Die Brücke von Remagen

'The Bridge at Remagen' has, for what ever reason, largely been lost or forgotten by today's movie-going public. I think this is a real shame because the sensibilities and attitudes that the film has toward it's own themes fit very much into the modern movie-goer's. Films like 'The Big Red One,' 'Saving Private Ryan,' 'The Thin Red Line,' and a host of other modern war films owe their dark edge to earlier films like 'The Bridge at Remagen.' 'The Bridge at Remagen' is about worn out soldiers. It is a film that doesn't like war, and stews in bitterness. George Segal's world weary eyes are matched only by Robert Vaughn's. Two men, one an American and the other a German who are trying less to kill the others forces than they are trying to just keep the men that they command. Segal has been ordered to capture the town around the bridge. He's told not to worry about the bridge because it is assumed that the Germans will have blown it up themselves by the time he gets there with his troops, or that the Allied air force will bomb it in order to trap and destroy the German 15th Army ... an army on the wrong side of the bridge. Vaughn, excellently playing the conflicted Major Kruger, is ordered to blow up the bridge. The 70,000 troops of the 15th Army and countless civilians are to be sacrificed at the greater expense of protecting Berlin. The General who gives Major Kruger the order to blow up the bridge suggests that holding the bridge for as long as possible so that fleeing troops and civilians can escape might not be a bad idea. This ultimately leads to tragedy for both sides.

The film is highlighted by worn out lower level officers who must command on the front lines, and the incompetent or uncaring officers who outrank them. These lower ranking officers and their men are merely pawns to be pushed beyond the breaking point and destroyed. The lower level officers see letters of condolence that they need to write for the families of the fallen men serving under them. The higher ranking officers see flags on maps. 'The Bridge at Remagen' is deeply cynical and highly embittered. Although it is in my mind superior in every way to similarly themed films like 'Anzio,' It was overshadowed and consumed by films with bigger budgets and star power. Need one look much further than 'A Bridge Too Far'? The two leads, Segal and Vaughn are both tremendous and are playing their parts in top form. Vaughn especially turns in some of the best work of his career.

The only real flaws in 'The Bridge at Remagen' aren't too serious, but they are strong enough to detract overall. The direction does lean toward heavy-handed pedantics and this can become aggravating. Only having a soldier standing in front of the camera and yelling "WAR IS BAD! WAR IS BAD!" over and over again would it have been more 'in your face.' The movie also suffers from some pacing issues, especially early on, although I think it is redeemed by the hard and gritty ending.

'The Bridge at Remagen' -- very much worth taking a look at if you can find it, and almost certainly belongs (with pride) on the DVD shelf of any serious WW2 film fan.

Very under rated war epic. Why this movie isn't just as big as the other big war movies of the 60's(the guns of Navarro /bridge to far) is probably because it was to realistic for the times! acting is good only problem is that the Germans speak a little bit to good English but the action is topnotch especially the big tank battle scene in the middle of the movie, is one of the best war scenes i've ever seen till this day!!!The Bridge scene is also very impressive with tanks that destroy huge apartment blocks! this was a big budget movie at the time you can tell you can't count the extra's walking around and the destruction is as realistic as I've ever seen !!TRULY A MUST SEE FOR WAR MOVIE LOVERS!!!

Famous for its Apocalypse Now-style production problems. Filmed in then-Czechoslovakia where the then Communist government offered up a whole town (due to be cleared to make way for a strip mine) for cinematic destruction. But halfway through shooting the Russian army invaded to remove reformist president Alexander Dubcek. George Segal and Robert Vaughn give career best performances, but it also marks the moment when US war films moved beyond action-adventure and into a darker realm. The capture of the Remagen Bridge in 1945 was a magnificent feat of arms by the US Army. But in the film account the troops are slovenly, often fearful thugs, slanging and striking their officers, robbing corpses and killing children. It's not really about World War II at all, but about how many Americans saw the Vietnam War. The Bridge at Remagen is out of time, set in 1945 but made in 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive, when the US realised that Vietnam was a lost war. It shows.

