The Final A Movie A Day: A BRIDGE TOO FAR (1977)
Hail Mary, full of grace. Hail Mary, full of grace…

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with today’s installment of A Movie A Day. [For those now joining us, A Movie A Day was my attempt at filling in gaps in my film knowledge. My DVD collection is thousands strong, many of them films I haven’t seen yet, but picked up as I scoured used DVD stores. Each day I pulled a previously unseen film from my collection or from my DVR and discussed it here. Each movie had some sort of connection to the one before it, be it cast or crew member. This is the last entry, marking 215 films in 7 months] And now we have finally come to the final entry into A Movie A Day. A BRIDGE TOO FAR marks the 215th film in the column’s history, which lasted 7 months. The Word document I use for all my AMADS is well over 1400 pages long at this point, filled with each coded entry starting with HARPER. In my original concept for this column I thought this would be more blog-like with entries ranging from full-fledged review to a few paragraphs if I didn’t have the time. But a pattern started emerging rather quickly. I couldn’t just write a small paragraph or two even for movies I didn’t care for… hell, almost especially for movies I didn’t care for. Watching these films spanning 8 decades worth of cinema, from short Busby Berkeley comedies to epic war movies like today’s column-closing film has given me a much deeper appreciation of film and filmmaking and just as much of that comes from watching the films that have fizzled and not worked. I believe Stanley Kubrick once said that he always went to the cinema to see every new release. Someone asked him why go see the bad stuff, the things you know are going to suck and he answered that he learns more from bad films than he does good ones. I don’t know if I’d go that far, at least from an audience member’s standpoint, but there is a truth to that. Figuring out how certain films fell apart is just as important as recognizing when it works and why. So, with only one exception… my one-word review of cheap-o horror flick SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT… each entry into this A Movie A Day column has been a substantial review. Some longers, some shorter, but none throwaways (except for the aforementioned one-word review).

Ending the column on A BRIDGE TOO FAR seemed to be a stroke of great luck. I initially picked it to end the column because of wanting to keep the connected nature of this series by ending the column with a film scripted by William Goldman, who wrote HARPER, the very first AMAD. But after watching it I came to find that it works on other levels as well. It’s an epic film, for starters, chronicalling a huge operation toward the end of the War, a huge push into German territory with the aim of controlling a series of bridges in Holland that lead right into the heart of Germany and opens up supply lines for the allies. It’s also a remarkable film. Not just for the filmmaking, which is top notch, or the cast which is insanely huge, but because it’s the prime example of the type of film we will never, ever see again. We can definitely see movies on this scale today, for sure. Even bigger. Movies like LOTR. But what we will never see again is the sheer level of manpower and real eye-popping massive shots of hundreds of planes unloading thousands of paratroopers… real, people jumping out of airplanes (or at least real dummies), littering the sky with thousands of floating chutes and bodies. Why hire real WW2 craft, fuel them, fly them and hire thousands of people to jump out for a few moments in a three hour long film when you can just CGI it?

I don’t want to start an anti-CGI rant because I don’t hate CGI as a tool, but there is without a doubt something missing, especially in real non-fantasy stories, with CGI. Something not as impactful as seeing real people doing real stunts, seeing a cast of thousands marching through wartorn Holland and Germany, etc. Richard Attenborough’s direction is also unique to this era. We don’t often see his assured directing today. Attenborough isn’t afraid to let the actors propel the story, not the editing, but he’s also keenly aware of visually telling the story and keeping the audience’s eyes occupied with interesting framing and angles. Also, many of the actors and crew were actually in the War, some of them even involved in one way or another in the actual Project Market Garden, including composer John Addison who was in the XXX Corps during this operation and actor Dirk Bogarde who served in British Intellegence during the war and was actually sent to Arnhem. There’s a soul to their work, especially Addison’s amazing score, that wouldn’t be there if there wasn’t a drive to honor the memories of those onscreen. And so many of the actual soldiers Cornelius Ryan’s book followed were still around and consulting on this project that there is a further air of authenticity that is almost impossible now as well since we’re now 64 years out of the War, meaning that the youngest surviving soldiers would be at least 81 years old by now. For those reasons and more we will never see a movie like A BRIDGE TOO FAR again. Not just in execution, but in concept as well. The Nazis are clearly the bad guys, but they’re not portrayed as true evil, thanks mostly to a fantastic turn by Maximilian Schell as the lead German General Bittrich. He shows some compassion and a lot of intelligence as the higher ups on both sides show nothing but careless incompetence.

