Talk:A Bridge Too Far

Trivia

Production

The film is an epic telling of the Allied Airborne operation code-named 'Market-Garden', in which 35,000 American, British and Polish Paratroopers were flown 300 miles and dropped behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Holland. The film had a mega budget for its time, $22 Million in 1976 (the film was released in 1977), however the producer, Joseph E. Levine, pre-sold the distribution rights all over the world (and to tempt them, used American and Foreign movie stars who had drawing power all over the world). Ultimately the distributors ended up paying Levine $26 Million for the rights to all of the domestic and foreign markets, thus making it one of the first films to make a profit, before a single screening. However, the film did not do so well in the theaters and received mixed review, so the various distributors around the world, each bore the brunt of the box office disappointments.

Their mission was to seize and hold a series of critical bridges in time for their ground armored and infantry divisions to arrive. It was the largest Airborne operation ever attempted. The title is based on a historical quote by British Lieutenant-General Frederick "Boy" Browning (portrayed in the film by Dirk Bogarde) who feared early on that they were being too ambitious and famously declared "I think we may be going a bridge too far." In the film, we only hear this line in retrospect, when General Browning mentions that he said it, to a disgusted General Roy Urquhart (Sean Connery), after the disaster that befell the British 1st Airborne at Arnhem.

Unknown Modern Tanks impersonating a Panzer

This is not a Leopard, so what is it?

Historical Notation

Was the operation a failure?

The movie's dark ending is harsh, yet historically accurate. The Allies never made it into Arnhem, the Allied invasion was halted outside Nijmegen effectively cutting off more than 10,000 British paratroopers trapped in Arnhem. Surrounded, the men of the 1st Airborne fought on for seven days, refusing to yield the North side of Arnhem bridge to a superior force, finally, after it was decided that Operation Market-Garden could not succeed, the Allies began to fall back. 8,000 British soldiers of the 1st Airborne were left behind at the mercy of the Nazis and the Dutch would not see liberation for another 7 months.

K98k

quote: A boy drafted into the Wehrmacht fights the Americans with his K98 - 7.92x57mm (this is actually no K98k, it is a type of Mauser System, but look at the rear sight. (Are you sure? It just looks like the rear sight is pulled all the way up for a high angle of fire, something a soldier would NOT do when engaging targets closer than a hundred yards, but this is a last ditch barely teenage conscript so I would assume he's not very well trained.....)

Yes, I´m sure, on the other pic it is better to see, they use mauser system rifles, but not all of them were K 98k. the k98k has a relativly flat rear sight, the rifles on this http://www.abload.de/img/btf_k98_05a50mr82d2.jpg pic, use another rearsight, called bogenvisier in german. same rifle type the boy used.

they are looking like shortened Gewehr 98. this was a modification made in big numbers to solve rifle shortage at the end of the war.

pic of gewehr 98: http://www.abload.de/img/gew98o1xe.jpg look at the rear sight! the rifle sights in the movie are not pulled up.

pic of a real k98k: http://www.mauser.org/rifles/K98k%20German/GermanK98-02_1200.jpg

note the small differences. ;-)

Thanks for the pics, but thats irrelevant because, The Pics of the K98 on IMFDB and the Geweher 98 on IMFDB are of my guns.... So I know what these rifles look like. Again I'm not contesting the difference between the two rifles, I ALREADY KNOW the difference since I own both of them, but I'm saying that the screenshot can be deceptive. I will look for possible better pics from the film. MoviePropMaster2008 17:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

M1911

Actually, the .455 Colt M1911s (not A1s) were purchased in WW1 for the Royal Flying Corps / RAF, but they were chambered in .455 Webley & Scott Auto as used in the M1913 Webley & Scott auto issued to the Royal Navy and Royal Horse Artillery (later passed on to the RAF). Most ended up being converted to .45ACP so they could use the same ammo as the many M1911A1s acquired as lend-lease, issued mainly to paras and commandos before the Canadian-made Hi Powers started arriving in early 1945.

So you're saying that the M1911s would probably by .45 acp chambered at this time anyway. Correct? that's good to know. I know for a fact that the film used .45 acp blanked guns for the actors. MoviePropMaster2008 17:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Definately would have been a .45. The .455s were purchased for the RAF because they chambered the same round as the Webley & Scott autos they'd received from the army - who'd gotten rid of them precisely because they didn't chamber the standard round. Para troops were army, even the glider pilots were - only the Germans put airborne forces under the airforce umbrella. The Brits acquired M1911A1s lend-lease and issued them mostly to Para and Commando units. It's probably a mistake giving Uruqhart a 1911 and not an A1, though at the time he joined British officers purchased their own sidearm and he might have bought a 1911 and kept it after the practice was abolished. - Nyles

Sure it's very plausible that the general had purchased a 1911 chambered in .455 W&S Auto. Why not? Generals (even in the airborne) aren't expected to actually engage in combat.So logistics wouldn't really be a concern for him. A couple boxes of pistol ammo in his Bergen (isn't that what the Brits called ther rucksack?)and a couple spare magazines on his pistol belt and he's good to go. If a general is shooting his sidearm something has gone really wrong. Case in point the sequence where he is trapped in the city and unable to reach his command would be an example of something going really wrong. I know I'm working really hard here, but I like the movie. --Jcordell 04:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, I seem to remember in a few scenes seeing German soldiers carrying Gewehr 98s - appropriate for rear-echelon garrison troops.

If you can remember the scene or timecode, I will screencap them if I can MoviePropMaster2008 17:26, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

if you watch 2:55:58 of this movie you will see germans with garands

Sorry guys

Since I created and built 99% of this page, I'm eliminating the film template, which is different than the way we did film pages when this site first started. You're free to use this template on pages you are the primary architect on. The differences are very slight, but I have always preferred the classic IMFDB page format, not the new one. Since there was never a consensus to change all pages over (and that the differences are very slight and probably not noticeable to the casual viewer), I intend to keep all pages I work on in the 'classic style'. Thanks. MoviePropMaster2008 07:26, 8 July 2010 (UTC)