THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN

US, 1969, 116 minutes, Colour.
George Segal, Robert Vaughn, Ben Gazzara, Bradford Dillman, E. G. Marshall, Anna Gael. Peter van Eyck.
Directed by John Guillermin.

The Bridge at Remagen is an average war adventure concerning the attempts to save and to destroy the last bridge over the Rhine in 1945. It was the last means of escape for German soldiers retreating from France. It was an entry for the Americans into Germany. The preservation of the bridge was an important question. Should it be destroyed by the Germans to stop the Americans (with the risk of isolating their own soldiers in France) or should it be preserved for a short time by the Germans to rescue their men (with the risk of the Americans taking it undestroyed).

The film is full of spectacular action photography as it crosscuts from the small, exhausted American units who are ordered to get to the bridge, to the defending Germans commanded by a man who wants to leave the bridge standing as long as possible but suddenly finds the Americans there. While it is an action film, there are several nods in the direction of antiwar feeling and the terrors of war suffering and death. The American heroes are not presented sympathetically.

1. The strategic importance of the bridge, for the Germans; for the Americans?

2. The motives of the two German officers who wanted the bridge preserved for as long as possible and whether their intentions were realistic?

3. The presentation of the Americans, tired, war-weary, heroic, pawns in superior officer's plans; unsympathetic, especially Angel and his looting, the major and his readily putting his men into action to make a good impression?

4. The presentation of the Germans, conventionally unsympathetic, highlighting of the role of the major, played by Robert Vaughn, as a humane man, (and his contrast with the inarticulate hero, played by George Segal)?

5. Was this film anti-war in feeling?

6. Did the film show civilians as victims of war, the town bombings, the people on the bridge, the hotel man's family?

7. Did the hard American major (Bradford Dillman) have the right to ask the unit to defuse the bridge and endanger themselves?

8. What is the importance of authority, discipline and obedience in war, especially when individuals do not know the full picture? Even though Segal and Vaughn do not meet in the film, Segal has Vaughn's cigarette case at the end after taking it from a dead friend.

9. The film implies a link between the American and the German. Did this come through in the film?

10. Why was the German major executed? What impression did this scene make?