I loved that about this movie. General Montgomery’s Market Garden plan is risky to begin with and then Dirk Bogarde, playing Lt. General Browning, further fucks things up by ignoring crucial intel about Germany’s panzer tank divisions being in the drop zones in order to not scrap the project. But on the German’s side there’s a ditzy General (above Schell’s Bittrich) who keeps radically mininterpreting the situation. He is told that the allies are after the bridges when they start parachuting in behind their lines, but he doesn’t buy it. They’re all coming for him! He’s the most important thing in this area, afterall. He also ignores the Market Garden documents hand-delivered to him (recovered from a crashed plane) as fakes to throw them off the real objective. In other words, this operation, aiming to end the war early in ’44, was a giant rat-fuck, but if either side actually had their shit together it could have either won the war a year earlier or been a massive blow to the allies’ assault. There’s no main character for us to follow. The operation is the main character. There are multiple divisions of Scottish, American, British and Polish troops crucial to making this thing work. The idea is to parachute a single strike force within short distance of three bridges. Each one will work to secure and hold the bridges as the main force pushes through the German lines, leading a fast and straight line up to Arnhem, the final and most curcial bridge. The whole thing is supposed to last 2 days, but of course things don’t go to plan, thanks greatly to the main force running into that ignored Panzer division. Anthony Hopkins leads the group at the furthest bridge in Arnhem, commendearing a house overlooking the bridge and setting up his guys in defensive positions. Of everybody, he gets the most beat to shit, waiting for his ammo and reinforcements to come as Schell takes the sleepy peaceful little neighborhood and destroys it with his tanks trying to get at Hopkins and the Brits.

A cigar-champing Elliot Gould and his American force are to take the first bridge. I assume Addison didn’t have a particular love for the American forces because when we first meet them they’re running along deserted woods to an almost comic score, looking more than a little goofy. The score reminded me of Robert Folk’s POLICE ACADEMY score. Up beat, but silly. They run up to their small wooden bridge, Gould grinning hugely and el-blamo… it disappears in a splash of water and splintered wood. Sean Connery leads the Scots in the middle bridge, but they’re overtaken almost instantly thanks to half their equipment, including their armored jeeps, doesn’t make it to the ground.

Meanwhile, back at command Gene Hackman, playing a pissed off Polish Major, is waiting to be put into action, but due to fog on the ground he has to sit out the battle while his comrades die trying to wait for his help. Leading the main force up the road is Michael Caine. And we’re not done yet. There are also a few stories following American GIs, the best of which is James Caan as an experienced Sgt. who promises to look after his green bunkmate. When they land, his bunkmate’s squad is overtaken immediately. Caan searches the bodies, finding him, bullethole in the side of his head. Caan is determined to get him out and props him up in a jeep and quickly realizes that he’s right in the middle of an advancing Panzer division, surrounded by Germans.

Caan’s great, but he’s in maybe 10 minutes of this three hour movie. Robert Redford is another American Major who is drafted to do a suicidal daytime river crossing in order to retake the second bridge which is completely occupied by the Nazis. The best way to take a bridge is to attack from both ends, of course, but crossing the river in the day time is crazy and nothing goes their way, leading to a scenario where their boats are being blown out of the water and those avoiding shells are using rifles, hands, helmets, anything to row them toward the shore, Robert Redford repeating “Hail Mary Full Of Grace” over and over again as his group is blown apart.

Oh, oh! And noneother than John Ratzenberger is in Redford’s group! How cool is that!?! Even with all that, that’s still leaving out Laurence Olivier as a Dutch Doctor helping the wounded, Liv Ullmann as a Dutch wife and mother who gives her house to the Allies to use as a hospital after her underground resistance husband and son are killed, Denholm Elliott (!!!) as an affable British meteorologist who has to try to explain to the pissed off Polish Gene Hackman why he can’t get his troops into action, Ryan O’Neal as a young General trying to create some kind of order out of this mess (all with a fractured spine from his jump), Christopher Good’s scene-stealing performance as Hopkins’ extremely British number two… always quick with a quip, especially in the scene where he rejects the German’s surrender… fantastic work… And there are tons more who deserve much praise, but that’s the bulk of the movie. Cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth brings his great milky haze look to this film (he also shot SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN II, so you should know exactly the look I’m talking about) and William Goldman is in top form with his script that is atypical in structure, but still somehow organized and streamlined. Final Final Thoughts: A BRIDGE TOO FAR is an entertaining and engaging epic, one that will stay with me. I can tell. You know how you get those feelings when you see a movie and you just know it’s going to be one that doesn’t dissolve amongst the rest? I can’t imagine the nightmare of trying to organize this film, but I’m thankful for the results. I couldn’t imagine a better film to close out this column.

