The Bridge on the River Kwai / Jameson Cold Brew

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1:26 This is the film and whiskey podcast. Just welcome to the film and whiskey podcast. Where each week, we review a classic movie and a glass of whiskey. I'm Bob book, I'm Brad G and this week we are continuing our mini-series from the director. Lean with his 1957 best picture winning epic, The Bridge on the River. Kwai. Hmm.

2:06 What would you call this an epic? Yeah, I was just going to say coming off of Lawrence of Arabia where that movie I think truly encapsulate the word epic. This feels like a straight popcorn movie and yet it's I mean it's really not. I think it kind of straddles. The line between Lawrence of Arabia and like the Great Escape I kept thinking of the Great Escape as we watch this movie and this is A much more artfully made film than the Great Escape. I think there's there's very clearly like so much more thought and effort put into each and every shot in this movie. It's every bit as beautiful as Lawrence of Arabia without being as ponderous. I don't.

2:48 And I don't mean that in like a to say, Lawrence of Arabia was boring. But Lawrence of Arabia, gave itself. Lots of time to breathe, whereas, this movie is like, almost as tightly constructed as Could be. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, really if he wanted to make this more like Lawrence of Arabia, he just needed about an hour of extra footage of them like traipsing Through the Jungle. Yeah. And that would have got, you know, captured the essence of Lawrence, a little more deeply. I think. I think there needs to be camels. But yeah. There any like floating down the river when they were like setting the charges at the end, they just need to be floating on the backs of camels instead of yeah. Yeah, I think we're going to be comparing this movie to Lawrence a lot today because I mean, obviously, it's the movie that we just came off of it, is David lean's most famous movie and this one, I think kind of gets the shaft a little bit, if I'm being honest, because everyone, fawns over Lawrence of Arabia and this movie is seen as not as. I don't know what the word it not as artistic, you know what I mean?

3:53 Like this is a movie and Lords Of Arabia is a film. You know what I mean? And I don't know how to explain the Difference between the two but I understand where people are coming from. But I also think that that really glosses over just what an artistic achievement this movie is. Yeah, Scorsese would be fawning over Lawrence over bridge. I'm sure. All right, man, we'll look, why don't we jump right into Brad explains? This is the part of the podcast, where Brad breaks down the film that he has just seen often for the first time we want to say, if you are a first-time listener. To the podcast, welcome in. We haven't really explained the premise of the show in a while Brad. But this thing started because I'm a huge movie nerd and Brad is one of my best friends and we fell in love with whiskey when we were both living in Kentucky.

4:43 And we found that as we drank more whiskey, it became much more fun, to discuss movies. And over the course of many, many Whiskey's we discovered that Brad had not seen a ton of classic movies or movies that at least I had deemed Classic Movies. That's an important distinction. So we It off with a list that I made of about 100, 150 movies that I thought Brad should see. I still don't think this is like 400. I was gonna say, I still don't think we've gotten through all those movies, because we've been inserting other things that we wanted to watch, and I finally let Brad pick a couple movies for some reason. But here we are today, arriving at The Bridge on the River Kwai Brad. Had you seen this movie prior to this watch through? I was going to say this was a classic that I had seen, Robert. I remember I'm watching this as a probably a young teenager like 13, 14 years old, with my dad at some point and I was so excited to watch this again.

5:40 And there's a lot of films I saw in that tie in my age period of, you know, 13 to 16 that I don't really remember that. Well, this is one that I was like, I feel like I remember a lot of this movie, but I could be wrong. And I wasn't, they went to put him in the hot box and I like vividly. Lee. Remember the officers like straining to look out and see what the medical officer was talking to Alec, get us about and I really remember the the, the characters would go in to blow up the bridge and then like looking up through the the trusses of the bridge at the Japanese guards. And there's so many shots from this movie that are just gorgeous and stuck with me even, you know, having not seen the movie in almost 20 years. Well, that's really exciting and I have things to say, but I don't want to step all over.

6:32 Brad explains here. So as we get into Brad explains, we're putting 60 seconds on the clock for you to break down the plot of this movie. Brad, you have one minute and go British prisoners of War. During World War Two are forced to build a bridge. Rail a Railway Bridge, Over the River Kwai by their Japanese captors. They find themselves. Eggs in a little bit of trouble. When the colonel colonel Saito forces, the officers to work breaking the Geneva Convention. However, they have a British officer named Nicholson who stands up for them and refuses to allow his officers to work. Eventually he has his way and goes about building the best dag on bridge that the Japanese have ever seen unbeknownst to him. One of the prisoners who escaped is recruited by British Special Services to blow up the bridge.

7:29 They just completed. There you go and suspense in Sue's. Yeah yeah dude, the final sequence. Oh my gosh, it's Sotelo. And they like he does such a great job of setting up the geography of like the one guy's going to stay up top and he's got a mortar and the other three are going to go down and set the charges. And it said I'm underwater. So nobody sees them. And then he's going to be over there on this side of the river. And you're going to be over by those trees. And and he just does such an excellent job of showing. Showing you like this is the stage upon which I will, you know, pull your emotional heart strings and then he does it, man.

8:09 It's like terrifyingly suspenseful. Yeah, man, this movie is really tense, really suspenseful and it's just a masterful job by David lean. I want to go back to what you were saying a minute ago just about watching this movie as a kid and this being a classic in your household. I feel like in 2022. This Occupies a really interesting space where it has a ton of reviews on IMDb. Like if you go look at how many people have rated it, it's really up there. And so it kind of seems like this is a film that everyone has seen at some point. I know that it definitely has the vibe of one of those Saturday afternoon, right.

