticeable (except in the section after Elliott Gouldcries, "Roll 'em, fellas" there are shots of the tanks rolling over the bridge. One tank is seen silhouetted against the background and its tracks are clearly not moving as fast as they should be if the tank were real). At about fifty-seven minutes into the film, as the Shermans are heading up the road, the last Sherman seen (the fifth one) is floating a few inches off the ground. If you look quickly, you'll just see the rear left wheel from one of the Land Rovers.
Due to permissions and budgetary constraints, the movie was not shot in Arnhem, but in Deventer, which lies thirty-five kilometers (twenty-two miles) to the north. The scenery and the bridge, however, looked very much like Arnhem.
According to the DVD production notes, James Caan agreed to do the film, because of the scene in which he forces a reluctant Army surgeon to operate on one of his buddies at gunpoint. He said, "When Richard Attenborough came to see me in Los Angeles, he offered me the choice of several roles. I chose the Sergeant, chiefly for that one scene."
Major Fuller (Frank Grimes), the officer who is told not to "rock the boat" over the aerial intelligence, was actually named Brian Urquhart. His name was changed in the film, so that the audience would not confuse him with Sir Sean Connery's character, Major R.E. Urquhart (no relation).
Robert Redford (Major Julian Cook) received a reported two million dollars for a total of two weeks work on this movie.
Sir Michael Caine claims that Sir Richard Attenborough did not tell him that a string of dummy tanks, behind the scout car which Caine was in, would be blown up, so Caine could look realistically startled during the shot.
Denholm Elliott, who had a brief cameo as an Royal Air Force officer, served in the R.A.F. during World War II.
Dirk Bogarde's portrayal of General Sir Frederick "Boy" Browning proved to be highly controversial. Browning's widow Daphne Du Maurier asked Earl Louis Mountbatten of Burma to boycott the film's London premiere in protest. He declined, since it was for charity.
Sir Sean Connery initially turned the film down, because he felt it would be glorifying a military disaster. He changed his mind after reading the screenplay.
Dame Daphne Du Maurier, the widow of Lieutenant General Browning, complained that her husband had been "made the fall guy" for the failure of Operation Market Garden by this film. Browning, and the unseen Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, who are shown as responsible for the failure, had died by the time the film opened in 1977 (unlike the other commanders involved). Sir Richard Attenborough defended his depiction of Browning, by pointing to the final scene, where he says, "As you know, I've always thought we were going a bridge too far." Browning did actually say something very similar to this (hence the title of Cornelius Ryan's original book, and this film), but he said it well before the operation started.
Steve McQueen and Audrey Hepburn were originally cast to play Major Julian Cook and Kate Ter Horst, respectively. However, they were dropped, when Hepburn's asking salary price was too high, and McQueen only wanted to appear in starring roles, not all-star ensemble projects. There was also a story that the reason Hepburn, who had lived in German-occupied Holland during the war, and had seen German soldiers shoot down civilians on the street, and had friends killed in bombing raids, didn't do the film, was because she found the prospect of reliving her wartime experiences, too traumatic.
Sir Sean Connery played one of the largest roles in the film, as General Urquhart, but was angered to discover that Robert Redford, in a much smaller role, was getting considerably more money. He went on strike for a short time until his fee was adjusted to his satisfaction.
Several principal participants of Operation Market Garden were employed as military consultants during production, namely Brian Horrocks (Edward Fox), James M. Gavin(Ryan O'Neal), J.O.E. Vandeleur (Sir Michael Caine), John Frost (Sir Anthony Hopkins), and R.E. Urquhart (Sir Sean Connery).
There are fourteen Oscar winners associated with the movie, seven of them actors (though none earned their Academy Awards for this picture).
Composer John Addison was a member of XXX Corps during the actual operation.
Originally, Sir Richard Attenborough did not want to direct this picture, as he was keen to make Gandhi (1982) after Young Winston (1972). However, major studios were reluctant to finance the picture, so he sought Joseph E. Levine for financing. This film was part of the agreement in exchange for financing Gandhi (1982).
Special Effects Supervisor John Richardson was injured driving his BMW, and his assistant and girlfriend Liz Moore was killed in the accident, during production in what was believed as a result of the sinister curse on those who involved in the making of The Omen (1976). The incident happened just after midnight on Sunday, June 13, 1976. The head-on collision beheaded Moore (a real-life echo of Jenning's decapitation on that film), but left Richardson alive, but dazed. When he got up after the collision, he noticed a signpost nearby pointing to the nearest town of Ommen, which is twenty kilometers away, but the kilometer marker where it happened, was 66.6.
Stuntman Alf Joint was badly injured while filming a stunt falling off a rooftop. He missed the air mattress.
According to the DVD, General R.E. Urquhart had no idea who Sir Sean Connery was, or why his daughters were so excited that he had been chosen to play their father in the film. Sir Richard Attenborough picked Connery because of his strong resemblance to the younger Urqhart.
According to his 2008 memoir "My Word is My Bond", Sir Roger Moore was offered the role of Brian Horrocks. He was forced to decline, due to a scheduling conflict with The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), but became available again when the Bond movie was delayed. However, Horrocks had approval over the character, and turned Moore down, and the role instead went to Edward Fox.
