# "Pearls Before Swine"-12/20/2014: Is "Bridge on the River Kwai" Now Obscure? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 21, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787 "2014-12-21T01:27:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/21 "2014-12-21T16:35:32Z")
I guess it’s not just modern audiences who don’t won’t watch this movie. It won 7[Oscars and host of other awards.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050212/awards?ref_=tt_awd) I’m somewhat surprised at the responses here. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/22 "2014-12-21T17:30:27Z")
When I was a kid, and really, seriously into vintage movies, this movie, from 1957, would have been too new for me to circle in the paper. I was born in 1967, and I liked silent films, and “Golden Age” movies, or movies from the studio system days. However, I wised up after a while, and finally saw _Bridge on the River Kwai_ when I was about 28. It was great. I saw it again when I had a chance to see it in a theater in my mid-30s. I wouldn’t call it the greatest movie of all time, or even the greatest WWII movie, but it’s very, very good. I’m 47 now-- will be 48 in a few weeks. One thing: There used to be occasional TV shows and videos showcasing special effects from various movies, and the final scene from this movie, where the bridge blows up spectacularly, derailling a train, was usually included, so a lot of people who had not seen the full movie were familiar with the bridge blowing up. People haven’t made special effects retrospectives so much, since everything has been CGI. It used to be interesting to explain how an effect was managed, but now that the answer always is “CGI,” it’s not interesting anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/23 "2014-12-21T17:57:46Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > No, [this is](http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2014/12/20). Thanks- I was wondering what cancelling cable had to do with the movie. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/24 "2014-12-21T18:28:06Z")
I turn 34 in a couple weeks. I’ve heard the movie’s title multiple times before, and I have a vague awareness of it as a war movie. But I’ve never seen it, and nobody I know in my age group has seen it. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/25 "2014-12-21T21:52:08Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > …There’s a modern style special effects conclusion… I’m not sure what you mean by this. It sounds like you know the movie well, but that’s a real train going off a real bridge in the finale. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/26 "2014-12-21T21:58:08Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > No, [this is](http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2014/12/20). Ah… NOW I understand. Thanks! I love BOTRK- one of my favorite films in fact. I just turned 48. SHIT! That makes me five years older now than Guinness was when he did that film. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/27 "2014-12-21T22:13:47Z")
> [@MonkeyMensch](#): > > I’m not sure what you mean by this. It sounds like you know the movie well, but that’s a real train going off a real bridge in the finale. I mean that there’s a huge special effects scene that like the type that is used much more frequently now. Special effects aren’t limited to CGI, they include things like actual demolitions and trains going off bridges. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/28 "2014-12-21T22:17:11Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I mean that there’s a huge special effects scene that like the type that is used much more frequently now. Special effects aren’t limited to CGI, they include things like actual demolitions and trains going off bridges. I’m with ya. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2014, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/29 "2014-12-22T03:06:04Z")
I’m in my fifties and male. I knew there was such a movie. I think it is about World War II. The tune of the Comet song comes from it. I believe the actual song is the Colonel Bogie (Boogie?) March. That’s all I can tell you about the movie. I didn’t think much of the cartoon. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2014, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/30 "2014-12-22T10:05:19Z")
One of those movies my father had me watch as part of my education in popular culture or something. I liked it, at least. It’s not something that survived into my generation’s canon the way some other movies did. (And I was born in the early 1970’s.) I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s essentially unknown to almost everyone born after 1972. Also, a later lyric to the whistled tune was apparently, “Winners wake up with Malt-O-Meal,” according to my father. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2014, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/31 "2014-12-22T12:42:00Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > The tune of the Comet song comes from it. The Col Bogie March does not come from Bridge on the River Kwai. It was featured in it, but it was written in 1914, and quite popular in the actual real-world WWII. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2014, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/32 "2014-12-22T13:03:09Z")
I’m 57 and female but I’ve seen the movie and loved it. Having played Colonel Bogey a few times in band (which is probably why they screened it for us at an Honors band summer retreat back in 1974 where I held hands with a really cute boy from southern Ohio which is partly why I have such fond memories of the film) keeps the movie firmly in the favorites column, but it was also a great story. And I recall the Malt-o-Meal lyrics as “Winters, warm up with Malt-o-Meal!” but I guess I’ll have to Google them later. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2014, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/33 "2014-12-22T22:21:13Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > The Col Bogie March does not come from Bridge on the River Kwai. It was featured in it, but it was written in 1914, and quite popular in the actual real-world WWII. Okay, I thought I knew two things about it but actually I knew only one thing about it. Ignorance fought, and I guess it was even more obscure than originally believed! ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787/34 "2014-12-23T01:14:22Z")
There is a brief article in the March, 2015 issue of “Military History” magazine that Sri Lankan officials plan to reconstruct the wooden bridge that was blown up at the end of the film. It was filmed on the Kelani river near Kitulgala. The proposed bridge and museum are intended to boost tourism at what is a popular whitewater rafting destination. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pearls-before-swine-12-20-2014-is-bridge-on-the-river-kwai-now-obscure/707787.md?page=1)