8:52 After a John, Wayne movie completes on AMC, they're going to throw this on and it's 18 hours long with commercials and so, it feels like tons of people have seen this movie. and yet I never hear anybody talk about it anymore because it's maybe it's just gotten to the age now where it's not could, you know, top of mind when people talk about war movies or action suspense films, and it's also not considered a quote-unquote artistic film to the extent, that Lawrence of Arabia is and so it also doesn't get discussed enough in film circles and I feel like for being a movie that everyone appears to have seen, this doesn't have a lot of traction, any More. So it's I don't really know how to approach it today.

9:33 Brad, do you think that a sizable portion of our audience has seen this movie, or do you think we're probably talking to a lot of people who have never seen it? Oh man, I honestly don't know the answer to that question. I feel like it's a movie that people have probably seen, but they haven't really just sat down to watch it. Like, I think that a lot of people are in the category where you said, like, Yeah, it was on the TV, so I kind of like skimmed it while I was doing other stuff but I don't know if I sat down and watched the whole thing and I will say this is a movie that rewards paying attention to it. Hmm. Yeah. I mean, it's not a difficult movie to understand and I honestly like when I turned it on I remember it being a long movie. And so I saw two hours and forty something minutes and I was like, all right, I'm going to strap myself in it's a full hour shorter than Lords Of Arabia.

10:26 So it felt like a breeze. It really did feel so much better dude. But I have Say like, even though I think this movie probably could have shed a few scenes and been even tighter than it is, it never felt super long to me. Like it didn't really drag at any point and by the time it got to the end I thought like yeah, I totally get why I was 2 hours and 41 minutes or whatever. The runtime is, it didn't feel over long. It didn't feel bloated and I think it's a credit to David lean and to the editing of this film just how much it moves. Yeah. The pacing of this film is really incredible. You'll what, especially when you consider how long it is? Like, you hit over two and a half hours in you're getting into serious movie territory, right?

11:09 And to consider that there's no moment of this film. That really feels like it's dragging. I do think that if they cut, maybe I think I said to you earlier, like, 8 to 12 minutes like naughty, not even like 15, 20, 25 minutes like just about 10 minutes from the film, just a few little pieces here and there. I think this might be a perfect film, but as it is the, the action keeps you rolling. And and the, the beautiful thing about the film is, it's not typical war movie action, it's not the Great Escape, they're trying to hide their tunnels from the German guards. Like, it's the tension between the different viewpoints of the Japanese of the British of the alternating, British sides that you feel completely engulfed.

12:01 In this conflict between like do we do things well with honor or do we seditious Lee try to sabotage the enemy and I just think it's incredible. Well and I think the Brilliance of this movie is that the place that It ultimately arrives at is that these things that seem to be opposed to each other ultimately lead to the exact same fate or the same end. The, you know, there's this word that Brad you and I learned in college and in seminary from the Greek, the word is Telos. And it's like, what is the the End of something. What is the goal towards which is pointing right? What's the result of it? And this like the, you know, the last lines of this movie are this British medic who has been questioning, Alec Guinness has motives the whole movie and then he sees the Carnage that's been, you know, rot and just looks around and says madness madness. And that's the last line of the movie and it really does a great job of portraying these characters who you And all of their motivations and yet they don't understand themselves that regardless of the fact that they come from diametrically opposed ideologies and viewpoints that it all ultimately leads to the exact same Telos.

13:14 Like it leads to the same place which is like what was this all for, everyone's dead. Like we tried to build this thing with honor and it's been blown up, we tried to blow this thing up and in doing so we lost sight of human, the value of human life. Like what is Point of all of this, I think ultimately it is an anti-war movie and we'll get into talking about this a little bit more. But last week, I also talked about how I think that David lean was really interrogating, the idea of British propriety with Lawrence of Arabia and he definitely does. So again here with this movie, well, in the fascinating thing to me is we might not be used to this in 2022. America nearly nearly 2023 Bob, that's crazy.

13:57 You're almost there. He uses an American Ian to point out the flaws in the system, the whole way. I, I mean, I think he does it with the British medical as well, but William, Holden's character is the only one who truly the entire movie is, like, you guys are all crazy, like, there's no point to this. I like I'm in this to save my own skin and, you know, he kind of gains a semblance of honor at the end and trying to accomplish the mission. But it's interesting to me that lean uses a American character too kind of question the whole system throughout the film. So I was looking after I watched the film for a good review that I thought would capture my thoughts on what the themes of this movie are and I found a really good one.

14:45 And in this review, they talked about how there are three characters who all kind of suffer from these delusions. I don't want to say delusions of grandeur, but they call them the three Mad Men of the film. And the first one is Colonel Saito. Who runs the prisoner of war camp and he is, I guess the most nakedly obviously. Deranged of the three. In his like, torturous practices at the camp and also in how inwardly tortured he is about the concepts. You know, in Japan of Saving Face and living in an honor and shame culture, and trying to get something accomplished and realizing that you can't.

15:26 And even though the bridge gets built, he is like utterly ruined as a man. Because he didn't accomplish it and so he has more Shame about it. Even though the thing he wanted to have done gets done, the second person that they call, one of the three Mad Men is Alec Guinness has character of Nicholson, who I think is the most interesting character in the whole movie and we'll get into performances here in just a second. But, you know, Guinness wins an Oscar for this movie and I think it's absolutely deserved. He is just phenomenal in this movie and I think the majority of our time today talking about out the intricacies of this movie are going to revolve around his character because it is just by far the most interesting one to parse out. But the third one is this guy Hawkins who comes in, kind of in the second half of the movie and he's the one that leads this like Special Forces team back into the jungle to blow up the bridge and Hawkins.

16:19 You know, I didn't think of at first as a Madman but The more you watch the movie, you move, the more you start to parse out these themes. The more you realize that he is as deranged about what his objectives are. As a laginas character is like he gets to the point where at the end of the movie when he thinks that William, Holden's character and the young kid that's going to blow the bridge up might end up getting captured. He decides to just take them all out with a mortar instead and his justification for it. At the end of the movie is to turn around to the people. Other with him and who are horrified at what he just did by killing his own men. And saying, like, I had to do it, don't you understand?

