The film's story was loosely based on a true World War II incident, and the real-life character of Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey. One of a number of Allied POW's, Toosey was in charge of his men from late 1942 through May 1943 when they were ordered to build two Kwai River bridges in Burma (one of steel, one of wood), to help move Japanese supplies and troops from Bangkok to Rangoon. In reality, the actual bridge took 8 months to build (rather than two months), and they were actually used for two years, and were only destroyed two years after their construction - in late June 1945. The memoirs of the 'real' Colonel Nicholson were compiled into a 1991 book by Peter Davies entitled The Man Behind the Bridge.
The first film David Lean shot in CinemaScope format.
The first screenwriter to take a stab at adapting Pierre Boulle's novel was Carl Foreman. He had come across Boulle's book when he moved to England, after being blacklisted in his native America.
The real bridge on the River Kwai was bombed by future actor Paul Picerni while serving as a bombardier for the US Army Air Forces. Mr. Picerni co-starred in The Untouchables, appeared in dozens of TV shows and films, including Miracle in the Rain, and Twelve O'Clock High, in the latter having played a bombardier.
The real life construction of the bridge over the River Kwai used about 100,000 conscripted Asian laborers. 12,000 prisoners of war died on the project.
The Suez crisis of 1956 badly affected production, too. Vital equipment that would normally have been shipped through the canal had to be flown out to the location instead.
The title of the English translation of the French novel "Le pont de la rivière Kwai" was "The Bridge Over the River Kwai".
The train had a small diesel engine at the rear to make sure all four coaches went off the bridge after the steam locomotive.
There are many rumors about the casting of the film, but most sources claim that Charles Laughton was the original choice of to play the role of Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Laughton turned down the part as he did not know how to play it convincingly as he did not understand the motivations of the character. He said he only understood the character after seeing the completed film and Alec Guinness' performance as Colonel Nicholson.
There were no facilities on the island of Ceylon to process film rushes so the day's filming had to be flown to London to be processed and then flown back out to Ceylon.
To keep costs down, producer Sam Spiegel decided not to hire any extras, using crew members and Ceylon locals instead. This meant that some of the British prisoners were actually natives of the region wearing make-up to appear Caucausian.
When David Lean agreed to the project, he took on the task of reworking Carl Foreman's script. Lean felt that Foreman's script had discarded the best elements of the book in favor of heavy-handed melodrama and action/adventure. Lean noted that the conflict between Colonel Nicholson and Saito became apparent far too late in the narrative, and that Saito was written like a stock B-picture villain. In terms of message, it was important to Lean that Colonel Nicholson's minor folly of building the bridge mirror the greater folly of the war itself.
When Geoffrey Horne came to Ceylon he was amazed by the entire production. One of the most memorable details for him was his living accommodation in a tin shack shared with the film's English technical advisor, Major General Perowne. The military man wore a monocle and read letters by his wife about the flowers in their garden back in England.
When William Holden first arrived on the set, he was greeted with crew complaints regarding David Lean's attitude. Holden immediately responded like a sports coach corralling his team and gave a rousing speech about how they all knew the quality of the script and director.
When Columbia read the script for "Kwai", the studio was concerned that the story was too much about men and had no love interest. At their behest, Sam Spiegel asked David Lean to incorporate a love scene. Although unconvinced of its merits, Lean agreed to include Shears's affair with a British nurse.
When the film was first released in theaters, Alec Guinness's name was misspelled in the opening credits, using only one 'n' in his surname. The error has since been corrected.
When this film was first aired on commercial TV in the USA, on Sunday night, Sept. 25, 1966, ABC-TV pre-empted its entire evening's schedule so the film could be aired in one night, as opposed to two parts on consecutive nights. This was considered a bold move at the time. It was the longest single network telecast of a film up to then (three hours and 10 minutes with commercials; Ford Motor Co. was the lone sponsor), beating the previous record set by Laurence Olivier's Richard III, which was telecast by NBC over three hours on March 11, 1956. An estimated 60 million viewers watched the program.
While David Lean didn't always get along with everyone in his cast, he was very fond of William Holden. Lean found Holden to be extremely professional. He felt that Holden's considerable talent often went unnoticed, in part because the actor made everything look so effortless.
While the bridge in the story was constructed by prisoners in two months, the actual one built in Ceylon by a British company for the filming (425 feet long and 50 feet above the water) took eight months, with the use of 500 workers and 35 elephants. It was demolished in a matter of seconds, and the total cost was 85,000 pounds (equivalent to about 1.2 million pounds in 2002).
By age 16, Esther Williams had won three U.S. National championships in breaststroke and freestyle swimming.[17] Williams planned to compete in the 1940 Summer Olympics but it was canceled due to the outbreak of World War II.