A Bridge Too Far

1/12/2023

How do spoilers work with historical movies? Can we reasonably assume that everyone already knows how Market Garden turned out, or are we doing the Millennial thing where we are assuming people don't know where Arnhem is, let alone Antwerp, let alone Holland, let alone who participated in WWII? The Nazis were part of that one right? Anyway, this movie has everyone in it, just about everyone that was anyone in 1977 and, from all appearances all of Hollywood was tied up in the making of this film right down to A-list actors in minor roles. So you kind of know that the acting is there and top notch... and so is the direction. At least the direction is about as good as you can assume for something that attempts to tell a little too much of the story all at once. Don't get me wro

6/4/2023

Usually when you read the term "stellar" applied to a cast, it's more for marketing purposes to convince us that the cast is better than we might want to think - well not so, here. Connery, Caine, O'Neal, Olivier, Bogarde, Hackman, Hopkins, Caan, Schell & Liv Ullmann all chip into this true telling of "Operation Market Garden" - a co-ordinated attempt by the allies to use almost anything that will fly to parachute troops behind Nazi lines. Their purpose: to secure strategically important river crossings before the enemy have a chance to blow them to smithereens. Their missions are fraught with dangers - bad intelligence, bad weather as well as a tenacious and well established enemy. The planning and actions scenes give a clear dramatic indication of just how logistically complex and risky

4/22/2025

**_Star-studded cinematic account of Operation Market Garden_** In September, 1944, the Allies unleash an ambitious operation to secure key bridges in the Netherlands, which would facilitate a quick advance into Germany and have the boys home by Christmas. Unfortunately, the Germans’ defensive capabilities and willpower are stronger than expected. “A Bridge Too Far” (1977) covers the largest airborne operation in history up to that point with a great cast and several memorable sequences involving actors like Anthony Hopkins, James Caan, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Sean Connery and so on. It’s a straight war film in the manner of “The Longest Day” that refuses to get artsy, like, say, “Apocalypse Now.” The flick effectively illustrates how plans can look great in the comfort of a