According to Stunt Coordinator Vic Armstrong, they used over one hundred stuntmen in this film.
Over 2.7 million feet of film was shot. At the normal speed of ninety feet per minute (1.5 feet per second) for 35 millimeter film, this equals five hundred plus hours.
Wolfgang Preiss appeared in this film and The Longest Day (1962), also based on a book by Cornelius Ryan. In the earlier film, Preiss played German Major General Max Pemsel, Chief of Staff of the German Seventh Army, while in this film, he played German Field Marshal Karl Gerd Von Rundstedt, Commander-in-Chief of German ground forces on the western front.
Originally rated "R" by the MPAA for strong language, it was lowered to "PG" upon appeal.
Robert De Niro turned down the major cameo role of Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun, in which his The Godfather: Part II (1974) co-star James Caan, was cast.
The film takes place from September 10 to September 26, 1944.
A common mistake in World War II movies, from this period, is the decals on the Germans helmets. At this stage of the war, you would not have seen any decals on helmets, because three years earlier, they were ordered removed.
Hardy Krüger's character, General Ludwig, is a composite of German division commanders General Harmel and Lieutenant Colonel Harzer.
In The Longest Day (1962), D-day veteran Richard Todd had been cast as Major John Howard, and re-enacted a genuine event in the taking of Pegasus Bridge, where Howard had met Richard Todd (at the time, an Army Captain) in the middle of the bridge, an uncredited actor played the role of Todd. A similar remarkable re-enactment was planned for this film. Audrey Hepburn was originally cast to play Arnhem resident Kate ter Horst (Liv Ullmann), but was dropped when her asking salary price was too high. Hepburn, who was half English and half Dutch, had been sent from England, to neutral Holland when war broke out, but her mother's home town of Arnhem was overrun by the Germans, and she was trapped there for the duration. During Operation Market Garden, the fifteen-year-old Hepburn ran errands and messages for the Allies fighting in the town, and so, as Kate Ter Horst, would have met herself in the film.
Sir Richard Attenborough's The Great Escape (1963) co-star Charles Bronson was seriously considered for General Stanislaw Sosabowski.
Sir Michael Caine's scripted line to order the column of tanks and armored cars into battle, was "Forward, go, charge". Luckily for Caine, Lieutenant Colonel J.O.E. Vandeleurwas on the set, so he could ask him what the actual line was. Vandeleur told him, "I just said quietly into the microphone, 'Well, get a move on, then'", which is what Caine says in the film.
The German heavy tanks in the movie are actually German Leopard 1A1s, produced from 1965-79.
This was the first war film in which actors were put through boot camp prior to filming. Sir Richard Attenborough put many of the extras and soldiers through a mini boot camp, and had them housed in a barrack accommodation during filming.
In the opening post-invasion scenes, shot in black and white and matted, a column of A27M Cromwell tanks, one of the more effective British armored vehicles of World War II, is briefly shown. Elements of the Cromwell's design were incorporated within the later A34 Comet, arguably the best British tank of World War II. This movie may have been both the cinematic debut and sole appearance of the A27M in a major post 1945 war film production.
Joseph E. Levine financed the twenty-two million dollar budget himself. During the production, he would show footage from the film to distributors, who would then pay him for distribution rights. By the time the film was finished, Levine had raised twenty-six million dollars, putting the film four million dollars in the black, before it had even opened.
Sir Laurence Olivier showed up on the set wearing an old suit and a pair of battered black shoes. He informed Sir Richard Attenborough that he had been gardening in the shoes for a month, so that they would look just right for the character, a Dutch farmer and doctor who risks his life to tend the wounded.
As real Waffen-SS reversible camouflage smocks were unavailable, smocks used in the movie were tailored from post-war German shelter halves in the "Amoeba" camouflage pattern.
The Para playing his flute during a lull was playing the third movement from the Brandenburg Conerto #6 (BWV1051), written by Johann Sebastian Bach.
A British paratrooper appears twice in the take off scenes from England, holding a chicken. This is a portrayal of the Quartermaster of the 10th Paratroop battalion Lieutenant Joseph Glover and his pet chicken Myrtle. Originally liberated from a farm in England by Glover as part of a bet to establish whether chickens can fly, she made several non-combat drops between July and September 1944. Glover and Myrtle dropped on Arnhem with the 4th Parachute Brigade in the second lift that occurred on September 18th (not the first lift as portrayed in the film). She was found dead on the 19th of September, and buried with parachute wings.
The cast of this film includes the directors of three films which won the Academy Award for Best Picture: Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) directed Hamlet (1948), Robert Redford (Major Julian Cook) directed Ordinary People (1980), and Sir Richard Attenborough (Lunatic with Glasses) directed Gandhi (1982).
Numerous soldiers have the names of crew members. For instance, in one of the shots of the soldiers occupying the house facing the bridge in Arnhem, Sergeant Clegg was a reference to Production Manager Terence A. Clegg. During the Bailey bridge segment, Private Gibbs was a reference to Editor Antony Gibbs. During (DVD Chapter 26) Frost's Last Stand, Frost calls out on Sergeant Tomblin, a reference to First Assistant Director David Tomblin. Finally, MacDonald, who agreed to man the wireless as General Urquhart mentioned, was a reference to then Camera Operator Peter MacDonald.