This has to be one of the best war movies made in the 1960s, an era when all too often filmmakers went overboard in glorifying war while glossing over its horrors and populating their movies with larger-than-life hero characters who could have come straight out of a boys' comic. This movie doesn't fall into that trap. The characters - both German and American - are believable, and the movie sets and the equipment used (with the glaring exception of Korean War era American tanks) are authentic for the period. With so many WWII Sherman tanks and other vehicles still in museums, private collections and (at least back in the 60s) still in use in large numbers in the armies of several smaller countries, it has always been a puzzle to me as to why so many moviemakers took the simple option and used anachronistic military hardware in WWII movies, presumably assuming that the average moviegoer wouldn't even notice or wouldn't care. The most horrible example of this is the 1965 movie "Battle Of The Bulge". But I digress. Ignoring the tank factor, "The Bridge At Remagen" is a great movie. The best performance among many strong ones in this film has to be that of Ben Gazzara as Sergeant "Angel" Angelo, and the scene in which he kills the German sniper is extremely strong, moving stuff. Highly recommended.

Spectacular and exciting warlike movie based on famous event about the Bridge at Remagen . This Blockbuster is one of the biggest war films ever made. It's a magnificent film, recreating the known offensive by Allied army on the German front during 1945 .What happened during those desperate days that could have changed the course of war is now history . It's well recreated by John Guillermin for United Artists, with Technicolor cinematography by Stanley Cortez. The producer, David L Wolper was well-qualified for his job as he made documentary as ¨D-Day ,6 June, 1944¨ and produced ¨The Devil's brigade¨ , among others. Stirring images accompanied with roaring battle noises it quite possible for the sound effects you heard today to be as realistic as those he heard when was listening to them whining overhead.Furthermore , it packs a moving musical score in military parade style composed by the master Elmer Berstein. The making was a logistical problem as almost that of setting up a campaign and putting a film together under any circumstances was very difficult because working under pretty bad conditions. So this whole film was put together, photographed and edited, scored and prepared for release in a matter of about various months. After a daring escape from Czechoslovakia where was shot at Davle and Most , filming was resumed near Hamburg, Germany and closely the Pope's summer house, Castelgondolfo, Italy.

The film is based on real events, though the characters are fictitious, those are the following : The Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen—the last standing on the Rhine was captured by soldiers of the U.S. 9th Armored Division on 7 March 1945, during Operation Lumberjack. Although German engineers had mined the bridge before the American approach, the fuses had been cut by two Polish engineers forcibly conscripted to the Wehrmacht. On 7 March 1945, soldiers of the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion, led by Lieutenant Karl H. Timmermann,(at the movie Phil Hartman well played by George Segal) approached the bridge, and found it standing. The first American soldier across the bridge was Sergeant Alex Drabik (at the film bears similar role played by Ben Gazzara as corrupt sergeant Angelo) ; Lt. Timmermann was the first officer across. Although the bridge's capture is sometimes regarded as the "Miracle of Remagen" in U.S. histories, historians debate the strategic importance of the capture of the bridge at Remagen. General Eisenhower ( in the movie a similar character is played by E.G. Marshall as General Shinner) said that "the bridge is worth its weight in gold". However, few U.S. units were able to operate east of the Rhine ahead of the main crossings in the south, under Gens. Patton and Bradley, and in the north, under Gen. Montgomery . Ultimately, only a limited number of troops were able to cross the Rhine before the bridge's collapse. However, the psychological advantage of having crossed the Rhine in force and in pursuit of the retreating Wehrmacht, improved Allied morale while communicating disaster to the retreating Germans. Hitler ordered a flying courts-martial that condemned five officers to death. Captain Bratge, who was in American hands, was sentenced in absentia while the other four (Majors Scheller, Kraft, and Strobel, and Captain Peters , respectively played by Robert Vaughan as Major Kruger and Hans Chritian Blech as Captain Carl Schmidt ) were subsequently executed . Soldiers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked long hours to stabilize and repair the bridge . However, despite the best U.S. efforts, on 17 March 1945, ten days after its capture, the Bridge at Remagen succumbed to the cumulative damage from German bombing and collapsed, killing twenty-eight soldiers of the Army Corps of Engineers. However, because the pontoon bridges and other secured crossing points had supplanted the bridge, its loss was neither tactically nor strategically significant. Still, the Ludendorff Bridge remained important as the first point at which Allies crossed the Rhine.