Quite a few bad things have been written about A Bridge Too Far. Richard Attenborough’s elephantine recreation of the battle for several strategically valuable Dutch bridges in the winter of 1944 is a star-studded, lengthy and exhausting film (and many critics at the time seemed to be of the opinion that it collapsed beneath its own weight). Almost thirty years on, the film is now viewed somewhat more favourably. It may feel 30 minutes too long, and the need for so many stars in so many tiny parts is questionable, but A Bridge Too Far successfully shows a fierce episode of the Second World War in all its chaotic glory.

Incredibly, there’s no use of the computer generated effects during the big battle scenes that it is relied upon in modern films like Gladiator and Troy. The scenes in this film were shot pretty much as you see them – so the 35,000 parachutists storming Holland, the river crossing led by Robert Redford under intense enemy fire, and other such staggering combat sequences were filmed with thousands of extras and a good deal of meticulous planning and preparation.

The film is based upon Operation Market Garden, an Allied plot hatched towards the end of 1944 with the intention of ending the war in Europe. The concept behind the plan was to drop 35,000 soldiers into Holland approximately 60 miles beyond the German lines, to seize six vital bridges, and to reinforce the paratroopers by sending in thousands of ground troops. However, various mishaps jeopardised the mission and eventually the Allies were cut off and had to withdraw, suffering severe losses.

As stellar casts go, A Bridge Too Far still takes some rivalling. Among the many famous actors involved, these are just a few: Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Laurence Olivier, Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Ryan O’Neal, Gene Hackman, Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins and Elliott Gould. It seems pointless for some of the actors to be cast in these roles – true enough, Connery, Bogarde and Hopkins get decent roles and a fair bit of screen time, but was it really worth paying Redford $2,000,000 for his ten minute heroics? Could a decent actor have not handled the role for a fraction of that amount? Is Gene Hackman really the correct choice for Polish officer Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski? Should a light comic actor like Elliott Gould be doing his cigar-chomping “fun” turn in a movie as serious as this?

Luckily, the film is a big success on other levels. The cinematography is extraordinary; the music is suitably stirring; the potentially confusing story is handled with clarity and true-to-the-facts sensitivity; and amid the chaos a number of very memorable scenes emerge. A Bridge Too Far is a very good war film – maybe the biggest war film ever conceived (The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan included) – and I feel that, although it has a few casting flaws, it is in almost every other department a great, great achievement.

I’m a big fan of war movies and I already have a nice collection on DVD. One of them is A Bridge Too Far and I can only say that it is one of my favorites in this genre (if you can make a comparison between movies like A Bridge Too Far, Saving Private Ryan, All Quiet on the Western Front, Apocalypse Now… of course). What I really don’t understand is why this movie never was a big success in the cinema’s. Perhaps the people had enough of war movies … and Star Wars was very hip and new at that time of course, but personally I love this movie.

What makes this movie so good is the realism. In most of the war movies of that period, everybody speaks English. No matter if it is a German, an American,… In this movie everybody speaks the language he is supposed to speak. There even is a difference between the English of the Americans and the British. But of course the use of different languages isn’t the only thing that attracted me. Another good example is the fact that they didn’t try to make all the Germans look like brainless killers, monsters without any human feelings. The movie showes them the way they really were: good and hard fighters who cared about their comrades just as much as any allied soldier, but who didn’t just kill for fun. (Just for your information: I’m talking about the soldiers in the Wehrmacht here and not about the SS, even though not all SS-troops where that bad either. There are good and bad people in every army.)

The effort which was put in this movie is shown in every detail. The uniforms, the weapons, the landscapes, the cities…, everything really gives you the feeling the director wanted to give an accurate vision on what happened during operation Market Garden. Images from the movie were even incorporated in a documentary on this subject. That probably shows better than anything else how good this movie really is.

You probably ask yourself if there really isn’t anything negative about this movie. Of course there is, but it never really bothered me. Therefore I reward this movie with a 9/10. Perhaps a little too high according to the average IMDb user, but for me it’s sure worth it.

“Quite frankly,” observes ‘Boy’ Browning, “this kind of thing’s never been attempted before.” But it has. In 1962, “The Longest Day” gave the epic star-studded treatment to the D-Day landings, and here we are, 15 years on, doing the same for the Arnhem debacle. It has to be said, the film looks great. From the gently-tinkling light fittings in the Dutch resistors’ home to the beauty of the tank tracks in perspective, this is a gorgeously-photographed movie.

