“The climax cannot be revealed here”

Andy Duncan had read the book, ‘The Bridge over the River Kwai’, and so knew how the story ended before he saw the film in 1959.

The 1954 Western Mail book reviewer wrote,

Of course, the climax cannot be revealed here. It is sufficient to say that it is a good one, packed with suspense.

The story of Colonel Nicholson and his bridge across the River Kwai can be recommended as interesting reading.

 

But for those who were not familiar with the story, the film review published in The Canberra Times in Feburary 1958 gave away a little too much:

The film was made in Ceylon, and the Ceylonese scenery is superb.

The story does condemn the futility of war, but it seemed a pity that most of the leading characters had to die.

Sessue Hayakawa is the commander, Colonel Saito. Throughout the tension and brutality which characterises the beginning of the film, and life in the Japanese prisoner of war camp, he yet compels the sympathy of the audience, especially in his feeling of failure. He, too, is killed in the closing scenes, before he had an opportunity to kill himself.

William Holden is good as the American, Shears, who makes a miraculous escape and yet is forced to return and dies as the bridge crumbles to destruction.

Was the art of the movie review so different in the 1950s? Or was the book so well-known?

 

Sources

1954 ‘BOOKS AND AUTHORS’, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 – 1954), 5 August, p. 31. [ONLINE] Available at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article39364004 [Accessed 5 Jun 2016].

1958 ‘Gripping Realism In Fine Columbia Film’, The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 – 1995), 5 February, p. 3. [ONLINE] Available at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91257015 [Accessed 5 Jun 2016].