A Ponte de Remagen

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.

I especially like the performance of Robert Vaughn in this film, as the German officer in charge of the blowing up of the Remagen bridge. His last line, in front of the firing squad, is one of the most memorable I know in the history of war films and it is all the more poignant for its juxtaposition immediately after the scene showing the emotional reunion of the characters played by George Segal and Ben Gazzara. Elmer Bernstein's memorable theme music also adds to ones enjoyment of this film although, much to my surprise, I gather that the film soundtrack has never been released in this country.

Truth is often stranger than fiction we know. What's more perplexing is having seen 'The Bridge At Remagen,' you may think it more or less happened that way which was intriguing to say the least.

*** SPOILERS ***

In reality, the events surrounding the capture of this bridge were even more bizarre and surely never was there such great coincidence. These elements of the movie happened in reality:

-the bridge at Remagen was accidentally captured intact by US forces;

-the Germans unsuccessfully tried to blow it up, repeatedly;

-the Americans lost a lot of men in the fighting around the bridges;

-the German commander of the defense at the bridge was court martialed and executed by the Germans;

Following are the more bizarre real events of the bridge at Remagen. The commander of the US re con force that spotted the bridge first, was an man named Karl Timmerman! This US Lieutenant was of German descent. His father had stayed in Europe following his tour of duty during the First World War. There his father met his future mother in Germany. Karl Timmerman was born and grew up in Germany, NEAR the bridge at Remagen. He and his parents then moved to the States.

Timmerman and his men took the bridge and the Germans guarding it completely by surprise. No men were lost and the relative small squad quickly disabled the defending machineguns and captured all defenders without firing a single shot! US high command didn't think the bridge at Remagen of strategic importance as there were no major roads leading from it. However, remembering his youth nearby, Timmerman explained and persuaded his commanders because he knew from memory that a dozen kilometers nearby, was the major highway to Frankfurt!

Although it had cost them not a single man to capture the bridge, the Americans lost a LOT of men in the days and weeks following the capture, because the Germans were desperate to recapture it. They made many attacks and bombed the bridge from the air, even with the first jet-bombers.

The movie was really okay, much much better than 'Battle Of The Bulge' or even 'The Battle Of Britain.'

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.