This week’s pick is Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far (1977) which was based on the Cornelius Ryan novel about the Allied airborne invasion of Holland in September 1944. A Bridge Too Far is a sprawling Hollywood epic, filmed in the same tradition as Ryan’s earlier adaptation The Longest Day (1962) which was based on the D-Day invasion in France. A Bridge Too Far has over thirty of the most acclaimed international stars of the seventies, and even today, as the military and civilian individuals involved in what was known as “Operation Market Garden.”
By September 1944, the German army was in full retreat from France and the low countries (Belgium & The Netherlands) as the allied push from Normandy and Belgium began advancing East towards the German frontier. Due to supply shortages having to be driven from the Normandy beach head, to over five hundred miles away, made the advances come to a screeching halt due to Patton and British General Montgomery needing supplies for both their armies in order for the assault into Germany.
Montgomery proposed an idea to American General Eisenhower (Supreme Commander of the allied expeditionary force in Europe) to invade Holland with over 35,000 paratroopers, and seize a series of bridges over the Rhine, and then advance into Germany to capture industrial factories in the Ruhr, which was the industrial heart of Germany, and where most of their war manufacturing plants were located. Like all battles in the middle of long wars, it was hoped that this bold plan was to end the fighting by Christmas. General Browning (Bogarde) was quoted in a meeting with General Montgomery that they might be going “A bridge too far” with such a plan.
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