Colonel Frost's (Sir Anthony Hopkins') batman is played by Paul Copley. In The Remains of the Day (1993) Hopkins, the butler, meets Paul Copley in a pub, and is chided by him, by association, with the appeasement tendencies of his employer.
Walter Kohut (Field Marshal Walter Model) was the brother-in-law of Maximilian Schell (General Wilhelm Bittrich), as he was married to his younger sister Immy Schell.
Sir Sean Connery (Major General Roy Urquhart), Denholm Elliott (RAF Meteorological Officer), Michael Byrne (Lieutenant Colonel Giles Vandeleur), and Paul Maxwell (Major General Maxwell Taylor) appeared in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).
Of the fourteen actors to receive star billing, James Caan (Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun) is the only one who does not share a scene with any of the others.
All the lead actors agreed to participate on a '"favored-nation" basis (they would all receive the same weekly fee), which, in this case, was two hundred fifty thousand dollars dollars per week (the 1977 equivalent of 1,008,250 dollars, or 642,000 pounds).
Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) previously played Maximilian de Winter in Rebecca (1940), which was based on the 1938 novel of the same name by Daphne Du Maurier. In real-life, du Maurier was married to General Sir Frederick Browning (Dirk Bogarde) from 1932 until his death in 1965.
Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) and Robert Redford (Major Julian Cook) are the only people to act in and direct different Academy Award for Best Picture winners: Olivier played Maximilian de Winter in Rebecca (1940), and directed Hamlet (1948), in which he also played the title role, and Redford played Johnny Hooker in The Sting (1973), and Denys Finch Hatton in Out of Africa (1985), and directed Ordinary People (1980).
Edward Fox's nephew Laurence Fox later appeared in The Last Drop (2006), which likewise depicted Operation Market Garden.
Even though Maximilian Schell spoke fluent English, he remained true to his character as General Bittrich, and spoke no English in the film.
The film cast includes eight Oscar winners: Sir Sean Connery, Sir Michael Caine, Gene Hackman, Robert Redford, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Richard Attenborough, and Maximilian Schell; and five Oscar nominees: Ryan O'Neal, Denholm Elliott, James Caan, Liv Ullmann, and Elliott Gould.
Sir Sean Connery played a private in The Longest Day (1962), and a Major General in this film. All of these fictional promotions, would have occurred in the three and a half months between the actual events.
Four Harvards portrayed American and German fighters. Their original identities were PH-KLU, PH-BKT, B-64 and B-118, the latter two aircraft loaned by the Royal Netherlands Air Force. These were flown by members of the Gilze Rijen Aero Club, which also provided an Auster III, PH-NGK, which depicted an Auster V, RT607, in wartime camouflage. Spitfire Mk. IX, MH434, depicting a photo reconnaissance variant, coded AC-S, was lent by the Hon. Patrick Lindsay, and was flown by aerobatic champion Neil Williams.
The film includes some distortions of military history that are not present in the book; in particular, the reasons for the delay in XXX Corps reaching the Arnhem bridge (leading to the failure of the attack) differ considerably from those given in Cornelius Ryan's text.
An episode of the Dutch television history program In Other Times (2000), about the making of the film stated that Joseph E. Levine told the Deventer local government that their town would host the world premiere on June 14, 1977. This never came to be, and Deventer even missed out on the Dutch premiere, which was held in Amsterdam.
The bridge at Arnhem was built between 1932 and 1935. It was destroyed by Dutch engineers in 1940 to slow the German invasion of that country. During the occupation of the Netherlands, a pontoon bridge was used as a replacement, while German engineers repaired the bridge. These repairs were completed in August 1944, a month before Market Garden. In October 1944, the bridge was destroyed by U.S. bombers. After the war, the bridge was repaired again, and re-opened in 1948. In 1977 (the same year that this movie was released) the bridge was officially named the John Frost Bridge (John Frostbrug in Dutch). There are plans to build a new bridge at Oosterbeek, to be named after Stanislaw Sosabowski.
When Nijmegen needed a new bridge over the Waal river, they did so on the site where the Americans crossed the river during Market Garden (as depicted in the film). Forty-eight men died during the crossing. Nijmegen not only decided to name the new bridge de Oversteek-the Crossing, but also invited General James M. Gavin to make a speech, invited the soldiers families, and the bridge was opened by two veterans driving over it. As a permanent reminder of the fallen soldiers, there are forty-eight sets of lights on the bridge, which are turned on every night one by one, from south to north, before the rest of the Nijmegen street lights are turned on. Then Dutch veterans noticed that the speed in which the lights got turned on resembled a slow march, and decided to start the Sunset March, where a veteran will walk along with the lights turning on and stop at the monument on the north bank. On-lookers are welcome to march along.
Gerald Sim (Colonel Sims) was the brother-in-law of Sir Richard Attenborough.
Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) previously narrated The World at War: Occupation: Holland - 1940-1944 (1974) and The World at War: Pincers: August 1944-March 1945 (1974), documentaries which discussed the Allies' defeat at the Battle of Arnhem, and the failure of Operation Market Garden respectively.
Air filming was done in the first weeks of September 1976, culminating in a series of air drops of a total of one thousand men, together with the dropping of supplies from several Dakota aircraft. The Dakotas were gathered by the film company Joseph E. Levine Presents Incorporated. All aircraft were required to be C.A.A. (Civil Aviation Authority) or F.A.A. (Federal Aviation Administration) registered, and licensed to carry passengers. An original deal for the purchase of ten fell through, when two air frames were rejected as passenger configured without the necessary jump doors. Eleven Dakotas were procured. Two Portuguese, ex-Portuguese Air Force, 6153, and 6171, (N9984Q and N9983Q), and two Air International Dakotas, operating from Djibouti in French Somaliland, F-OCKU and F-OCKX, (N9985Q and N9986Q) were purchased by Joseph E. Levine. Three Danish Air Force, K-685, K-687, and K-688, and four Finnish Air Force C-47s, DO-4, DO-7, DO-10, and DO-12, were loaned for the duration of the parachute filming.
Dirk Bogarde's portrayal of General Browning was highly controversial, and several friends of the late General suggested that, had Browning still been alive in 1977, he would have sued Director Sir Richard Attenborough and Screenwriter William Goldman. Bogarde took issue with the portrayal during filming, having known Browning personally, as he was a member of Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery's staff during the war. Although Attenborough publicly took responsibility for the controversy, his relationship with Bogarde was never the same again.
During World War II, Dirk Bogarde, who played Lieutenant General Browning, served in intelligence with the British Army. He, and eight other intelligence officers, were sent to Arnhem by General Bernard L. Montgomery during the battle.
Film critics derided Producer Joseph E. Levine for casting thirty-five-year-old Ryan O'Nealto play an Army General. But in reality, Brigadier General James M. Gavin was only thirty-seven-years-old at the time of the battle. In fact, shortly after this battle, Gavin was promoted to Major General, and at thirty-seven, was the youngest man ever to hold that rank.
According to the DVD edition, the real-life Colonel John Frost chided Sir Anthony Hopkinsduring the filming, for running from house to house during the battle for Arnhem. According to Hopkins, Frost told him that a British officer would never have run, but would have shown disdain for enemy fire by walking from place to place. Hopkins claims he tried, but as soon as the firing started, instincts took over, and he ran as fast as he could.
The producers were only able to locate four of the many Sherman tanks seen on the screen. The rest were plastic molds set on top of 88" Land Rovers. Volkswagen Beetle chassis were used for German Kubelwagens. The tank treads didn't reach the ground, but the film is edited so that this isn't noticeable (except in the section after Elliott Gouldcries, "Roll 'em, fellas" there are shots of the tanks rolling over the bridge. One tank is seen silhouetted against the background and its tracks are clearly not moving as fast as they should be if the tank were real). At about fifty-seven minutes into the film, as the Shermans are heading up the road, the last Sherman seen (the fifth one) is floating a few inches off the ground. If you look quickly, you'll just see the rear left wheel from one of the Land Rovers.
Due to permissions and budgetary constraints, the movie was not shot in Arnhem, but in Deventer, which lies thirty-five kilometers (twenty-two miles) to the north. The scenery and the bridge, however, looked very much like Arnhem.
According to the DVD production notes, James Caan agreed to do the film, because of the scene in which he forces a reluctant Army surgeon to operate on one of his buddies at gunpoint. He said, "When Richard Attenborough came to see me in Los Angeles, he offered me the choice of several roles. I chose the Sergeant, chiefly for that one scene."
Major Fuller (Frank Grimes), the officer who is told not to "rock the boat" over the aerial intelligence, was actually named Brian Urquhart. His name was changed in the film, so that the audience would not confuse him with Sir Sean Connery's character, Major R.E. Urquhart (no relation).
Robert Redford (Major Julian Cook) received a reported two million dollars for a total of two weeks work on this movie.
Sir Michael Caine claims that Sir Richard Attenborough did not tell him that a string of dummy tanks, behind the scout car which Caine was in, would be blown up, so Caine could look realistically startled during the shot.
Denholm Elliott, who had a brief cameo as an Royal Air Force officer, served in the R.A.F. during World War II.
Dirk Bogarde's portrayal of General Sir Frederick "Boy" Browning proved to be highly controversial. Browning's widow Daphne Du Maurier asked Earl Louis Mountbatten of Burma to boycott the film's London premiere in protest. He declined, since it was for charity.
Sir Sean Connery initially turned the film down, because he felt it would be glorifying a military disaster. He changed his mind after reading the screenplay.
Dame Daphne Du Maurier, the widow of Lieutenant General Browning, complained that her husband had been "made the fall guy" for the failure of Operation Market Garden by this film. Browning, and the unseen Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, who are shown as responsible for the failure, had died by the time the film opened in 1977 (unlike the other commanders involved). Sir Richard Attenborough defended his depiction of Browning, by pointing to the final scene, where he says, "As you know, I've always thought we were going a bridge too far." Browning did actually say something very similar to this (hence the title of Cornelius Ryan's original book, and this film), but he said it well before the operation started.