17:00 They could have get, they could have gotten taken alive, and he doesn't understand that. He just used the word alive, like it's worse for him to give up and to be captured then to actually physically kill these people. And again, like it just ultimately All Points back to the futility of everything. They're trying to do in this movie. Yeah, and and the fascinating thing is that he's pointing out how Japan and Britain are both honor, shame cultures, that, that both of these cultures Place Honor on such a pedestal that it cost them everything in the end, it cost them their lives and their dignity.

17:41 And the only people that really hold on to, it are the people who question it and make their own choices on what they think is, right in the world rather than a allowing a system to Define what is good or evil for them. I just realized that I was calling that character Hawkins the whole time. His name's Warden, but he's played by Jack Hawkins. And so, to cover up my own faux pas, Brad, let's jump into performances and let's start with Jack Hawkins because he's at the top of mine. Now, he would not normally be the first person that I would talk about in performances, because he's like, the fourth lead of the movie. But I thought he did a pretty good job in this movie. I think my biggest Frustration with his character is kind of like what his character represents because once William Holden's character stages, this escape from the prisoner of war camp and ends up at this sort of like special forces, training camp, / Utopia, that wardens character runs. I think the movie goes off track for quite a long time. And it's because first of all, I really like Jack Hawkins. As in this movie, I really like, William Holden this movie. William Holden is a movie star, but I don't know if he's a great actor and the best acting that is happening in this movie is happening inside the prisoner of war camp with Alec Guinness. And I wanted to spend so much more time. Trying to figure out Alec Guinness is psyche that the more time I had to watch William

19:14 Holden and Jack Hawkins in a room, talking about stuff. The more I started to get impatient with the movie. Yeah it almost felt like a Christopher Nolan movie trying to In time travel. Like they're literally just sitting there talking about this plan and why they have to do it and Holden's explaining how he got to be where he is. And and well, you see, we're in quite a delicate little pickle here shears and we need you to do this for us and it just goes on and on and on and I would agree with you. That is the one point of this movie where they either could have trimmed it up a little bit, cut a few scenes or they could have just cut back. Back to what was going on in the prisoner of war camp. Yeah.

19:55 To Pace that section A little better. But it really feels like in this, you know two and a half two hour and 45 minute movie, you spend almost like 30 minutes in the middle of the film completely away from the action, if you will, and it really bogged down the the middle section of this movie. Well, especially because the first like hour hour and 15 minutes of the movie, are this Psychological battle of wills between Alec Guinness has character and Saito and you know culminating in Saito finally capitulating and saying, all right, we're not going to make the officers work and everybody cheers.

20:38 Now again it's gets to come out of the hot box and then you know, almost immediately, they staged this outbreak and or break out, I guess I should say not outbreak but you know, they break out and then some guys are killed they regroup a little bit and then Boom. You're out of the prisoner of war camp and you're in the jungle and eventually on a beach with William Holden now and it becomes a movie about a movie star. And it feels much more Hollywood and is not to say that like this doesn't have Hollywood all over it this movie, but it felt like I was watching. You know, the the beach makeout scene from From Here to Eternity or it felt like I had been plopped into a more kind of like rah rah. Don't take it as seriously.

21:23 American picture and not the like British psychological battle of wills and a prisoner of war camp that I've been watching for 75 minutes. Well, and that kind of takes us into hold in a little bit more. You already tipped your hand a little bit. Bob by saying he's a movie star. Not an actor, which isn't a rude thing to say about anybody, but I'm sure he won't mind. What do you think about Holden's performance in this film? I mean, I didn't say he's not an actor, I just don't know if he is as good of an actor is, Alec Guinness. Enos, which is not an insult. This is, I believe only our second William Holden movie on the podcast. We will have more, especially if we get around to movies like Sunset Boulevard.

22:05 But the movie that I think is, is most akin to. This is a movie, he made a few years before called Stalag 17. It was a billy Wilder movie. It's a great movie, but it's also a prisoner of war movie. And William Holden is like, the hero in that movie. And, you know, he's I don't know how else to say it. Brad like he Kind of the epitome of he's a movie star, he's a guy that is made to have a gravelly voice and probably drinks a little too much off screen and has a hell of a tan and has his shirt off all the time, and that's what he does. You know what I mean? And then you've got Alec Guinness who's over here, like, freaking Olivier. Like he just acting his ass off and I think that the difference between the two is so Stark.

22:47 And, you know, it works really well to balance the movie out but the Um, is that there, isn't that sort of interplay between them, or even like an inner cutting between their scenes to your point, like, it's just very much like you get airlifted out of the PO p.o.w. camp and put into William Holden story where he's just like canoodling on a beach for a half hour and I think to, you know, to that extent, it just didn't work for me. It still fascinates me though. This is kind of an aside to look at the body type of oh yeah, famous hot movie stars. The 50s. And now what they ask their actors to do, like when I think about the transformation of Chris Pratt from Andy Dwyer to Star-Lord, I'm like, it's wild what people have to do to be a movie star nowadays, compared to the Humphrey.

23:43 Bogart's Gregory pecks and William Holden's of the world. Alright, so here's my biggest thing, with William Holden is that he's always asked in in most of his very famous movies. At least, to give some sort of grandstanding speech or monologue where he is like, the, the moral compass of the movie and we saw it in the end of Grapes of Wrath type of kind of, or like the end of network, right? Which he was in which, where he like, looks directly at Faye Dunaway and gives this whole speech about how she is like, the embodiment of television and in walks out, dude, how good of a movie is network? Is so good, but even though, And even then with William Holden he's the kind of guy where it's like it's kind of like what we talked about with Sorkin and Demi Moore, you know what I mean?