And that’s it. We’ve come to the end, my friends. Don’t be too sad, though. This weekend I’m going to gather my favorites of the 215 films and rank them into some kind of workable list… Kind of an AMAD Awards Ceremony if you will. And I’ve been hinting at something special that I’ve been developing… I can finally say it. Starting Monday I will be posting a special run of Celebrity A Movie A Days from friends and constant readers within the industry. I’ve asked some very special people to contribute their own A Movie A Day one-shots and we can expect at least 5, maybe more. I guess I will close this thing out by giving my most sincere thanks to everybody who has followed along with me since June 2nd and kept up the vintage film discussion. This column has easily been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done for this site. The sheer amount of email, talkbacks and in-person gratitude has meant a lot to me and I thank you all for it. You’re going to see me around a little bit more on the day to day, especially now that Awards season is upon us and film festival season is starting. Lots of interviews to do and movies to see and report back on. But even with all that, I will be keeping up a vintage film discussion here. Still don’t know what I’m going to call it, but at least once a week, maybe more, I’ll write up a vintage film I’ve seen. I mean, hell… I still have a year’s worth of unwatched movies on DVD here. I can’t just let them sit there unwatched now can I? -Quint quint@aintitcool.com

Here’s the entire 215 movie run of A Movie A Day: June 2nd: Harper
June 3rd: The Drowning Pool
June 4th: Papillon
June 5th: Gun Crazy
June 6th: Never So Few
June 7th: A Hole In The Head
June 8th: Some Came Running
June 9th: Rio Bravo
June 10th: Point Blank
June 11th: Pocket Money
June 12th: Cool Hand Luke
June 13th: The Asphalt Jungle
June 14th: Clash By Night
June 15th: Scarlet Street
June 16th: Killer Bait (aka Too Late For Tears)
June 17th: Robinson Crusoe On Mars
June 18th: City For Conquest
June 19th: San Quentin
June 20th: 42nd Street
June 21st: Dames
June 22nd: Gold Diggers of 1935
June 23rd: Murder, My Sweet
June 24th: Born To Kill
June 25th: The Sound of Music
June 26th: Torn Curtain
June 27th: The Left Handed Gun
June 28th: Caligula
June 29th: The Elephant Man
June 30th: The Good Father
July 1st: Shock Treatment
July 2nd: Flashback
July 3rd: Klute
July 4th: On Golden Pond
July 5th: The Cowboys
July 6th: The Alamo
July 7th: Sands of Iwo Jima
July 8th: Wake of the Red Witch
July 9th: D.O.A.
July 10th: Shadow of A Doubt
July 11th: The Matchmaker
July 12th: The Black Hole
July 13th: Vengeance Is Mine
July 14th: Strange Invaders
July 15th: Sleuth
July 16th: Frenzy
July 17th: Kingdom of Heaven: The Director’s Cut
July 18th: Cadillac Man
July 19th: The Sure Thing
July 20th: Moving Violations
July 21st: Meatballs
July 22nd: Cast a Giant Shadow
July 23rd: Out of the Past
July 24th: The Big Steal
July 25th: Where Danger Lives
July 26th: Crossfire
July 27th: Ricco, The Mean Machine
July 28th: In Harm’s Way
July 29th: Firecreek
July 30th: The Cheyenne Social Club
July 31st: The Man Who Knew Too Much
August 1st: The Spirit of St. Louis
August 2nd: Von Ryan’s Express
August 3rd: Can-Can
August 4th: Desperate Characters
August 5th: The Possession of Joel Delaney
August 6th: Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In The Bronx
August 7th: Start the Revolution Without Me
August 8th: Hell Is A City
August 9th: The Pied Piper
August 10th: Partners
August 11th: Barry Lyndon
August 12th: The Skull
August 13th: The Hellfire Club
August 14th: Blood of the Vampire
August 15th: Terror of the Tongs
August 16th: Pirates of Blood River
August 17th: The Devil-Ship Pirates
August 18th: Jess Franco’s Count Dracula
August 19th: Dracula A.D. 1972
August 20th: The Stranglers of Bombay
August 21st: Man, Woman & Child
August 22nd: The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane
August 23rd: The Young Philadelphians
August 24th: The Rack
August 25th: Until They Sail
August 26th: Somebody Up There Likes Me
August 27th: The Set-Up
August 28th: The Devil & Daniel Webster
August 29th: Cat People
