THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN (1969)

Filming on this fact-based WWII drama was interrupted by real life drama when Czechoslovakian location work came up against armed tanks rolling in from the USSR to put down a budding People’s Revolution against the Soviet-backed Communist government.  What a film-within-a-film that would have made!  Something for Pirandello.  Instead, a perfectly decent WWII story (a David L. Wolper production so it’s sobersided rather than fanciful) about the last standing bridge crossing the Rhine toward the end of the war, and the race between retreating Nazi forces & advancing Americans who both want to blow it up.  Or do at first.  Turns out German officer Robert Vaughan (using an unplaceable European accent) takes it upon himself to ‘slow walk’ his demolition duties so 75,000 soldiers have time to cross.  Meanwhile, Lt. George Segal for the Allies is charged with blasting away to stop an easy retreat.  Or is until Vaughan’s delay gives him a chance to take, rather than simply destroy, the bridge, facilitating Allied troop movement into Germany.  Director John Guillermin is merely efficient in the first half, but the tactical flip halfway in makes all the difference not only in storyline, but also in execution in front & behind the camera, especially in Segal’s relationships with wiseguy Sgt Ben Gazzara and credit-hogging Maj. Bradford Dillman.  The film’s no classic, but well done for this era in WWII actioners, easily topping prestige disappointments like CATCH -22/’70 and A BRIDGE TOO FAR/’77.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: The four main talents here: actors Segal, Gazzara, Vaughan; director Guillermin, all flirted with A-list status (Segal & Vaughan both Oscar® nom’d).  Yet each slipped off for one reason or another.  Guillermin losing his mojo after KING KONG/’76.  Vaughan hitting his big screen potential in support as corporate sleazeballs (see BULLITT/’68).  Gazzara fully engaged only on small indie work (see SAINT JACK/’79).  And Segal, with star wattage for the long haul, never topping his charismatic early lead in KING RAT/’65, as a WWII P.O.W., or in Robert Altman’s undervalued CALIFORNIA SPLIT/’74.