24:31 Where it's like, oh this, you're a really good. Conduit for me to hear a human being say Aaron sorkin's words, but I don't believe what you're saying with William Holden. It just always seems like you are delivering a line that you memorized, but it never feels authentic. Yeah, it doesn't always feel like lived. In. Like I'm thinking about some of the things I've seen about, Robert De Niro in some of his early films, mmm? Okay. And the way, the directors talked about him was like, when he was on set acting like he just embodied the character that he truly was living in their shoes.

25:12 And I just don't always get that feel with William Holden and he gives a good performance and he is what they need him to be, but he's just too much of a distraction. I'm the things that we really want to sit with in this movie but I think that's a really good segue into talking about Alec Guinness and I have been terrified for the last two weeks that I am going to slip up and say Alec Baldwin. And so I need you to guide me feel much the same actor, you know, they're like exactly the same. I'm really glad that we have done this miniseries because Alec Guinness has been in a number of classic British films, which we may or may not ever get around to watching, but movies like The Lavender Hill mob. And kind hearts and coronets and, you know, like movies that are famous in Britain that Americans have never heard of. But at this point, he was already like, one of the most revered actors in Britain, and we had only discussed him in the context of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

26:07 And I'm really, really glad that we are doing something with him. That is outside of the realm of Star Wars because he is such a compelling actor, and I will say, like, between last week in Lawrence of Arabia where I thought he gave me. Best performance outside of Omar Sharif to this movie where he is hands down, the best performance in the movie. It's really been a joy to revisit a couple films with Alec Guinness in a major role. He's incredible Bob. Yeah, like there's there's just that I don't know if it's a Trope or something that people just say of like British actors are better because they're you know classically trained or the theatre trained if you will. And I feel like I hear that often enough but in an Actor, like Alec Guinness, it makes sense. The the way he comports himself with such dignity, regardless of the situation, the way he delivers his lines with such assured - and sincerity.

27:10 Some of the my favorite scenes of the movie are when he is talking to the medic, who's constantly questioning him and the way he shuts down the medic with just so much self. Righteousness and like he he knows what is right and he's like, oh well you haven't been in the Army long enough. You don't understand how these things work. Like war is more than just these one things and we need to build this for the local community. And yet at the end of the movie, when he's delivering that speech about wondering, if his life is actually meant anything, and if he's been able to have a meaningful impact on the world around him, you You understand why he's doing what he's doing. He's he's no longer acting as a British officer. He's acting as an individual who wants to be a somebody in the world.

28:06 And at the very last moment, he realizes like, what the heck did I do. Like I completely lost sight of everything and that moment of realization is just everything. Yeah, I mean it's such a layered character too and I think that's what's really great about it and Apparently you know, David lean and Alec Guinness did not get along on the set of this movie because David lean wanted him to be much more expressive in his performance and kind of blow up at certain points at people and Alec Guinness. Basically said hey that's not how I act and be. I'm not going to do that and they fought a lot about it. And Alec Guinness was right because he plays the sort of like Cool, and calm. And yet he is completely delusional.

28:49 And I think that makes for an even more compelling, delusional character, because he's not coming across as a Madman, he's not coming across as someone who has lost his mind, whether or not he's lost his mind. I think is Up For Debate, but I think in his own mind, he's very logical about like, Hey, we're going to be here anyway. We're going to be forced to build this bridge. We might as well do it the British way. We might as well say, hey, regardless of the The circumstances we do not half-ass anything because that's not what Britain's do. And when people cross this bridge 600 years from now they're going to say dammit the britons built that and we like, you know what I mean? And you kind of understand where he's coming from and completely ignoring the fact that at the end of the day he is aiding and abetting the enemy and they are going to use that Aid to kill more of his countrymen and you know like the the logic and the honor side of him out ways, I kind of wanted to say the lat Got ways the logic if that makes sense. But like it outweighs common sense. And so I love that he plays it, not as somebody who has lost his grip on reality, so much as he has become diluted with his own impressions of propriety and what, what the proper thing to do is, well, I mean, it's a Miss ordered affection, Right? Like, he, he is Desiring, a set of out. Outcomes that does not line up with his job, with his profession, with being a part of

30:20 the British Army. And, and yet that's the beautiful part of his performance is his ability to calmly. Communicate his point of view. Even as we the audience played by the medical officer, mostly are going scratching, our Chin's going like, well, I can't disagree with your calm logic, but it doesn't feel right and I, it feels fishy to me, and but I'm not going to question you because you're the, you know, you're in charge here and no, man. It's just such a great performance. Well, and it's one of those movies where once you finish it, and you understand, Like the root cause of his delusions and what it all leads to you.

31:06 Go back and watch it again and it's all there right from the beginning, like him digging his heels. In about not making British officers, work is liking you know well I don't mean to question you. My good man but the Geneva Convention, if you need a copy provided I have a copy right here and he's like doing this like very high society level of negotiation and ultimately like you know he gets out of the hot box and he wins his battle of Will's in the mental, cheer for him. But then you come to think about what was that? Actually, a good move on. The part of someone who's a commanding officer that you dug your heels in and made your men have to work twice as hard because you were being stubborn about the Geneva Convention, right?

31:49 Mmm. And then he has this this scene where William Holden's talking to him about breaking out and he says, you know, we're not going to break out like the Brits are not going to do that. And everyone's like what the hell you talking about? Like it's our duty as British. To try to sabotage the enemy. And if we have a means of escape to try to take it and he said well, we were ordered to surrender. And so for us to escape May mean that we're actually breaking our own orders and therefore breaking the law and the idea of breaking, the letter of the law is. So abhorrent to him that like that's what's driving him, not common sense. And so you see it in his character from the very, very beginning. And I think you don't, you know, like the British officers in the movie, you don't question it at first until it, Just stops making sense completely.

