There is certainly no doubt that David Lean is not fond of war. The director of both Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai could hardly be clearer with his message. However war serves a sort of purpose in both films, pushing men to be extraordinary, which is the infuriating flipside to its madness and destruction.

Unlike Lawrence (give or take some mistakes and some polishing), Bridge is a work of fiction, based on the novel by the man who wrote the novel on which Planet of the Apes was based. And this fact is featured prominently in all the literature (I saw this at the Virginia Theater, where we were given programs. I spent some time wondering if there was some thematic connection between that story and this one, but I didn’t get too far with that, I was a bit distracted by a wonderful movie.

Shears (William Holden) is an American with a dark secret, one of the remnants of the last group of prisoners of war, when Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) leads in a new legion of soldiers (whistling, of course, that famous tune). They were ordered to surrender, which puts them in a strange position as to the usual duties of POWs (which is, of course, escape) at least according to Nicholson. The Japanese commander of the camp wants men and officers alike to work on the titular bridge, but Nicholson won’t allow it, because officers are forbidden to be used for manual labor under the Geneva Convention. There is a long extended, tortuous showdown, and eventually, as work on the bridge slows, and the camp commander realizes that it will be his life if the bridge doesn’t go up in time, Nicholson wins his point. But the strange thing is that he decides to collaborate with the Japanese, and not only build their bridge on time, but build it better.

Nicholson’s rationalization is that the war will one day end, and the bridge will still stand, a monument to British know-how and skill. Or perhaps, being forced to sit out the rest of the war in some godforsaken jungle, he simply wants to do something worthwhile. And yet, it doesn’t quite make sense. When the doctor, who seems the most rational man in the film, questions him (more than once) Nicholson only tells him that he doesn’t understand war, as if the men who hold the highest rank have a better view of the future. But maybe, the benefit of the doubt, the torture has cooked his brain. What is more mysterious is how no one but the doctor lodged any sort of complaint (or more likely, a knife in the back).

Either way, we have now two storylines, because Holden has escaped the camp and made his way to an Allied hospital, and after some negotiations, is being sent back to the River to join a mission to destroy the bridge that Nicholson is so busy building. And in the company of several charming young ladies, they head out through the jungle back to camp.

Without saying much more about the plot, let me just tell you that it is a movie full of delights. It is movie cleverly scripted and wonderfully acted, and shot in actual jungles. There are thoughtful moments and cynicism in graveyards and even a moment of romping on a tropical beach with a pretty British nurse. And the bridge towers over everything flush with all its symbolism. My only complaint with the film is that common fault of the fifties and sixties of shooting night scenes in the daylight without even using filters (and I’m not fond of filters, either, but they have their uses).