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The Bridge (1959) Certificate PG

The Bridge

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Rated 3.5 stars
Average rating
(66%)
 
Starring: Folker Bohnet | Fritz Wepper | Michael Hinz | Frank Glaubrecht | Karl Michael Balzer | Volker Lechtenbrink | Günther Hoffmann | Cordula Trantow | Wolfgang Stumpf | Günter Pfitzmann | Heinz Spitzner | Siegfried Schürenberg | Ruth Hausmeister | Eva Vaitl
Director: Bernhard Wicki
Studio: DIGITAL CLASSICS DVD
Run time: 188 mins
Genres: Action/Adventure | Drama
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Released: October 19, 2009

The Oscar-nominated classic by Bernhard Wicki. The famous and shocking anti-war movie from the fifties: eight schoolboys, still under-age, are drafted into the German Army during the last days of the war in April 1945. Entirely unreasonably, they receive the order to defend a bridge against advancing American troops. Filled with fervour and patriotic enthusiasm, they believe that they must carry out their orders. But one by one they are killed while defending the bridge. When a group of German demolition troops is about to prepare the blasting of the bridge, the futility of the order becomes obvious. Only one child survives and apathetically returns home.

Highest rated reviews

2 out of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Rated 4.0 stars
The Bridge

Jabberwocky1970 from , 4th November, 2009

A harrowing account during the last months of WW2 set in Germany in a small border town, were a group of friends whom are teenagers are forced to the calling of the Third Reich to defend there country against the Allied invasion of their homeland. It shows friendship, companionship, fear and the horrors of war. Good story and acting with a haunting soundtrack from the the 1950`s, its worth a view

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Rated 5.0 stars
The Bridge

ivort from , 4th January, 2010

At the end of the first World War, when Germany was at its knees, even children were taken out of their classrooms to be made into soldiers. Similar to Erich Maria Remarque's 'All Quiet On The Western Front' this film shows teenage boys, still going to school, being called up into service for a war that was all but lost by then. After just one day in the training camp they were sent out, presumably to the front. Yet one commander decided to save them and sent them to a bridge, unimportant and to be blown up anyhow, to hold it and protect it. It was the same bridge in their hometown they used to play on just days earlier. After the corporal, who was to keep them busy on the bridge and keep them from harm, gets killed in 'friendly fire' by over-anxious patrols, the boys are left to themselves. Within hours Germany's troops retreat in hurry over this bridge; yet they stay: they had been told to defend the bridge. Enemy tanks come and the ensuing battle between tanks and boys is harrowing and tragic. I won't tell you what happened, but only this: it is a film you watch once and never forget it.

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Rated 4.0 stars
Least sensational, most emotional

Picaro from , 11th November, 2009

The first review quoted gives all the vital information. I can only confirm that judgment, and add that the 'Extra', 'Bonusfilm', gives an excellent full-length biography of the director, Bernard Wicki. (Good English subtitles.) This offers thoughtful and sympathetic interviews with him, with fellow film-makers, and excerpts from several films and filmed episodes of his life. It almost doubles the value of this DVD.

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