32:34 Yeah, man. For me, the the point where I realized that he was crazy was when he made his officers work, mmm. Like, that's the moment where you're like, oh, he wasn't ever really fighting for his officers. He was fighting for his own vision of how things should be done. Yeah. And now that his own vision of how things should be done, include his officers working, he's totally fine with having his officers worry about that. I think that that's like, The sign of someone who's unstable who State their desires of how they want to be treated and how people should be treated and how they think the world should work and then they flip all those things on a dime.

33:15 As soon as it doesn't fit their needs anymore. And I think that's that's like the key element of someone who is unstable. Well, and that's the brilliant thing about the depiction of the Japanese officers of the camp to here. And I do want to touch on the actor. Sessue hayakawa who plays Saito because I think he's phenomenal and I guess in real life David lean said that he thought that he was started. The actor was starting to have some form of dementia and he didn't remember a lot of the English that he'd apparently learned earlier in his career as an actor. And so he only really studied the pages of the script that he had to memorize lines for. And so even in the scene where he gets killed, at the end of the movie where he gets stabbed to death. David lean said, he just kind of like stood there blankly because he didn't read that page.

34:02 The script because you didn't only lines and so like, honestly, forgetting that much crap from David lean, I really thought his performance was excellent. It was super layered. It really did a great job of hammering home. This idea of shame in the in that culture. And I also think that, you know, last week before I had watched the movie, I, I mentioned that David lean was incriminating or interrogating, I guess the British sensibility in this movie by the fact that that the Japanese basically Gaslight the the British officers into building the bridge under their own accord and use their own britishness against them. And that's not actually what happens in this movie at all? Like by the time Alec Guinness kind of takes up the mantle and goes off into his own delusions.

34:50 You realize that Saito is completely defeated and he takes no joy in what's going on and he just kind of turns the reins over to the Brits to like let them construct the bridge and he's like a shell. Of himself at that point. And I think it's again, it gets back to this idea of The Madness of war that ultimately Saito gets everything he wanted at the beginning of the movie, but he is now. So clouded over with the shame of it all. And the fact that he didn't do it the way he was supposed to get it done. That he also takes no enjoyment in it. Yeah. It's an incredible performance. I thought it was most fascinating to watch the battle of wills between the two of them and the moment where the tables turn and Alec Guinness.

35:36 Realizes he has the power and it feels like it's when he has him over for dinner. And the moment Saito starts showing anger. It's like, Alec Guinness knows, he's one. Yeah, he's like my politeness has one out because you are getting angry and if you are showing Emotion. That means you've lost and at that little piece of acting in that scene between the two of them which is just a really simple scene of the two of them having a dinner together Saito thinking, he has the upper hand but betraying himself eventually and Alec Guinness basically offers him the solution, which site so takes which emasculates him. Yeah.

36:21 And it's just, I mean, that's a point where I think that the script and The acting work together. So perfectly to display the psychological warfare. Well, in the brilliant thing about that scene to first of all, it's the way that they use like the utensils and everything else on the table, you know, Saito thinks he's going to get in his head by drinking scotch and eating corn beef and Alec Guinness says, I don't want any and the pour Scotch for him and Alec Guinness. Won't drink it because he literally just came out of torture and as soon as Alec Guinness is like I have the upper hand, he starts pounding, the scotch dude, he's like he's like I got it now but I I think the thing about that scene and it really is the hinge point of the movie is that you think that the two were going to kind of take opposite trajectories right.

37:04 That we've seen saito's rise and now we're going to see his fall and we saw the downfall of Alec Guinness and now we're going to see him rise and it's not that at all. It's just that like Alec Guinness is going to follow the exact same trajectory. It's just delayed by a couple hours. You know what I mean? Like yeah you see him get the upper hand and then immediately. The in his own hubris. He starts to put together this plan for like the British way of doing it. Now that he's one. He's like, all right, I'm going to build this bridge now because I I'm doing it my way, not realizing he's still doing exactly what he was never supposed to do. So, yeah, man, we could go on talking about this forever, but we need to drink some whiskey.

37:44 So, what do you say? We hit pause here? Let's try this Jameson. Cold brew, what do you say? Let's get to it. Alright. Today we are checking out Jameson cold brew. Now Brad this was a sample that was sent to us by a listener way back in like season 2 or season 3. We've been hanging onto the sample forever and it's kind of because we've been hemming and hawing about whether or not to actually feature it on the show because it is not technically A whiskey for whiskey purists. I'll say that. Like I don't know if I would consider this a flavored whiskey, but we had something similar to this a while.

38:27 Back from the few company out of Chicago, they had a product called cold cut where they brought their bourbon nouns. A proof with cold brew coffee, and this is kind of similar. I don't think they're actually proving this down with coffee but they're in, you know, in their words infusing Jameson with arabica beans. And so it produces what is essentially a liquor if I'm being Honest. Like it's I don't want to call it a flavored whiskey but it's also only 30 percent ABV. So it's 60 proof. It doesn't really reach the 80-proof level that we would designate whiskey whiskey as so, this is kind of a first for us on the film and whiskey podcast, like we've had a couple flavored whiskies before but we've always done them on bonus episodes but I'll say this. Like when I go to the liquor store and I go to the Irish whiskey section, they've got this next to Jameson on the Shelf so it's like it.

39:19 In the liquor store, it's not over with like the mixers and the after all, and all that stuff. So I don't know man. What do you call? This, is this a whiskey. Is this a liquor? Like where we going with this? I'm just going to say that it's not very good so you've had it already. I sure have Bob, okay, I tried it just before we hit record. I have a slightly different opinion than you, but I felt like it was necessary for us to at least preface the review by saying I'm gonna do %. We're gonna review it as if it is a whiskey. But at the end of the day it's it's more akin to like Fireball than it is to regular Jameson.