In 1944, the German armies were being pushed back across the Low Countries. The Allies’ great strategic problem was the Rhine, the wide river which formed Germany’s western border. A daring plan was conceived which would overcome the Rhine obstacle and open the road to Berlin. ‘Market Garden’, as the plan was codenamed, involved parachuting spearhead units onto the great bridges over the Rhine and securing them for the critical few hours it would take for an armoured column to drive up and relieve them.

It is easy now to point to the flaws in ‘Market Garden’, but at the time it looked like a daring and viable alternative to slogging it out against the Siegfried Line. No-one had anticipated that the Dutch people would pour out onto the streets in throngs, thinking that they had been liberated, and thus bog down the armour. The intelligence indications of heavily-equipped German units in the zone were ignored because they were inconvenient. Critically, the plan allowed for only one solitary road to be available to the Irish Guards for the all-important northward thrust. The film illustrates very effectively the way in which a plan can develop its own momentum, regardless of the shortcomings which riddle it.

The sequence of the boarding and dropping of the paratroops is a thrilling spectacle, shot on a colossal scale. The German ambush which delays the rolling of the armoured column is another terrific action sequence. Attenborough keeps tight control of a big, complex story, and interlards the large-scale stuff with ‘human scale’ passages, like James Caan’s rescue of his buddy (incidentally, the tracking shot which follows his jeep through the forest is quite remarkable).

The fighting at Nijmegen is brilliantly-filmed. Note how the street on the British side grows increasingly littered with war debris as the battle rages. Robert Redford’s assault across the river is a symphony in olive drab, leading to a wonderful moment of exhilaration.

Whether the viewer finds the singing of “Abide With Me” moving or grossly sentimental will depend on personal taste, but the subdued ending is very satisfying. ‘Market Garden’ may have helped shorten the war and may have achieved most of its immediate objectives, but it has to be seen as a tragic mistake.

The film is slick, professional and very pleasing on the eye. One can’t help wondering, however, if this kind of ‘tank opera’ was worth the effort, given that “The Longest Day” had done it all so splendidly a generation earlier.

This video portrays with great precision in an almost acted documentary way the failed attempt in September 1944 to end WWII early based on the plan conceived by Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery of El-Alemain (with Eisenhower’s approval).The Allies by this time had advanced deep into Belgium almost to The Dutch border but the advance suddenly slowed due to their out-running lines of supply and their inability to take a servicable port intact nearer their front line.Supplies were still being transported from the won Normandy beachheads a distance of over 500miles.

The Plan involved dropping British, American and Polish paratroopers at strategic bridges in the Netherlands such as The Son, The Grave, Nijmegen, to be taken by the American 82nd and 101st Airborne and the prize, Arnhem to be taken and held by British paratroops.

Once all these bridges were captured and held, The British 1st Army would drive up the road linking them, thus giving the Allies a springboard to the Rhine and Germany.It was code-named “Operation Market Garden”, Market being the airborne drop and Garden the drive up the road.That was the theory. The planners overlooked,by ignoring seemingly on purpose aerial reconnaisance photos which indicated that Dieter’s SS Panzers were resting and re-equipping in the Arnhem area. The Allies’ communications equipment had not been tested thoroughly enough e.g. “walkie-talkies” worked in open country but what about in built-up areas?Did they have the right sort of crystals fitted?The daily air drops to re-supply lightly armed paratroops could not work if the paras were not in their coded/designated drop zones. Amazingly after the strategic withdrawal from Arnhem, Montgomery is purported to have said it was “90% successful”!

This film, directed by Richard Attenborough, was made in 1977 with a galaxy of well known stars i.e.:Dirk Bogarde as General Boy Browning,Lawrence Olivier, Liv Uhlman,Ryan O’Neal, James Caan, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman,Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery and Michael Caine.They all play historical figures but for me the most effective was Edward Fox playing General Sir Brian Horrocks.The latter presented a UK TV series on WWII in the 1960’s and Fox’s mannerisms and speech patterns were unerringly similar.Please bear in mind that since the recent film “The Saving of Private Ryan”, special effects in war films have gone up a quantum leap, e.g. the havoc that bullets/bombs/morters etc can wreak on the human body.So you are looking at 1977 special effects.

Nevertheless the equipment including the DC3’s and filming of the actual paratroopers drop into The Netherlands was most impressive.Sometimes the dialogue is a little stilted to modern tastes but this is or should be speech patterns from 1944.It was General Boy Browning who stated “…but sir, I think we may be going a bridge too far” when he met with the Allied top brass to oversee the plan which he had to execute.This is certainly one of the seminal WWII war films and the only one which concentrates on this failed strategy to liberate the Low Countries.

If you can forget the famous actors and get into their characters and have a sense of modern history, this long film will stimulate you.