The Bridge on the River Kwai

Ben and Bonnie are counting down the Oscar winners for Best Picture, starting from 94 and going backwards. They discuss the movie "The Bridge on the River Kwai" and their history with it. They also briefly mention other movies that were nominated for Best Picture in 1957, including "Peyton Place," "Sayonara," "Witness for the Prosecution," and "12 Angry Men." They talk about the plot and cast of each movie. They also mention some other notable movies from that year, such as "An Affair to Remember," "Sweet Smell of Success," and films by Ingmar Bergman. Hi, welcome to Trick or Treat, I'm Ben, I'm Bonnie, and we are here counting down the Oscar winners for Best Pitcher. And according to the strict guidelines of the Geneva Convention, we're going backwards from 94, we're all the way up to number 16. So what do we have today at number 16? Number 16 is The Bridge on the River Kwai. Yes. From 1957. Exactly. So what is your history with The Bridge on the River Kwai? I've seen this movie before. Okay. Yeah, it's been a while, but I've seen it at least once before, if not a couple of times. Okay. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, I've seen this a bunch of times. I saw it first in high school. Okay. I've seen it maybe, probably a half-dozen times, I guess. So at the end of this week, I'll watch it again. But before we get into The Bridge on the River Kwai, let's just take a quick look at some of the movies it beat out for that Best Pitcher Oscar back in 1957. Yeah, let's start with Pete in Place. Yeah. Is it also a TV show? Yeah. This was a best-selling novel that became a hit movie, and the movie became an early soap opera. I think it was a primetime soap opera for a long time. Oh, it was a soap opera. I didn't know that. I never saw it. Yeah. It wasn't that long ago. I mean, it's the 90s? When was it? No. Melrose Place was the 90s. Pete in Place was shortly after this, like late 50s, maybe in the 60s. Oh, I have no idea then. Yeah, this is a drama. It's kind of about a set in a small town in New England, and it's just about the dramas and the loves and affairs of this small town. A lot of juicy stuff from 1957. Lana Turner probably has the largest role. It has a big cast. One of the kids is played by Russ Tamblyn, who we saw in West Side Story as Riff. Okay. But yeah, it was a big sensation back in 1957. Okay. Another big hit from the year was Sayonara, based on the Michener novel. I read the book, but I didn't know there was a movie. Oh, yeah. It's a fairly famous movie adaptation. It's the story of two American servicemen serving in the Korean, centering the Korean War, and they both fall in love with Japanese women. Very controversial in that time period, although it was actually pretty common thing to happen with servicemen. But kind of dealing with the prejudices against interracial marriages, the servicemen are played by Marlon Brando and Red Buttons, who was at this time just a comedian. This is his first serious dramatic role. Okay. Do I know him in anything? I don't know. You may have seen him. He plays like the comic sidekick in a lot of movies. I think at this time, he wasn't in a whole lot of movies. I think he had a Red Button show television series. But the movie was a big hit. In a time where it was actually very common for Asian characters to use white actors in make-ups, they did hire two Japanese-American actresses, Miyoshi Yomeki and Miko Taka. Okay. So that decision kind of aged us well. Right. Something you kind of have to deal with in the time period, like when we talk about West Side Story and Natalie Wood. Right. Of it all. They keep a Puerto Rican accent. Yeah. So 1957 was actually a good year for Japanese-American actors. Also, we'll get to the main movie, which has a great DC role for a Japanese actor. Yeah, but that's Sayonara. Saito. Yeah. But we're not there yet. Yes. Well, we'll get there. We'll get there. Calm down. Then there's For the Prosecution. Okay. Which is a very juicy courtroom drama about a murder case in England. Marlena Dietrich. I feel like I have seen it. Yeah, I think you have seen it. Yeah. He's on some sort of medication. That's his name. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So he is the barrister, the defense attorney, to use American terminology. He's Charles Lawton, who we saw as Captain Delight. Do you know what barrister means? I think barrister is like attorney, so I think the prosecutor. But he's what we would call the defense attorney. Right. What do they call it? The barrister. I don't know. Okay. I think both sides would be barristers. As far as I know, I don't know anything about English law. Yeah. He's Charles Lawton, who we saw as Captain Blight in Meet Me on the Bounty. And his nurse is Elphalaya Castor, who you probably know as Kitty Nana in Mary Poppins. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they were married at the time. Really? Castor? Elphalaya Castor. Yeah. Yeah. Marlene Dietrich played the... Actually, I think it was her husband that was accused, but she has kind of a juicy role. Great courtroom drama, written and directed by Billy Wilder. Okay, yeah. Who is fantastic. We saw one of his movies in The Lost Weekend, and we will see him again. I remember really liking this movie. It's great. Yeah. This is probably, as far as Billy Wilder goes, probably at the top of his second tier. Okay. Yeah. Probably his first tier, you have The Apartment, Double Indemnity, Somerset Boulevard, some like it hot. Are we going to see The Apartment? Yes. Okay. But this is just kind of the next level. It's a very good movie. And another great courtroom drama is 12 Night Women. I'm sure you've seen this, right? I don't know if I've seen it. Oh, okay. Yeah. You've definitely heard of it, right? It's very famous. Very famous. It's been redone. It's been redone over and over again, put on stage. The whole movie is a jury deliberation room. Yeah. And why are there no women on the jury? It was the 50s. I think a lot of jurisdictions, they didn't have women. When it's remade today, they'll definitely have women. Yeah. I'm not sure when that changed, but at least it wasn't uncommon for men. Okay. Because you need people to make sound decisions. Yeah. So now that you've been on a jury. A couple, yeah. Yeah. But you were on a jury of import. Yeah. It wasn't a famous case, but it was a significant import and it was a big deal, jury deliberation. Yeah, I think we both were. Is this the first time you've watched it since? It was. Okay. Yeah. One of them was kind of a traumatic experience, but what I value in this movie is not so much what it says about the criminal jurisprudence so much as just how it kind of uses that as a framework to really look into how people come to believe something is true and how they change their minds and what will cause them to doubt a belief that they've adopted. And I think that's what's so fascinating about this movie, that it really does a good job of sketching out these 12 very different personalities and how they each come to the conclusion. I mean, I don't think, as far as just a jury duty, it's ... I mean, parts of it are actually very realistic. I don't know how plausible it is to go from 11 to 1 in favor of guilty to 12 to 0 acquittal in 98 minutes. So that's what happened. Oh, yeah. Yes. I mean, I don't mean to spoil it, but I think that's pretty ... not really a surprise. I mean, once it goes to 10 to 2 or 9 to 3, you kind of see where it's going. Yeah. Because you were, in your more traumatic experience, you were the holdout, the lone holdout and a hung jury. Yes. But the case was then retried and the next jury found the same conclusion that you did and justice was eventually ... Here, here, yeah. Here, here. Good for you. But it's hard to be the lone holdout. Really hard, yeah. Henry Fonda is in that position in this movie. Yeah. I mean, it's just fascinating about just looking at the reasons that these individuals have for their belief and how they change it. Yeah. It's really, really well done. And for a movie that's all set in one location, the director, Sidney Lumet, does such a great job of showing diversity. There's great blocking. It's just about how the people are set up within the camera frame to have perspective and to just give a sense of variety. Yeah, because they never leave. No, they never leave. It's essentially in real time. There's, I think, maybe one cut. We don't know how long before they take a break. But yeah, fascinating movie. So this is a strong lineup of Best Picture nominees. And a great year for movies. Just to touch on some of the other stuff that was out there that the Academy didn't recognize in the Best Picture lineup, at least. Probably most famous is An Affair to Remember. Oh, yeah. Cary Grant, Deborah Carr, romantic drama about an affair. That's the one where they have a plan to meet at the top of the Empire State Building. It got a lot more attention in the 90s, romantic comedies. I think it's mentioned in Harry McSally. And it's a major plot point in Sleepless in Seattle. Maybe it's not mentioned in Harry McSally. Well, one of my favorite things is that in Sleepless in Seattle, when... Who is Tom Hanks' wife? She's in that. Rita Wilson? Rita Wilson, yeah. She's describing this movie to two men. And it's just so great. And she's crying. And they're just like... Yeah, they're mean girls. They're just being... But she's just like, oh, An Affair to Remember. But she just does such a good job in that scene of just describing the movie and ending up in tears and the beauty of the whole thing. And it's like, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think even better than An Affair to Remember is Passing Glory. He can't walk, but you don't. She can't walk. Oh, yeah. That's right it was. Yeah, right? Because she gets hit by a car. