The Bridge at Remagen

March 1945. The Germans are blowing every bridge on the Rhine; the railway bridge at Remagen is the last crossing standing. The German commander's orders are to destroy it, but his own troops are still on the eastern bank. The American unit has to take it intact. Both sides want to save and to destroy the same structure. The subject is not victory but the gap between an order and a situation. No officer in the film sees the whole picture; everyone acts on the order at their own level and the decisions arrive late. The narration shows both sides from the same distance. The form is broad and loud. The bridge sequences were shot on a structure built at full scale and the explosions were done physically rather than with miniatures. The story of the production is more dramatic than the film. It was shooting in Czechoslovakia and was two-thirds complete when the Soviet army invaded on 20 August 1968. The next morning the crew found their hotel in Prague ringed by tanks. Cast and crew were moved to the airport and the border in convoys of taxis; one convoy reached Nuremberg by way of Plzeň. The production then relocated to Austria and Italy, and the film was completed with a half-scale replica of the bridge built near Rome. George Segal, Robert Vaughn and Ben Gazzara lead. John Guillermin directs. Who it is for: viewers who like war films and accounts of real engagements. Who it is not for: anyone after character depth; the narrative is largely interested in the operation itself.