Steve McQueen and Audrey Hepburn were originally cast to play Major Julian Cook and Kate Ter Horst, respectively. However, they were dropped, when Hepburn's asking salary price was too high, and McQueen only wanted to appear in starring roles, not all-star ensemble projects. There was also a story that the reason Hepburn, who had lived in German-occupied Holland during the war, and had seen German soldiers shoot down civilians on the street, and had friends killed in bombing raids, didn't do the film, was because she found the prospect of reliving her wartime experiences, too traumatic.
Sir Sean Connery played one of the largest roles in the film, as General Urquhart, but was angered to discover that Robert Redford, in a much smaller role, was getting considerably more money. He went on strike for a short time until his fee was adjusted to his satisfaction.
Several principal participants of Operation Market Garden were employed as military consultants during production, namely Brian Horrocks (Edward Fox), James M. Gavin(Ryan O'Neal), J.O.E. Vandeleur (Sir Michael Caine), John Frost (Sir Anthony Hopkins), and R.E. Urquhart (Sir Sean Connery).
There are fourteen Oscar winners associated with the movie, seven of them actors (though none earned their Academy Awards for this picture).
Composer John Addison was a member of XXX Corps during the actual operation.
Originally, Sir Richard Attenborough did not want to direct this picture, as he was keen to make Gandhi (1982) after Young Winston (1972). However, major studios were reluctant to finance the picture, so he sought Joseph E. Levine for financing. This film was part of the agreement in exchange for financing Gandhi (1982).
Special Effects Supervisor John Richardson was injured driving his BMW, and his assistant and girlfriend Liz Moore was killed in the accident, during production in what was believed as a result of the sinister curse on those who involved in the making of The Omen (1976). The incident happened just after midnight on Sunday, June 13, 1976. The head-on collision beheaded Moore (a real-life echo of Jenning's decapitation on that film), but left Richardson alive, but dazed. When he got up after the collision, he noticed a signpost nearby pointing to the nearest town of Ommen, which is twenty kilometers away, but the kilometer marker where it happened, was 66.6.
Stuntman Alf Joint was badly injured while filming a stunt falling off a rooftop. He missed the air mattress.
According to the DVD, General R.E. Urquhart had no idea who Sir Sean Connery was, or why his daughters were so excited that he had been chosen to play their father in the film. Sir Richard Attenborough picked Connery because of his strong resemblance to the younger Urqhart.
According to his 2008 memoir "My Word is My Bond", Sir Roger Moore was offered the role of Brian Horrocks. He was forced to decline, due to a scheduling conflict with The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), but became available again when the Bond movie was delayed. However, Horrocks had approval over the character, and turned Moore down, and the role instead went to Edward Fox.
According to Stunt Coordinator Vic Armstrong, they used over one hundred stuntmen in this film.
Over 2.7 million feet of film was shot. At the normal speed of ninety feet per minute (1.5 feet per second) for 35 millimeter film, this equals five hundred plus hours.
Wolfgang Preiss appeared in this film and The Longest Day (1962), also based on a book by Cornelius Ryan. In the earlier film, Preiss played German Major General Max Pemsel, Chief of Staff of the German Seventh Army, while in this film, he played German Field Marshal Karl Gerd Von Rundstedt, Commander-in-Chief of German ground forces on the western front.
Originally rated "R" by the MPAA for strong language, it was lowered to "PG" upon appeal.
Robert De Niro turned down the major cameo role of Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun, in which his The Godfather: Part II (1974) co-star James Caan, was cast.
The film takes place from September 10 to September 26, 1944.
A common mistake in World War II movies, from this period, is the decals on the Germans helmets. At this stage of the war, you would not have seen any decals on helmets, because three years earlier, they were ordered removed.
Hardy Krüger's character, General Ludwig, is a composite of German division commanders General Harmel and Lieutenant Colonel Harzer.
In The Longest Day (1962), D-day veteran Richard Todd had been cast as Major John Howard, and re-enacted a genuine event in the taking of Pegasus Bridge, where Howard had met Richard Todd (at the time, an Army Captain) in the middle of the bridge, an uncredited actor played the role of Todd. A similar remarkable re-enactment was planned for this film. Audrey Hepburn was originally cast to play Arnhem resident Kate ter Horst (Liv Ullmann), but was dropped when her asking salary price was too high. Hepburn, who was half English and half Dutch, had been sent from England, to neutral Holland when war broke out, but her mother's home town of Arnhem was overrun by the Germans, and she was trapped there for the duration. During Operation Market Garden, the fifteen-year-old Hepburn ran errands and messages for the Allies fighting in the town, and so, as Kate Ter Horst, would have met herself in the film.
Sir Richard Attenborough's The Great Escape (1963) co-star Charles Bronson was seriously considered for General Stanislaw Sosabowski.
Sir Michael Caine's scripted line to order the column of tanks and armored cars into battle, was "Forward, go, charge". Luckily for Caine, Lieutenant Colonel J.O.E. Vandeleurwas on the set, so he could ask him what the actual line was. Vandeleur told him, "I just said quietly into the microphone, 'Well, get a move on, then'", which is what Caine says in the film.
