A Bridge Too Far - a Thought from Woody

Comments · 402

• FL

  @flatbat8571 · 2 years ago

  Edward Fox as Horrocks is my favourite portrayal of a historical figure. The two men knew each other, so Fox spent a summer with Horrocks to capture his style of delivery

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• BO

  @bobleicht5295 · 2 years ago (edited)

  Great show, Woody; can’t argue with any of your opinions. BTW, as an 82d vet, was privileged to participate in the daily Nijmegen memorial bridge crossing earlier this year, in honor of the men killed in the assault crossing of the River Waal on this day in 1944.

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• SC

  @scotttaylor7767 · 2 years ago

  Thanks for a terrific show on a movie that I’m sure gave so much pleasure to us school kids in the 1970’s. We were fortunate to grow up in an era of classic war movies. Made by and large by people who had lived through that war. I’m reminded of the story William Goldman tells of going to dinner with John Frost. And him begging him to take out the surrender scene on the bridge. Goldman wanted to pump up Frost as much as possible and make him the hero of the movie.  But Frost didn’t want that. He knew the real heroes of Market Garden were buried in Holland. And Goldman realised he had been treating Frost as a fictional character in his script and not a real person. That to me shows the character of that generation. These people fought to defeat Nazi Germany because they knew it was the morally right thing to do. They didn’t do it for glory or personal prestige.

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• LO

  @lorencain9551 · 2 years ago

  One advantage of populating the film with recognizable movie stars is that it helped the audience keep track of where things were happening. For example, when they saw Connery, they knew they were watching events at Arnhem, when they saw O'Neal, they were at Nijmegen, Caine was on the road trying to reach Arnhem, etc.

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• JU

  @juliancribb813 · 2 years ago

  I remember having a few drinks with ‘Shan’ Hackett, in the Adelphi Hotel in Perth. He had just released his book on WW3. He was a brigadier with the paratroops dropped on Arnhem, was badly wounded in the battle and his life was saved by a German doctor. Later he was rescued by the Dutch resistance, nursed back to health and able to escape toAllied lines. He was charming company and, over numerous beers, recalled what he could of the battle most vividly. He regarded it as ‘ a bit of a disaster’, as I recall. Like my dad, he received 2 DSOs.

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• JI

  @jimplummer88 · 2 years ago

  Gene Hackman is one of the best character actors ever.

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• GA

  @GazzaLDN · 2 years ago (edited)

  Perhaps the only big budget film that showed the massive Fist the British Army was in 1944/45 on the continent, all the major allied Tank actions were on the British / Canadian axis of advance. The Music for the film is brilliant.

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• ID

  @Idahoguy10157 · 2 years ago

  I find the James Caan scene adds to the film. As a personal vignette

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• JO

  @josephinekush5056 · 2 years ago

  One of Arnhem's unsung is actor, broadcaster, correspondent & singer, Stanley Maxted. Born in England but raised almost from infancy in Toronto, Ontario, Maxted, seconded to the BBC from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) reported from the front during Market Garden & created live recordings during the battle @ Arnhem. He played himself during the 1946 filming of, There's Was the  Glory. (His lack of a British accent is quite noticeable.) Maxted stated many times both publicly & privately, that one of the most memorable experiences of his long career was to hear the familiar sounding voices of the Canadian engineers as they shouted instructions to the survivors of the fight as they neared the western bank of the river during the evacuation.  Oddly, but then again not, Maxted's reporting, like those efforts of Canadian engineers are hardly mentioned. While not directly related to the film A Bridge Too Far, I post the above because most fellow Canadians following this fine series are almost totally ignorant of these contributions to the Market Garden story. Particularly Maxted.

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• JA

  @JamieLundie_WR25JL22 · 2 years ago

  lost count how many times myself and my brother watched this with our Grandad, along with longest day, the dirty dozen Kelly's heroes etc. love them all and I think this was my Grandads way of telling us about WW2 as kids because like many other WW2 veterans he didn't speak about it

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• TH

  @THEOUTCASTSCREATIVE · 2 years ago

  Woody you so should have had me on for this. I could have offered so much context.

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• NI

  @nickwoolmer5037 · 2 years ago

  Thank you for taking the time to reply to my comments, love WW2TV

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