August 30th: The Curse of the Cat People
August 31st: The 7th Victim
September 1st: The Ghost Ship
September 2nd: Isle of the Dead
September 3rd: Bedlam
September 4th: Black Sabbath
September 5th: Black Sunday
September 6th: Twitch of the Death Nerve
September 7th: Tragic Ceremony
September 8th: Lisa & The Devil
September 9th: Baron Blood
September 10th: A Shot In The Dark
September 11th: The Pink Panther
September 12th: The Return of the Pink Panther
September 13th: The Pink Panther Strikes Again
September 14th: Revenge of the Pink Panther
September 15th: Trail of the Pink Panther
September 16th: The Real Glory
September 17th: The Winning of Barbara Worth
September 18th: The Cowboy and the Lady
September 19th: Dakota
September 20th: Red River
September 21st: Terminal Station
September 22nd: The Search
September 23rd: Act of Violence
September 24th: Houdini
September 25th: Money From Home
September 26th: Papa’s Delicate Condition
September 27th: Dillinger
September 28th: Battle of the Bulge
September 29th: Daisy Kenyon
September 30th: Laura
October 1st: The Dunwich Horror
October 2nd: Experiment In Terror
October 3rd: The Devil’s Rain
October 4th: Race With The Devil
October 5th: Salo, Or The 120 Days of Sodom
October 6th: Bad Dreams
October 7th: The House Where Evil Dwells
October 8th: Memories of Murder
October 9th: The Hunger
October 10th: I Saw What You Did
October 11th: I Spit On Your Grave
October 12th: Naked You Die
October 13th: The Wraith
October 14th: Silent Night, Bloody Night
October 15th: I Bury The Living
October 16th: The Beast Must Die
October 17th: Hellgate
October 18th: He Knows You’re Alone
October 19th: The Thing From Another World
October 20th: The Fall of the House of Usher
October 21st: Audrey Rose
October 22nd: Who Slew Auntie Roo?
October 23rd: Wait Until Dark
October 24th: Dead & Buried
October 25th: A Bucket of Blood
October 26th: The Bloodstained Shadow
October 27th: I, Madman
October 28th: Return to Horror High
October 29th: Die, Monster, Die
October 30th: Epidemic
October 31st: Student Bodies
November 1st: Black Widow
November 2nd: The Ghost & Mrs. Muir
November 3rd: Flying Tigers
November 4th: Executive Action
November 5th: The Busy Body
November 6th: It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World
November 7th: Libeled Lady
November 8th: Up The River
November 9th: Doctor Bull
November 10th: Judge Priest
November 11th: Ten Little Indians
November 12th: Murder On The Orient Express
November 13th: Daniel
November 14th: El Dorado
November 15th: The Gambler
November 16th: Once Upon A Time In America
November 17th: Salvador
November 18th: Best Seller
November 19th: The Holcroft Covenant
November 20th: Birdman of Alcatraz
November 21st: The Train
November 22nd: Gunfight At The O.K. Corral
November 23rd: Mystery Street
November 24th: Border Incident
November 25th: The Tin Star
November 26th: On The Beach
November 27th: Twelve O’Clock High
November 28th: Gentleman’s Agreement
November 29th: Panic In The Streets
November 30th: The Hot Rock
December 1st: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
December 2nd: The Day of the Dolphin
December 3rd: Carnal Knowledge
December 4th: The Cincinnati Kid
December 5th: Pocketful of Miracles
December 6th: Mikey & Nicky
December 7th: Two-Minute Warning
December 8th: The Sentinel
December 9th: How To Steal A Million
December 10th: What’s New Pussycat?
December 11th: Being There
December 17th: The Party
December 18th: Casino Royale
December 19th: The StrangerDecember 20th: Brother Orchid
December 21st: The Petrified Forest
December 22nd: Moontide
December 23rd: Notorious
December 24th: The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
December 25th: The High Commissioner
December 26th: The Silent Partner
December 27th: Payday
December 28th: A Stranger Is Watching
December 29th: The New Kids
December 30th: Serial
December 31st: The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
January 1st: Irma La Douce
January 2nd: The Prisoner of Second Avenue
January 3rd: The Goodbye Girl
January 4th: Lost In Yonkers
January 5th: The Sunshine Boys
January 6th: California Suite
January 7th: A Bridge Too Far