39:59 Yeah. And and I'll point this out on the, on my notes as well. This tastes a lot like coffee with a tiny bit of whiskey in it. And the problem that I have with this whiskey is mostly the fact that I know what kind of coffee I like, and I don't like this call. It tastes like it tastes like Maxwell House or like foliage. Like it tastes like coffee that comes in a tin. Exactly. And so that like, that is the biggest frustration if they made this and it had a better coffee flavor to it, I would probably like it. So that is the struggle I have with this. It doesn't really taste like an Irish coffee. Like it doesn't taste like coffee liqueur or like like a cream, you know, like An Irish Cream. The get tastes like coffee.

40:52 That is just slightly artificially sweetened so it has that kind of coffee syrup flavor. It's really hard to explain. Let's dive in man. So I pour this out, into my Glencairn on the nose of this. It doesn't smell like coffee. It smells kind of musty and after a while, I settled on it, smells like if you took decaf coffee, that comes in a can and Pre-ground. Hmm, opened it and left the lid off of it for like three days. Like there's like all of the potency of ground coffee is gone out of this. And all of the little bits of decaf coffee, that smell like wet cardboard.

41:35 That's what stayed behind. And like, just the faintest memory of coffee, a memory of coffee, it's a painting by Robert book. Look right of ground coffee. Oh, man. Yeah, for me, on the nose. It initially smelled like nail polish remover. Ooh, which gets me really excited about my whiskey? I was just super jazzed. Eventually, it kind of came out to like, a super dark roast coffee. And I literally just wrote this. I like coffee, but I don't like this. I give it a 4 out of 10 on the nose Bob. Yeah, I was thinking about giving it a five I gave. A 6 out of 10 because it's not, it wasn't that bad to me. I didn't get nail polish remover at all, which is a good thing. So I'm at a 6 when it gets to The Taste, I actually thought the taste was quite nice, like I'm going to be pretty far off from you on this one.

42:33 Brad, I think except that it's all coffee. No whiskey. Well, I guess there's just the slightest little alcohol burn on the end of this. It's like if you like if you went out to a really cheap restaurant like an Applebee's or something and ask them for like a rum and coke, And they gave you like an ounce or a half ounce of rum and then filled, like the whole pint glass up with Coke after that. And you just barely get a wisp of rum. That's kind of how this is to me. Like it tastes like really strong fake coffee syrup. Mixed with really bad Folgers coffee. Hmm. And like, just a touch of alcohol in the end.

43:16 Yeah, now here's the night. Here's the thing. Like I still don't think it's bad, it's not as cloyingly sweet as something like Fireball or a lot of these flavored Whiskey's. We've had I think it's definitely more simple bowl and it probably mixes really well with a lot of things, and I think it probably would dilute. Well, it wouldn't taste just like straight artificial sweetener. So, based on that curve, I'm gonna give it a six and a half on the taste. But again, like we're not judging this based on like it's whiskey characteristics, right? And that's the hard thing. It's a difficult one to score for. Me, I came out to a 5 out of 10 on the flavor. It just tastes like coffee. That was brewed about four or five hours ago.

43:56 Mmm, like it's lost its potency, the dark notes have overtaken, any sort of flavor that should have been there, and there's a hint of whiskey on the end. It's not bad but it's not enjoyable for me. So, you know, 5 out of 10 and the finish for me is where this really struggles the most mostly because it tastes like the finish of a cough. That was brewed for five hours ago, that is to say bitter and unfulfilling. Yeah, I mean, this is not a complex drink like that. The notes are the same throughout and I guess they, we can, we can attribute that to the balance here, but on the finish, I just wrote.

44:38 The Finish is black coffee, but cheap. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I gave it a six and a half. Listen, I've had many, many, many cups of coffee coffee in my life and this is like, a slightly more pleasant version of that. Yeah, I gave it a 3 out of 10 on the finish. So you really hated this. I was not a fan. Huh? Yeah, I didn't mind it that much. It's definitely nowhere. Like the few cold cut is leagues better than this. Yes. But I also feel like the few cold cut is a whiskey and I feel like this is a cordial. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? No, 100%. I mean, I gave it a 7 on balance I did because it is the same experience throughout. It's not complex, it's not enjoyable.

45:20 That's why I didn't get anything higher but like they knocked it out of the park and giving you the experience of coffee. Mmm. Yeah. And so, you know, I gave it a seven as well and that brings us to the value of this thing, which, you know, I think we're going to have to judge it against both, the Whiskey's that it sits next to on the shelf and the Liquors and cordials that it sits across the aisle from. So what does this retail for in the state of Ohio bread? $28.99. Yeah, that's too much if this was $18, I'd be like cool, mmm. You know? I mean like this cost is pretty much as much as a bottle of Jameson, which is Is outrageous like by Jameson and if you want to add coffee to, it had coffee to it. Like what are you?

46:02 What are you doing? $28. Yeah this is a 3 out of 10 on value. Yeah I give it a four like if you know what you're getting into like sure go for it. But yeah, I came to a 23 out of 50 Bob, where were you at? I'm going to 29 out of 50 so. So that brings us to a fifty two out of a hundred or a 26 out of 50. I think it goes without saying neither of us are going to recommend this. I actually don't mind it for what it is. It sounds like Brad does mind it for what it is, but men. Yeah, but this is not again, I, you know, we're not trying to be like whiskey snobs or whiskey purists here, but this is not really a whiskey. I would have to venture to say that. I think that there's probably something artificial in here. I don't really see anything about that online. So maybe it's just a note that I'm getting, but it definitely tastes.

