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
Alec Guinness characterisation of Smiley in subsequent novels on Guinness. One of Guinness's last appearances was in the BBC drama "Eskimo Day" (1996). Guinness won the Academy Award for Best Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in 1957 for his role in "The Bridge on the River Kwai" after having been unsuccessfully nominated for an Oscar in 1952 for his performance in "The Lavender Hill Mob". He was nominated in 1958 for the Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, for his screenplay adapted from Joyce Cary's novel "The Horse's Mouth". He was nominated for