The German heavy tanks in the movie are actually German Leopard 1A1s, produced from 1965-79.
This was the first war film in which actors were put through boot camp prior to filming. Sir Richard Attenborough put many of the extras and soldiers through a mini boot camp, and had them housed in a barrack accommodation during filming.
In the opening post-invasion scenes, shot in black and white and matted, a column of A27M Cromwell tanks, one of the more effective British armored vehicles of World War II, is briefly shown. Elements of the Cromwell's design were incorporated within the later A34 Comet, arguably the best British tank of World War II. This movie may have been both the cinematic debut and sole appearance of the A27M in a major post 1945 war film production.
Joseph E. Levine financed the twenty-two million dollar budget himself. During the production, he would show footage from the film to distributors, who would then pay him for distribution rights. By the time the film was finished, Levine had raised twenty-six million dollars, putting the film four million dollars in the black, before it had even opened.
Sir Laurence Olivier showed up on the set wearing an old suit and a pair of battered black shoes. He informed Sir Richard Attenborough that he had been gardening in the shoes for a month, so that they would look just right for the character, a Dutch farmer and doctor who risks his life to tend the wounded.
As real Waffen-SS reversible camouflage smocks were unavailable, smocks used in the movie were tailored from post-war German shelter halves in the "Amoeba" camouflage pattern.
The Para playing his flute during a lull was playing the third movement from the Brandenburg Conerto #6 (BWV1051), written by Johann Sebastian Bach.
A British paratrooper appears twice in the take off scenes from England, holding a chicken. This is a portrayal of the Quartermaster of the 10th Paratroop battalion Lieutenant Joseph Glover and his pet chicken Myrtle. Originally liberated from a farm in England by Glover as part of a bet to establish whether chickens can fly, she made several non-combat drops between July and September 1944. Glover and Myrtle dropped on Arnhem with the 4th Parachute Brigade in the second lift that occurred on September 18th (not the first lift as portrayed in the film). She was found dead on the 19th of September, and buried with parachute wings.
The cast of this film includes the directors of three films which won the Academy Award for Best Picture: Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) directed Hamlet (1948), Robert Redford (Major Julian Cook) directed Ordinary People (1980), and Sir Richard Attenborough (Lunatic with Glasses) directed Gandhi (1982).
Numerous soldiers have the names of crew members. For instance, in one of the shots of the soldiers occupying the house facing the bridge in Arnhem, Sergeant Clegg was a reference to Production Manager Terence A. Clegg. During the Bailey bridge segment, Private Gibbs was a reference to Editor Antony Gibbs. During (DVD Chapter 26) Frost's Last Stand, Frost calls out on Sergeant Tomblin, a reference to First Assistant Director David Tomblin. Finally, MacDonald, who agreed to man the wireless as General Urquhart mentioned, was a reference to then Camera Operator Peter MacDonald.
Colonel Frost's (Sir Anthony Hopkins') batman is played by Paul Copley. In The Remains of the Day (1993) Hopkins, the butler, meets Paul Copley in a pub, and is chided by him, by association, with the appeasement tendencies of his employer.
Walter Kohut (Field Marshal Walter Model) was the brother-in-law of Maximilian Schell (General Wilhelm Bittrich), as he was married to his younger sister Immy Schell.
Sir Sean Connery (Major General Roy Urquhart), Denholm Elliott (RAF Meteorological Officer), Michael Byrne (Lieutenant Colonel Giles Vandeleur), and Paul Maxwell (Major General Maxwell Taylor) appeared in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).
Of the fourteen actors to receive star billing, James Caan (Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun) is the only one who does not share a scene with any of the others.
All the lead actors agreed to participate on a '"favored-nation" basis (they would all receive the same weekly fee), which, in this case, was two hundred fifty thousand dollars dollars per week (the 1977 equivalent of 1,008,250 dollars, or 642,000 pounds).
Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) previously played Maximilian de Winter in Rebecca (1940), which was based on the 1938 novel of the same name by Daphne Du Maurier. In real-life, du Maurier was married to General Sir Frederick Browning (Dirk Bogarde) from 1932 until his death in 1965.
Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) and Robert Redford (Major Julian Cook) are the only people to act in and direct different Academy Award for Best Picture winners: Olivier played Maximilian de Winter in Rebecca (1940), and directed Hamlet (1948), in which he also played the title role, and Redford played Johnny Hooker in The Sting (1973), and Denys Finch Hatton in Out of Africa (1985), and directed Ordinary People (1980).
Edward Fox's nephew Laurence Fox later appeared in The Last Drop (2006), which likewise depicted Operation Market Garden.
Even though Maximilian Schell spoke fluent English, he remained true to his character as General Bittrich, and spoke no English in the film.
The film cast includes eight Oscar winners: Sir Sean Connery, Sir Michael Caine, Gene Hackman, Robert Redford, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Richard Attenborough, and Maximilian Schell; and five Oscar nominees: Ryan O'Neal, Denholm Elliott, James Caan, Liv Ullmann, and Elliott Gould.