46:54 Like they've sweeten this a little bit. And you know, what? If they have cool like it, Don't make a cool mix drink but it feels more like we're reviewing a bottle of Kahlua than than we're reviewing a whiskey this week. Yeah, I was going to say this is definitely not me being a whiskey snob. It is me being a coffee snob and I'm okay with that. All right, man, so we're not recommending Jameson cold brew but we are recommending Bridge on the River. Kwai. So why don't we get back into talking about this movie? I am excited to get away from this whiskey Bob. All right, everybody, that was Jameson. Cold brew a whiskey.

47:37 That wasn't a whiskey, but was kind of a whiskey that tasted, like, coffee, boom, boom, two facts in a falsehood, is much better than Jameson cold brew. So, how about we do that Bob? Yeah. Why don't you explain to the listeners Brad? What is two facts in a falsehood? And why am I so good at it? This is Canada's favorite segment Bob. It's where I try to lie to you and you have to pick out my lie, the LIE is related to the movie that we just watched, you get two facts about the movie as drawn from the IMDb trivia page. Assuming that those are all true. Yeah, important important note. Yes, 100%.

48:17 If those are lies than I like I will take the L there so far. It seems like we've done pretty good with the truths and then I just make up a lie which Is kind of hard to do surprisingly. All right, so Brad has three items for me. One of which is a falsehood, why don't you reveal your three tidbits? Fact, number one, sir, Laurence Olivier was offered the part of Colonel Nicholson, but turned it down in order to direct The Prince and the showgirl instead. Fax number to Thailand was originally chosen as the location for the shoot but the country was pressured by the USSR against allowing the film to be shot.

49:02 They're forcing Horizon pictures to find another country which ended up being Sri Lanka. Fax number 3 for the scenes where Holden and Hawkins and Horn were waiting through the swamp. They were waiting through specially created one's the real swamps in Sri Lanka were deemed to be too. Dangerous. Hmm. Interesting. All right. I'm pretty sure. Number two is a truth. I know they shot in Sri Lanka so I'm gonna go ahead and assume that the earlier part of that fact is also true. Number three is interesting to me, I know they spent like, 250 shooting days on this movie in the jungle and that lien was a really huge perfectionist.

49:45 And would wait on shots to develop at just the right time. So I do have a hard time thinking that he would specially create things for this movie, unless it was absolutely necessary. Terry fact, number one is also an interesting because I mentioned Olivier earlier in the episode. I know that David lean actually wanted Charles Laughton to play Nicholson at one point and I don't know if you're familiar with Charles Laughton Brad but he had to be like in his mid-50s at least at this point. Hmm. And he was very overweight. So like the studio was like, absolutely not. And that's how they settle. I'm Alec Guinness. I don't know if Olivia was ever considered.

50:25 So I'm going to say three is also true and I'm going to say one is the falsehood and I don't feel super confident about that, but that's my final answer. Bob you are 100% wrong. No, yeah, no. Yeah, live, dude, I'm on a losing streak. This is bad. You you've been a streaky one this year bosses like three or four in a row. Yeah. Olivier said in retrospect that it was a sensible decision to go off and do love scenes with Marilyn Monroe, rather than tough it out in the jungles of Ceylon with David lean.

51:07 I mean, he's not really the swamps were actually created because the, the swamps in Sri Lanka were too dangerous. The falsehood was that Thailand, was originally chosen as the location for the shoot. Oh interesting, they did film in Sri Lanka. I knew that they did film in Sri Lanka that was true, but they never had the whole idea of the USSR pressuring and all that, that's all fake. All right. If only I know though, my geopolitical history better, Well I was going to say I chose Thailand partially because that's where the River Kwai is and also because they were a somewhat Ally of the USSR in the cold. Cool.

51:49 All right. Yeah I just kind of assumed that you were right? Because I know absolutely nothing about Thailand. So nailed it. There you go. Nice job, man. Nicely done. Thanks dude. All right man. Let's talk a little bit about David lean and our impressions of him so far because next week we are going to take a very Very hard. Turn into a film of his from the 1940s that was made on a much smaller budget. That's an adaptation of a play by the famous. Playwright Noel coward. It's nothing like this, right? And so you've got hidden here in, like, action hero mode. Last week you have him in like meditative, I don't know what the word is visual Splendor. And next week, we're getting him in a kind of, a domestic drama.

52:33 And so, I think that our impressions of lean After Next, It might be very different than our impressions of him today after these two movies. So like so far Brad what do you think of our boy David lean? I think he's a fascinating director. I think that he really is a very early example of a popular director who is kind of subverting the Public's expectation of what they are going to see it, the film or at the movies, like Like he like your setup as this poww movie that, you know, so it's the the Pacific version of The Great Escape like yeah.

53:15 And I'm not saying that they advertise it that way, but I'm sure somebody thought of it in that sense. And yet you have this really deep psychological drama. And so, I think, with lean, he pairs beautiful cinematography with really fascinating character, Dives and Scripts, At that just take you in very unexpected directions and so he and he Blends the three of those things together in a really beautiful way. So I just I really like him so far. I think the final shot of this movie, you know, right after the the medic has declared madness madness, it shows him standing by the dead bodies of our Mad Men and the, the camera just slowly pans out and you just see this destroyed bridge and these dead bodies and it's a visual depiction of what the medic just declared Madness.

54:15 Like, what the hell, was the point of everything we just did in this movie? And, and then to top it all off, he plays just the most triumphant British marching music. And it's just, I just think he wants to subvert people's expectations of what they're going to the movies to see. And it's great. Yeah like I wasn't prepared for the extent to which he really does kind of like indict. His own britishness in these movies and call into question themes of like colonialism and honor and War. And like there's just there's so many layers going onto these movies, you know, we didn't touch on this in the earlier part of the episode, but the guy that plays The Medic in this movie was also in the Great Escape and So I think that's part of the reason why I tie the two together so much because I'm used to seeing that guy's face in both movies and I love the Great Escape.

