A Bridge Too Far

Hey you guys, just the other night I watched a Bridge Too Far and I was wondering, how accurate is that movie anyway?

 

Do you mean the way Elliot Gould had to tell the Royal Engineers what to do or the way in the film version the US gliders didn't totally screw-up?

No.9

 

General Urquhart described the film as 'A reasonably accurate spectacular' and that's a fair summing-up.

For a mainstream Hollywood movie which was made for a profit, it makes a reasonable effort to tell a complicated story with overall accuracy.

But, in details, there are probably 1,000 inaccuracies in the film. Treat it as an 'introduction to Arnhem', then go read the books.....

 

Extra nurking (for me), is that while it was a United Artists production, it was directed by Dickie 'darling' Attenborough and pushed as a British film. It's a shame the director is incapable of exhibiting a fraction of the balls the real characters had when it comes to fact and loyalty!
He is consistent in one talent however

No.9

 

In the German translation, General Bittrich says after the British refusal to surrender: "Arnheim... auslöschen." (Extinct Arnheim.)

a) Is this the original wording in the movie?
b) Is this authentic?

 

In the original film, the comment is translated by subtitle as 'Flatten Arnhem'. Unfortunately, Ryan does not attribute any comments in his book via page notes but he did interview Bittrich extensively in his research.

So I'd assume that this was Bittrich's own recollection, but the only way to check would be to have access to Ryan's research notes.

 

My next door neighbor in OZ is Polish and served with the paras told me he walked out on the movie half way.

Any conversation I make of it exudes words from him such as "Abomination" and "Terrible".

He has fundamental issues with its accuracy I think

 

steve mcqueen was asked 2 be in a bridge 2 far buy attenborough but he knocked it back. the film would of been a lot better with mcqueen in the frame . i thought james caan was good though........

 

considering all the high-end actors (Hopkins, Connery, Redford, Caan etc) I couldn't get passed all the errors...too bad

DUCE

 

Hi,
Just thought i'd add my bit to this. My grandfather fought at Arnhem and loved the movie 'A bridge too far'. He thought it showed the the bravery and heroics of the men that fought at Arnhem. You can judge the film for how accurate they were in their facts but lets not forget the brave young men that fought and died there.
It was a shame that the film didn't concentrate more on the actual units and what they went through during the battle. Also the figures that Sean Connery says at the end are certainly not factual. He came out with about 5,000 in the end.
But in the end its a Hollywood film and not a documentry so there are bound to be some things that are not accurate so lets enjoy the film and remember those lads, (no matter what nationality they were) that fought and died trying to bring the war to a close quicker, though it made no difference in the end.

Mike

 

Welcome to the Forums, Mike and many thanks for the input.

If you've any information at all about your Grand-dad's service there's a coterie of 'Arnhem Buffs' here ( including me, AirborneMedic and RedBaron ) who'd be really interested !

 

Hi Martin,
Thankyou for the welcome to the forum. My grandfather rarely spoke of his time in Arnhem but i'll try to answer any questions that you have. One of my future projects is to build a working model of the battle so i'm doing some research into the geography of the area at the moment, i.e contours, the type of building the Dutch had etc. If you have any questions then you can email me or put me on hotmail messenger and i'll do what i can to answer any questions, even if they do take me a day or two to get answered.

It would of been nice if the film had actually concentrated on what hell all the units went through and not concentrated on figure heads such as Sean Connery. Though i don't think that at the time that the film was made it was possible to show that sort of hell on the big screen with special effects. The individual acts of heroism during those long days and nights of fighting was not shown which is a shame as there were some amazing acts of bravery.

Anyway enough waffle, any questions get in contact and thanks for the welcome.

Regards

Mike

 

G''day

To single out the unit''s would require a sort of Band of Brothers aproach to give every unit it's own episode, that would be a good serie's to make. Have to ring Spielberg about this

Popski

 

I'm not saying to that it should of been about one unit, what i'm saying is that it should'nt of been about the the major officers. They could of made the film about the experiences of any of the units that took part in the battle.
As for Spielberg doing it, nah, he would just glorified the way the Yanks won the war for us. Not saying they didn't help but they kill more of there own men and their allies than they do of the enemy.
There are much better directors than him. i wouldn't give him a commericial to do.

 

'Dickie' Lonsdale ! Well, for the true enthusiast, 'Theirs Is The Glory' is the Arnhem film to watch....

 

”Now hold on there Pilgrim, Arnhem may not have been our show but there were plenty that were.”

It’s all about facts and credit where (and to whom) credit is due, isn’t it wiz?

No.9

 

hmmm...just a thought, (esp in lieu of John Wayne's comment )

Although Arnhem is almost universally bashed as the WW2's greatest allied failure; I wonder how many died in Arnhem vs how many died on Omaha + Utah beach. Ok its not apples vs apples but we could do a % loss comparison. I was curious as Sapper's comment about how the brits landed with engineers to remove obstacles contributed to them winning their bit of turf with less casualties.

On that note then, another good comparison would be the Omaha+Utah losses vs how many died on Sword (and the other beach I can't remember at the moment )

I just get a bit agro when (in light of the Brits success at Sword) the Brit's landing gets classed as "an easy landing" vs the slaughter at Omaha but when the Brits get plastered at Arnhem its a failure! Just goes to show Americans can market anything

sorry for the rant and my wayward way of making a point...

 

Perhaps it is because Omaha was taken whereas Arnhem was not. A failure is a failure.

 

A good point, but they did take all but one of the bridges

 

That one bridge kept them from accomplishing the overall mission. that is what counts.