No, the Americans didn't want a film that showed a huge failed operation involving American arms (they were still reeling from Vietnam), and 'A Bridge Too Far' found little favour in the States. Only in the UK did it recoup its considerable costs.This is the story of Arnhem, the moment in September 1944 when Montgomery was stung into a doomed attempt to capture the Rhine bridges because he was being made to look slow by George Patton, who was not, however, facing anything like the same opposition.Neither Patton, Monty or Eisenhower are represented in the story, and the officers being played by the all-star cast are not exactly household names, the relationships between them never clearly defined. In fact, the plot as a whole is quite hard to follow in the course of this overlong and over-repetitive screenplay.Best-known of the officers is Frederick Browning (Dirk Bogarde), commander of the Airborne Division, who is generally blamed for going into denial about enemy strength. He declares that the wehrmacht is down to schoolboys and pensioners, and when shown a picture of several tanks beside one of the bridges, he claims they're not operational. But neither Bogarde nor any of the others is able to carry conviction as a regular officer, who has spent his whole career deferring to higher authority. Sean Connery and Michael Caine in particular are unable to camouflage their rebel blood. More believable, at least, is Edward Fox as the sociable and popular Brian Horrocks ("Pack my dinner-jacket"), who gets a loud cheer as he delivers a briefing.Interestingly, the German officers are all shown speaking German, with no dubbing or sub-titles, clearly meant as a decisive step away from the German accented cod-English that filled-up all those cheap black-&-white war-films of the 50's. Yet the pre-title sequence is a needless history lesson, delivered in exactly that style, apparently by some female victim of war whose status is unexplained.

Extremely bad plot. Ryan O'Neil is a full general at maybe 30 years old? Impossible to believe. No overview of the ultimate objective. The movie focuses on many lesser scenes--like Sean Connery running from a tank in an alley--that have nothing to do with the plot. Scenes that could be a part of any movie and do not relate to the objective of the bridges. Too many big-name stars that dilute their roles to supporting and nothing more. No coherence between the scenes. The plot is completely lost in all the small scenes and scenarios. Well acted by the stars, but I'm sure they knew it was a horrible script. It's just a disaster of a movie. If you like war scenes, you'll like it, but as a historical story of Montgomery's failed plan to capture these bridges and shorten the war, it completely misses the point. Also, where is Montgomery...the British general who thought up the operation? We need a foil to blame not only the failure of the operation on, but also the failure of the film. The film is as disastrous and expensive as the actual operation.

Movie Review: " A Bridge Too Far" (1977)This film releases just weeks after the blazing "Star Wars" (1977) and presenting the other side of film-making at the Hollywood-changing period of the 1970s. Completely filled with acting stars from Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins and many more to deliver solid performances for marketable WW2-movie directed Richard Attenborough (1923-2014), feasting on pure realism, especially in the airborne parachutes scenes, to show war what it actually is; a mobilization of thousands of people, the suffering of millions, under the command of the few, who in the end asks themselves what was it all been made for. If you need a calming piece of cinema with some well-researched historic materials on war campaigning, this is the movie to watch on a Sunday afternoon.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

A Bridge Too Far is a war film obviously a product of 70's cinema, in that it takes a decidedly uncelebratory route in telling its story. The very fact that it focuses on a famous Allied military disaster is an immediate pointer. Set during the final stages of World War II in 1944, it finds the Allied command in over-confident mood on account of their recent advances on D-Day. The top brass devise a knock-out punch where troops will pierce through Holland from the air and from the ground, taking advantage of low demoralised German numbers. The key being the taking of several bridges, culminating with a crucial one in Arnhem. The problem is that some early warning signs are ignored, which report a much heavier German presence in the area, the operation is given the go ahead regardless only to discover that area is swarming with crack SS troops.Directed by Richard Attenborough, this is an example of a type of film that they simply cannot afford to make any more on account of its ludicrously high calibre ensemble cast. We have Sean Connery, Ryan O'Neal, Anthony Hopkins, Edward Fox, Michael Caine, Dirk Bogarde, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Maximilian Schell, Liv Ullman, James Caan and Elliott Gould. It's an unbelievable set of actors to have at its disposal and the film does, for the most part, make good use of them. Not only this but it's visually a treat with beautiful photography and great on-location sets, particularly in Arnhem. The battle scenes were well recreated and it did overall give the feeling of a commendably balanced portrayal of events. This extends to the way that the Germans are depicted, where we have SS men shown in ways that didn't have them as utterly sadistic and evil as is usually the way. This overall measured approach is one that serves this material well in that this is pretty far from jingoistic stuff. It's a pretty doom-laden film in actual fact but I like the fact that it is unafraid to pull its punches and be like this. For this very reason, coupled with the great production values and direction, this remains one of the all-time great war movies for me.