#340. The Bridge on the River Kwai
- Year: 1957
- Country: Great Britain
- Language: English/Japanese/Thai
- Production: Columbia, Horizon, 161m
- Director: David Lean
- Producer: Sam Spiegel
- Screenplay: Michael Wilson, Carl Foreman, from book by Pierre Boulle
- Photography: Jack Hildyard
- Music: Malcolm Arnold
- Cast: William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald, Geoffrey Horne
- Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score
- Oscar Noms: Best Supporting Actor
- Blog Club Rating: 8.4/10
Abridged Book Description[]
There may be no honor among thieves, but wartime enemies are a different matter. At least that's the belief of Alec Guinness' Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai, who insists that the Japanese overseers of their sweltering Burmese prison camp treat his men and him with decency... Lean loads his film with tons of detail, filling the widescreen image with elaborate action and immaculately constructed sets. But holding this epic World War II film together are the performances of its three iconic leads, the stiff and traditional Guinness, the loose and cynical Holden, and Sessue Hayakawa as the Japanese colonel unknowingly stuck in the middle of a battle of cross-Atlantic wills.