The Allies need it to enter the German heartland. The Nazis want to destroy it.
Two forces are in a race against time to reach the bridge at Remagen.
Tick tock...
This movie announces itself with a great opening sequence - wide angle shots showing a row of American tanks speeding along a river in a running battle with German batteries on the other side.
And as a finale to this scene, a bridge explodes framed perfectly in the middle of the engagement.
Released at the end of the sixties, The Bridge at Remagen feels like The Longest Day through a Vietnam prism.
John Gullermin directs the action with a clear sense of geography and verisimilitude - there is a lot of moving camera with a lot of vehicles and crowd work that is well-choreographed so that it feels like the camera is in the middle of the action.
It also balances its character’s perspectives effectively, bouncing between the American GIs in the spearhead of the advance and Kreuger (Robert Vaughn), the officer in charge of defending the bridge.
An effective war epic, The Bridge at Remagen balances its sense of scale with attention to the psychological cost of war on its central characters.
In terms of the cast, George Segal is great as a soldier who is approaching complete burnout. Ben Gazzara is also well-cast as his more mercenary comrade.
As the villain, Robert Vaughn feels a little out of sync at first: he does not try for a German accent but he brings a certain intelligence and high status which works. The clash between his cut glass style and the naturalism of the (mostly) German cast works for a character who has been dropped into an alien context.
As the situation grows dire, the camera focuses on his large eyes which work for the characters’ growing disillusionment - particularly during his death sequence.
While the film’s sheer physical scale is impressive, unlike something like The Battleof the Bulge, it is well-paced and maintains its sense of energy and focus when moving between the different parts of the battle.
The film was partially shot in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring, and the crew had to flee when the Soviets invaded. Those behind-the-scenes problems never show on screen.
Managing to create a sense of spectacle without losing the human stakes, The Bridge at Remagen is a real gem, and a fascinating bridge between the more celebratory war films of the post-war era, and the revisionism that followed the disillusionment of the Vietnam War.
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