MMG - Rate this movie.... A Bridge to far

[Scott Rose]

Today's movie is a bridge too far. Please vote in the poll and reply to this threads with your thoughts about the movie. What you loved... or hated about it. Thanks.

[the330thbg]

Brilliant music.

Great cast and fantastic takeoff sequence

[fotobass]

Always one of my favorite movies, and one of the last 'get-all-the-stars-we-can' films. Important story because it centers around an Allied plan that didn't work. I love that much of it was filmed on the actual locations in question.

[Mudge]

Always one of my favorite movies, and one of the last 'get-all-the-stars-we-can' films. Important story because it centers around an Allied plan that didn't work. I love that much of it was filmed on the actual locations in question.

Pretty much my thoughts. That said...here are some more just to fill out the post.
The Allies were successful because of their ability to make decisions "on the scene". Don't know how much of the internecine bickering, shown in the movie, was fact (the, "I don't take my orders from you" type of stuff.) but if some of that really happened, heads should have rolled.

Mudge the critic

[Jerry O'Neill]

I love the film, but I feel it get s a little muddy in the middle, story-wise.
Fantastic effort overall bring such a complicated event to film so the masses acan understand it.
Again, John Addison's score is wonderful!
Jerry

[RAMC181]

I love this film, and know quite a number of the cast and crew personally (not the big-name ones though )
To try to condense Op Comet and Op Market Garden into one book is hard enough, to try to make a move from that without missing things out or compressing things would be impossible.

Gets a four-star from me, for a continuation of a myth or two and the entirely understandable iffy props in places.

I recommend watching this back-to-back with Theirs is the Glory, filmed on location in 1945 and with many of the guys that were actually there a year earlier.

PB

[Aeronut]

I've just returned from Arnhem and the annual remberence service so I may be biased about this film.
It's main weakness was that its history of the second world war from an American point of view ie it was Montgomery's idea so wrong from the out set.
I'd agree about watching 'Their's is the glory' which was made less than a year after Market Garden in the ruins of Arnhem / Oosterbeek, using many of the soldiers who were there (that's why the acting is so bad). I dread to think of the effect that had on their PTSD.

[JDK]

Certainly one of my favourite films, and one I know pretty well having researched some of the background over the years.

It's main weakness was that its history of the second world war from an American point of view ie it was Montgomery's idea so wrong from the out set.

How so? It was Montgomery's plan, and the film was far from an American re-write of history*, dealing with the Germans, Dutch, British and American stories pretty even-handedly, IMHO.

The film was directed by a (very) British chap, Levine was probably better thought of as Jewish as much as he was American, the book was by an Irishman, adapted (pretty faithfully, IMHO) by an American.

The tank chaps having a 'brewing up' rather than pushing on was the only potentially ant-British element in the film that was unsupported by a real even AFAIK. Certainly there's plenty of American heroics, but all based on real events as were the British heroics. I've never read that any of the real commanders did not feel that their roles were not depicted correctly, and there were a remarkable number of the British commanders alive and involved. (Actor Bogarde didn't like the portrayal of Browning, but it's far from a character assassination - they could've taken a number of real traits and made him look worse than the film did.)

Incidentally, following the screenwriter thread, here's an interesting factoid re- Yeager and The Right Stuff:

[William] Goldman was the original screenwriter for the film version of Tom Wolfe's novel The Right Stuff; director Philip Kaufman wrote his own screenplay without using Goldman's material, because Kaufman wanted to include Chuck Yeager as a character; Goldman did not.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Goldman

Good point about PTSD, I agree! Of course that 'didn't exist' as far as the support of soldiers existed then.

Regards,

*See the grizzly Pearl Harbor or Uwhateveritwas for that kind of junk. To ave John B mentioning it, the British equivalent is The Sound Barrier.

[Pathfinder]

The tank chaps having a 'brewing up' rather than pushing on was the only potentially ant-British element in the film that was unsupported by a real even AFAIK.

I don't usually contribute to "pole" threads, but this one is different.

I would give ABTF a hard 4+ for condensing the scope of Operation Market-Garden into the time allotted. Historically it is generally accurate with the usual compositing common to Hollywood regarding characters and events.

My personal special interest area is Pathfinders--which grew out of a study of the 504th PIR of the 82nd--the guys who made the crossing of the Waal.

To the initial point above, I am flattered to say that two of the officers who led the crossing of the Waal River consider me their friend, Jim Megellas and Moffatt Burriss. Both have written books of their wartime experiences which are in print.

Contrary to the film version of history, it is accepted fact (by those who were there) that Julian Cook (CO 3/504) [Robert Redford] did not make the initial crossing with H and I Companies. It should also be noted that the crossing shown was the first of several. In each case the boats were returned to the starting point by members of C/307 Airborne Engineer Battalion.

Specifically to the point, the American-Brit scene happened--but--It was not Cook (Redford) who confronted the British tank commander (Capt. (later Lord) Carrington)---it was Moffatt Burris. You can find several interviews of Moffatt and Maggie on YouTube as well as in extracts from documentaries such as "History Vs Hollywood".

The chaplain depicted (though not named) in the initial crossing is Delbert Kuehl--another hero I have had the honor and privilege to correspond with.

One 504 vet I knew and corresponded with for many years told me, "Combat, especially close combat, is savage. What happened after our boats hit that river bank in Holland was the absolute reduction of man into animal..."

After that...a seemingly insignificant aside in the "get the paint right" category...the film shows the troops making the crossing in the newly issued M-43 OD (green) combat uniforms. In fact the 504 was the only airborne element that made the jump in Holland still wearing the old M-42 (khaki) jump suits which were standard in Italy and Normandy.

[TimAPNY]

I watched the DVD and it had the worst sound mix ever! I'm not sure if it has been fixed but I've read lots of people say the same thing...just a side note to the movie if anyone was thinking of buying it.

I enjoyed the movie and it does tell an important story.

Tim

[JDK]

Pathfinder - thanks for a very interesting update and correction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_ ... Nijmegen_3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Carr ... Carrington

[Simon Beck]

I enjoyed the Dak take-off sequence and paratroop drop but found that the story
ultimately suffered due to the script having to cram in screen-time for all the stars.

[Wesley]

I'm a military vehicle buff, so that has to be the thing that jumps out in my mind. Fortunately the movie is more of a airborne movie. To me this movie is (Hopefully) on of the last big budget films that was pre CGI so they had to work with props, and modern vehicles with WW2 paint. There were a few Shermans and Micheal Caines scout car were good but of corse the german Tigers were 70's ear Leapords.That said the acting was great and story good.