Sir Sean Connery played a private in The Longest Day (1962), and a Major General in this film. All of these fictional promotions, would have occurred in the three and a half months between the actual events.
Four Harvards portrayed American and German fighters. Their original identities were PH-KLU, PH-BKT, B-64 and B-118, the latter two aircraft loaned by the Royal Netherlands Air Force. These were flown by members of the Gilze Rijen Aero Club, which also provided an Auster III, PH-NGK, which depicted an Auster V, RT607, in wartime camouflage. Spitfire Mk. IX, MH434, depicting a photo reconnaissance variant, coded AC-S, was lent by the Hon. Patrick Lindsay, and was flown by aerobatic champion Neil Williams.
The film includes some distortions of military history that are not present in the book; in particular, the reasons for the delay in XXX Corps reaching the Arnhem bridge (leading to the failure of the attack) differ considerably from those given in Cornelius Ryan's text.
An episode of the Dutch television history program In Other Times (2000), about the making of the film stated that Joseph E. Levine told the Deventer local government that their town would host the world premiere on June 14, 1977. This never came to be, and Deventer even missed out on the Dutch premiere, which was held in Amsterdam.
The bridge at Arnhem was built between 1932 and 1935. It was destroyed by Dutch engineers in 1940 to slow the German invasion of that country. During the occupation of the Netherlands, a pontoon bridge was used as a replacement, while German engineers repaired the bridge. These repairs were completed in August 1944, a month before Market Garden. In October 1944, the bridge was destroyed by U.S. bombers. After the war, the bridge was repaired again, and re-opened in 1948. In 1977 (the same year that this movie was released) the bridge was officially named the John Frost Bridge (John Frostbrug in Dutch). There are plans to build a new bridge at Oosterbeek, to be named after Stanislaw Sosabowski.
When Nijmegen needed a new bridge over the Waal river, they did so on the site where the Americans crossed the river during Market Garden (as depicted in the film). Forty-eight men died during the crossing. Nijmegen not only decided to name the new bridge de Oversteek-the Crossing, but also invited General James M. Gavin to make a speech, invited the soldiers families, and the bridge was opened by two veterans driving over it. As a permanent reminder of the fallen soldiers, there are forty-eight sets of lights on the bridge, which are turned on every night one by one, from south to north, before the rest of the Nijmegen street lights are turned on. Then Dutch veterans noticed that the speed in which the lights got turned on resembled a slow march, and decided to start the Sunset March, where a veteran will walk along with the lights turning on and stop at the monument on the north bank. On-lookers are welcome to march along.
Gerald Sim (Colonel Sims) was the brother-in-law of Sir Richard Attenborough.
Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) previously narrated The World at War: Occupation: Holland - 1940-1944 (1974) and The World at War: Pincers: August 1944-March 1945 (1974), documentaries which discussed the Allies' defeat at the Battle of Arnhem, and the failure of Operation Market Garden respectively.
Air filming was done in the first weeks of September 1976, culminating in a series of air drops of a total of one thousand men, together with the dropping of supplies from several Dakota aircraft. The Dakotas were gathered by the film company Joseph E. Levine Presents Incorporated. All aircraft were required to be C.A.A. (Civil Aviation Authority) or F.A.A. (Federal Aviation Administration) registered, and licensed to carry passengers. An original deal for the purchase of ten fell through, when two air frames were rejected as passenger configured without the necessary jump doors. Eleven Dakotas were procured. Two Portuguese, ex-Portuguese Air Force, 6153, and 6171, (N9984Q and N9983Q), and two Air International Dakotas, operating from Djibouti in French Somaliland, F-OCKU and F-OCKX, (N9985Q and N9986Q) were purchased by Joseph E. Levine. Three Danish Air Force, K-685, K-687, and K-688, and four Finnish Air Force C-47s, DO-4, DO-7, DO-10, and DO-12, were loaned for the duration of the parachute filming.
Although they receive "Also Starring" billing, Denholm Elliott (R.A.F. Meteorological Officer) and Jeremy Kemp (R.A.F. Briefing Officer) only appear in one scene each, Wolfgang Preiss (Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt) only appears in two and Frank Grimes (Major Fuller) only appears in three.
Shooting of the American-led assault on the Bridge at Nijmegen was dubbed the "Million Dollar Hour". Because of the heavy traffic, the crew had permission to film on the bridge between 8:00-9:00 on October 3, 1976. Failure to complete the scene, would have necessitated rescheduling, at a cost, including Robert Redford's overtime, of at least a million dollars. For this reason, Sir Richard Attenborough insisted that all actors playing corpses keep their eyes closed.
A familiar story element in the World War II genre war film is the blowing-up of a bridge. This is especially common in films with the word "bridge" in the title, such as The Bridge at Remagen (1969) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Ironically, in this film, which features quite a lot of bridges in it, only the Son bridge is depicted as destroyed. Just as Colonel Stout (Elliott Gould) approaches the crossing, the bridge is blown up by German artillery (but the actual blowing-up is shown at sixty-eight minutes and thirty seconds into the film). The Germans also attempt to blow up the Waal Bridge at Nijmegen, but were unsuccessful when demolition charges fail to explode. In the case of this film, "A Bridge Too Far" refers to the over-ambitions of the Allied strategy in Operation Market Garden. In order for the campaign to be successful, the Allies needed to secure several enemy bridges in a very short period of time. They were tragically unsuccessful.