55:13 I think I gave that movie a 9 and a half because it is like, you know there are moments of drama in that movie and it is very moving at Parts but it's a popcorn movie. Like it's a fun movie it's about as fun of a movie as you could possibly make about a prisoner of war camp, right? This movie, you feel the more punishing aspects of it. Like the the torture scenes are torturous and Pretty gruesome and violent 4 1957. The get away with a lot in this movie and he's just from the get-go. He's just dealing with themes that are on a much more difficult plane than something, like the Great Escape. And I really, I respect the hell out of it because this movie has a lot more to say than the Great Escape.

55:56 And at the same time, it is every bit as suspenseful, it's every bit as entertaining, like he makes a movie that you could go in and watch strictly as a popcorn movie and It works like gangbusters and then when you want to start peeling back, the layers of the onion. There's a hell of a lot to peel. Yeah, I think that Ebert. Kind of says it best as he usually does. He says that most most movies are either for or against their Wars. It by the end of Qui. We are less interested in who wins than in how the individual characters will behave. Hmm. And I think that kind of sums it up for me that like this movie doesn't necessarily end up.

56:37 Saying anything about the war. But it has everything to say about British culture and Japanese culture, and how much more similar they are than you'd like, to think that they are and how individuals will behave with this Society hanging above them. Hey, while we're talking about super serious things, can, I can I pivot to something that I found absolutely hilarious. So, I yes, you can the song that they whistle very famously in this movie Colonel. Bogey March. Ouch, which came up again in The Breakfast Club, 30 years later, almost in World War Two, because this was a World War one song that the, the soldiers would whistle and sing in WWII to pass the time and they devised some very spicy lyrics to it to just kind of stick it to the Germans. And so in this movie, David lean has them whistling That Tune because he knows that the Brits in the audience will know exactly what the Dirty lyrics were to this song. Huh.

57:37 And, you know, they couldn't say it so they just had them whistle it. So they could sneak it by the sensors but Brad, because I am a fan of the lyrics of this song. I'm going to read them out loud right now. I am very excited to stick it to the Germans. This is what they would sing and I won't sing it. But I'll just say to the Rhythm. They said, Hitler has only one right. Ball Goering has to but they are small Himmler has something similar. But gurbles has no balls at all. And that's, that's what about the Germans. I love it. Dude, that is incredible. I never expected to get a great little bit of Nazi hate in our Pacific setting.

58:26 That is just beautiful. Good job, David lean. All right man, I think we have said about all there is to say about this movie. It's time for us to segue into our final segment which we call Make it a double where we pick a movie to make a double feature with this Brad. I've been talking about the Great Escape all day. I think that's, that's maybe the most obvious movie to watch with this except for perhaps Stalag 17, which is that Billy Wilder movie with William Holden as the leader of an outbreak of a prisoner of war camp, or sorry as the leader of the cast. And it's a movie about a prisoner of war camp. So I'm going to take the easy way out, I'll say go watch Stalag 17 because we haven't reviewed, That on the podcast yet and it's Billy Wilder like it's a great movie.

59:10 So I'm going to make this a double will do. A William Holden double feature today? For me Bob I'm gonna go vastly in a different direction. I am going to pair this movie with fight club interesting with yeah. What's I feel? What's the connection here? I feel like a lot of people would watch this movie and just go. Huh? Cool war movie. They blew up a bridge, awesome. And I feel like a lot of people watch Fight Club and be like, yeah, rule number one, you don't. You don't talk about Fight Club that like, we're going to start a fight club where manly and I feel like both lean and Fincher. Have an ability in these two movies to write a movie that goes over the head of, a lot of people that watch it, and I just appreciate that.

1:00:06 I Just, I just think that there's so much to be said for movies that are really smart. And this is a really smart movie Bob. And I think that fight Club is a really smart movie. So I'm going to pair fight club with The Bridge on the River. Kwai like that, man. Nice choice. I don't, I don't like my club, but I was about to say, I would pair fight club with Jameson cold brew. That's what I would do that. Yeah. All right, man. Let's give this movie some scores and, you know, Start last week. I said that I was going to give this either an equivalent or a higher score than Lawrence of Arabia with the caveat that I understand. Lawrence of Arabia cinematic Masterpiece.

1:00:48 I enjoyed this movie more than Lawrence of Arabia. I'm going to watch this movie more times in my life than I watched Lawrence of Arabia. It's, it is the perfect example of, taking movie movie like just an entertaining movie and elevating it to a work of art and I don't think it's perfect like you said they're good, they could probably trim 15 minutes out of that William Holden, cutaway sequence. So I'm going to give it a nine and a half out of ten but this is like about as good as a nine and a half can get without being a 10. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to give it a nine and a half as well. Bob, I think that this movie is incredible, it moves it such a nice pace for a long movie, you get everything you need out of out of Alec Guinness has performance.

1:01:35 There's just so much. Love here man. Alright, so that's it from us. We are giving this a nine point five out of ten but we'd like to know what you think and honestly, please write us on Discord. Write us on our social media accounts. We want to know if you've seen this movie because it seems like a hell of a lot of people have seen this movie, but I never hear anybody talk about it. So, what's your experience with Bridge on the River Kwai? We would love to have you reach out to us on our social media accounts, Facebook Twitter, Instagram at film whiskey. Or, as Bob said, Ed. You can jump on our Discord were on there every single day talking to you guys. The people who listen to our podcast so if you want to join the conversation hit up the link at the end of every one of our show notes.

1:02:19 Next week, we're going to finish out our David lean miniseries with a movie that none of you have seen but all of you should see 1945's brief and counter will be back with that one next Monday. But until then I'm Bob book, I'm Brad G and we'll see you next time.