David Lean in scale and more extensively released internationally. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) was based on a novel by Pierre Boulle recounting the story of British and American prisoners of war trying to survive in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. The film stars William Holden and Alec Guinness and became the highest-grossing film of 1957 in the United States. It won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Alec Guinness, who had battled with Lean to give more depth to his role as an obsessively correct British commander who is
The River Kwai March The River Kwai March "The "River Kwai" March" is a march composed by Malcolm Arnold in 1957. It was written as an orchestral counter-march to the "Colonel Bogey March", which is whistled by the soldiers entering the prisoner camp in the film "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and again near the end of the film when the bridge is formally dedicated. The Arnold march re-appears (without the "Colonel Bogey March") several times in the film and is repeated at the finale. The two marches have been recorded together by Mitch Miller as "March from the River Kwai - Colonel