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 Bridge on the River Kwai Recognising the dying Shears, Nicholson exclaims, "What have I done?" Warden fires a mortar, wounding Nicholson. The dying colonel stumbles towards the detonator and collapses on the plunger just in time to blow up the bridge and send the train hurtling into the river below. Warden turns toward the only survivors of the commando raid, the women bearers, and begs their forgiveness for having to kill Joyce and Shears, and throws the mortar launcher away in disgust, and prepares to leave. Clipton, observing the carnage, shakes his head muttering, "Madness!, Madness!". The screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, were on