Richard Attenborough's monumental war drama is about one of the most stirring battles of World War II, based on the best-seller by Cornelius Ryan... The film presents the most impressive all-star cast ever assembled for a single production...

World War II's "Operation Market Garden" would have put the Allies in control of the major road leading into the industrial Ruhr, the heart of the German war machine... The war would have ended in a matter of weeks... Instead, what Market Garden left in its wake, through a combination of costly miscalculations, bad weather, battlefield politics and tactical errors, were more than 17,000 British, American, Dutch and Polish casualties, nearly twice as many dead as in Normandy...

On Sunday, September 17th, 1944, the largest assemblage of gliders, bombers, transports and fighters ever involved in a single mission flew over eastern Holland, and dropped 35,000 assault troops along the 64 mile road corridor between Belgium and Arnhem, the Dutch city on the Rhine River...

This airborne army - the Market phase of the operation - was assigned the task of taking and holding the six major bridges along the corridor...

Smashing through the crumbling German resistance along the way, the British Corps tanks and infantry - the Garden phase - were to link up with the paratroops and, with their help, drive the retreating armies of the Third Reich back into their own homeland...

The Germans, however, correctly guessed the British plan and formed a ring of armor around the approaches to the bridge at Arnhem... The result was near slaughter for all the allied forces and an enormous number of German dead...

Col. John Frost (Anthony Hopkins) and the survivors of his 2nd Battalion battered their way through heavy German fire to the northern end of Arnhem bridge, where they took up a strong position in houses over-looking the entire bridge...

For four long days and nights, Frost and his 'valiant few' held this tenuous position against superior German tanks and infantry... The Dutch civilian helped by piling the bodies of the dead - friend and enemy alike - in forbidding barricades across each major street to prevent Germans from reaching Frost and his men at the bridge...

Major General Roy Urquhart (Sean Connery), Brigadier James Gavin (Ryan O'Neal), Lieut.Col Joe Vandeleur (Michael Caine) and the rest of the Allied commanders met with much the same resistance and disaster...

At the Nijmegen highway bridge it became obvious that the British tanks would be stopped until the bridge's northern end could be taken by an assault crossing of the Waal River... This brave action, executed in a full clear day under murderous German fire by Major Julian Cook (Robert Redford) and his battalion, has been described by witnesses as one of the most heroic deeds of arms in World War II...

Delayed by ground fog in England, both replacements and badly-needed supplies were late in arriving... Communication was so bad; most of the food and ammunition fell into the hands of the Germans...

The Polish Parachute Brigade, under Major General Sosabowski (Gene Hackman) command, held up three days by the fog, finally made their drop into a deadly thick shower of German rifle and machine gun fire... Many died before they touched ground, and the rest met with further disaster...

Casualties were enormous and the hundreds of British wounded were placed in the Beautiful home - of Dutch heroine Kate Ter Horst (Liv Ullman) - offered as a surgery and the small hotels provided some bed space for the worst casualties...

Laurence Olivier (Dr. Spaander) wins a cease-fire from the German Lieut. General Wilhelm Bittrich (Maximilian Schell), in order to bury the dead and surrender the wounded...

Meanwhile, Col. Frost and the last few at Arthem bridge were taken prisoners by the Germans... Only a few escaped... Vandeleur's advance was stopped cold... Urquhart hopelessly surrounded planned a retreat down the river... The Germans, lighting the river with rockets, began firing on the fleet and only some made it to the other side...

The following morning, Padre Pere, a British Chaplain who stayed behind with his wounded men, noticed the mysteriously frightening silence that prevailed throughout the whole Oosterbeck area... All of the surviving patients realized that they were now German prisoners... The battle of Arnhem was over...

This is an enormous story of an horrifying human disaster... A plan formulated by Field-Marshal Montgomery and sanctioned by General Eisenhower... The film shakes you... The pity of it touches you...

Richard Attenborough has consolidated his position in the British cinema by directing notable films based on true characters and events: "Young Winston," "A Bridge Too Far" and then had a phenomenal success with "Gandhi," winner of 8 Academy Awards...

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Plot In A Paragraph: The story of the Battle of Arnhem during World War II.

Connery has one of the more substantial roles in Richard Attenborough's all star cast. (Said to be the most expensive cast in living memory) Thwre were famous actors everywhere. Gene Hackman, Michael Caine, Robert Redford, James Caan, Elliot Gould, Anthony Hopkins, Edward Fox, Laurence Olivier and Dirk Bogarde amongst others. Connery was General Urquhart in his first combat drop, and again he delivers a solid performance.

Like watching Saving Private Ryan, all I think watching this movie is what a waste of human life. The amount of soldiers whose lives were lost in this operation due to bad planning based on poor intelligence and faulty radios leading to a complete breakdown in communication is staggering!! When told his superior was "proud and pleased" Connery growled that he went in when 10,000 men and came out with less than 2,000.

In a year dominated by the first Star Wars ($300 million) and Smokey & The Bandit ($127 million) A Bridge To Far still managed to gross $50,000, despite being in direct competition with them, to become Connery's biggest hit outside of the Bond Franchise. It ended 1977 as the 7th highest grossing movie of the year. Another best for Connery as no movie he started in outside of the Bond moves had broke the Top 10 grossers of the year.

"Private Ryan" may have served up more blood and guts, but it had a fanciful plot and it didn't really tell audiences anything about D-Day. By contrast, "A Bridge Too Far" is like something the History Channel would produce; it's full of maps and narration and endless tactical discussions that, amazingly enough, really held my attention - and really enlightened me about the battle of Market Garden.

It helps that the ensemble cast is great - perhaps the best ever assembled - and the characterization, though a bit thin (as in most war movies), is certainly good enough considering how heavily the plot dominates. The film's one major weakness is that it telegraphs the battle's result from too early on; all the smart characters think that the operation will be a disaster, and lo and behold, it's a disaster.

I love this movie anyway, maybe because of the production style, which is more realistic than the cornball war films of previous decades but not quite so over-the-top as "Private Ryan." The battles are both thrilling and terrifying, a nicely struck balance. When the end credits roll, I always feel tired - like the characters - which is a testament to how involving (and effective) the movie is.