Final film of Hilary Minster.
According to Joseph E. Levine, the foreign star who distributors most wanted in the film was Robert Redford, followed by Sir Sean Connery.
Colonel Stout (Elliot Gould) is based on Colonel Robert Sink (1905 -1965) the commanding officer of the 506th Parachute Infantry. Sink would be played by Dale Dye in Band of Brothers (2001).
The scenes around the "Arnhem" bridge were actually shot in Deventer, where a similar bridge over the IJssel was still available. Although a replica of the original road bridge in Arnhem existed, it was, by the mid 1970s, sitting in modern urban surroundings, which could not be used to portray a 1940s city. A few scenes were shot in Zutphen, where the old municipal house (a white building which in the film featured the Nazi command center) and the main church can be seen.
Dirk Bogarde did this film, an all-star World War II epic, because he regretted turning down The Longest Day (1962).
The film is rather vague on how Colonel Frost's men reached the bridge at Arnhem, but the rest of the division failed to do so. What happened is that the three battalions of the 1st Parachute Brigade landed on the north bank of the Rhine (at Arnhem the Rhine flows roughly East-West), some miles west of Arnhem, from where they were supposed to converge on their objective along three separate roads. Two of the battalions almost immediately ran into some hastily improvised German defences, and there was much confused fighting for the rest of the day as they tried to find a way through or around them. Meanwhile, John Frost's 2nd Battalion, taking the southern route closest to the river, encountered no opposition until they reached the bridge. Shortly after this the Germans blocked the southern route, leaving 2nd Battalion cut off from the rest of the division.
Sir Sean Connery and Sir Michael Caine appeared in The Man Who Would Be King (1975).
Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) and Sir Anthony Hopkins (Colonel John Frost) played Professor Abraham Van Helsing in adaptations of Bram Stoker's "Dracula": Olivier in Dracula (1979) and Hopkins in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
Edward Fox (General Brian Horrocks), Sir Anthony Hopkins (Colonel John Frost), and Sir Laurence Olivier (Dr. Jan Spaander) appeared in The Bounty (1984).
Maximilian Schell (General Wilhelm Bittrich), Liv Ullmann (Kate Ter Horst), and Jeremy Kemp (RAF Briefing Officer) appeared in Pope Joan (1972).
James Caan (Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun), Sir Sean Connery (Major General Roy Urquhart), and Robert Redford (Major Julian Cook) all appeared in films depicting the final days of the Cuban Revolution, from December 1958 to January 1959: Caan in The Godfather: Part II (1974), Connery in Cuba (1979), and Redford in Havana (1990).
Frank Jarvis worked nine months on this film.
At the time Sir Laurence Olivier filmed his role, he was involved in a series of filmed plays for British television, many of which aired in the U.S. as well. In fact, between scenes on-location, he flew to England to co-star with Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, and Maureen Stapleton in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Aircraft 6171 doubled as the camera ship on most formations, with a camouflaged Piper Aztec, G-AWDI. A camera was mounted in the astrodome, one on the port upper main plane surface, with a third camera on the outside of the forward port cabin window and a fourth under the aircraft center section. In addition, center escape hatches were removed to make additional camera ports available, provided that no troops were aboard during filming. A second Aztec, G-ASND, was a back-up camera ship on some shots, but it was not camouflaged. An Alouette, G-BDWN, was also employed. After a mishap with G-AWDI, two locally hired Cessna 172s, PH-GVP and PH-ADF, were also used. Ten Horsa glider replicas were built, but a wind storm damaged almost all of them. Seven or eight were hastily repaired for the shoot. The replica gliders were tail-heavy and required a support post under the rear fuselage, with camera angles carefully chosen to avoid revealing this. Dakota 6153 was fitted with tow gear and Horsa replicas were towed at high speed, though none went airborne. A two-seat Blaník sail-plane, provided by a member of the London Gliding Club, Dunstable, was towed aloft for the interior take-off shots.
James Caan, Sir Michael Caine, and Elliott Gould appeared in Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976).
The cast includes five actors who were knighted: Sir Sean Connery, Sir Michael Caine, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sir Laurence Oliver, and Sir Richard Attenborough.
Director Cameo ―
Richard Attenborough: One of the lunatics wearing glasses watching the soldiers. This was his only acting role in one of the films that he directed.
Spoilers ―
Carlyle, the British officer with the umbrella, who died during the battle, is based on Major Digby Tatham-Warter, who survived the battle.
The scene where Private Marsh is killed, trying to retrieve a supply canister that was actually full of maroon berets, was based on a real event, but the actual paratrooper, Corporal Johnny Johnson, survived unharmed.
The scene where Private Marsh is killed, trying to retrieve a supply canister that was actually full of maroon berets, was based on a real event, but the actual paratrooper, Corporal Johnny Johnson, survived unharmed.
No comments:
Post a Comment