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, Passing Glory is an early Stanley Kubrick movie. That's the second World War, one of the best war movies of all time, really. Really? Terrific. Never heard of it. Sweet Swell of Success is this great film noir about these corrupt journalists. Funny face. Terrific musical. And I'd be remiss not to acknowledge some of the great cinematic achievements outside of the United States. Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal, both from Sweden. The great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman made two of his best movies both this year. Very different and excellent. Is that the... How is he related to Ingrid Bergman? They're both Swedish. That's it? No relation? No relation. Okay. Yeah, I mean, The Seventh Seal is kind of a famous medieval allegory movie where the knight is playing chess with death. Oh. You kind of see that. It's very interesting. So is it The Seventh Seal from Revelation? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's very metaphorical. Wild Strawberries is a present-day drama about an old man on a road trip taking stock of his life. So very different movie, both excellent. Akira Kurosawa, the great Japanese director, came out with Torn of Blood, his adaptation of Macbeth set in medieval Japan. Wow. Yeah, it's terrific. I know nothing about medieval Japan. Yeah, samurai and... Well, that's all medieval? Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. We'll do some Akira Kurosawa eventually. Knights of Siberia also was from the Sheriffs. One of Federico Fellini's Italian directors, the more prominent movies. Okay. And there's other stuff from 1957, but I'm not going to go through all of them. O'Bieller. Funny Face. Is that Audrey Hepburn? Audrey Hepburn. Yeah. Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire in one of his later roles. Oh. Yeah. Is that later redone? Funny Face? No. Barbra Streisand? It's a different movie. We have to look it up now. We need to phone a friend. Oh, Funny Girl. Right. Of course. Funny Girl. Of course. Yeah. Duh. Duh. I knew that. Okay. So not related at all. Not related at all. They're both musicals. You have to cut it right where I said Funny Face. Okay. Because I just took us on a... Well, you should watch Funny Face. I should. Yeah. I don't know anything about it. Yeah. I must call your attention, Colonel Saito, to Article 27 of the Geneva Convention. Belligerents may employ as workmen prisoners of war who are physically fit, other than officers... Do you read the books? By all means. If you read English, I take it. Do you read Japanese? I'm sorry, no, but if it's a matter of precise translation, I'm sure that can be arranged. I see the code specifically states the fate. Jammer, General! You speak to me of code? What code? The coward's code! What do you know of the soldier's code? Of Bushido? Nothing! You're an order of command! Yeah, so that is Setsu Hayakawa as Colonel Saito, facing off against probably a familiar voice to a lot of you, Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson, in The Bridge on the River Kwai. So what is this movie about? This is about a group of prisoners of war in a Japanese prison camp who are being called upon to build a bridge for the Japanese. Yes! That's it, in a nutshell. They're British, so Obi-Wan Kenobi is the head British soldier. Yes, Alec Guinness and Colonel Nicholson is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yes, and then somebody... who is it? The American... Oh, William Holden plays... We've seen William Holden in... Yeah, we've seen him in the Best Picture winner. I know we've definitely talked about him in... he was in Network. From Here to Eternity? No. No, I don't think he's been in another Best Picture winner. He's the most famous for Sunset Boulevard Network in his older years. Network, is he the one who blows up? No, he's the other main guy. He's much older. Exactly. Yeah, much older. He's in the 70s. Yeah. He's in Sabrina. I think you know him from that. Oh, yes. Yeah. He's the younger brother. Yeah, right. Yeah. Cool. What do you think of The Bridge on the River Kwai? Yeah, good movie. It is long, but it goes... It just keeps you on the edge of your seat. There's a lot of... Of course, the major... It's got so many issues of interesting concepts of morality even, sort of the... Pride? Pride. The Kantian categorical imperative seems to come into it. Oh, yeah. Okay, that's interesting. And so it seems to come into this. And then... So I started this movie. Then I had to go pick up Adam from the airport. Okay. And then he watched... But it was like the last hour and a half, two hours. He watched the whole second half, really. Okay, yeah. So then it has the whole added interest of watching a movie about a commando operation with a commando. Yeah. So there was that. Interesting. Yeah. On all these things. So, yeah, it's good. I mean, that's the... There's a lot of stuff to talk about. There's a lot. I really love this movie quite a bit. So for maybe our listeners who aren't as big of Kantian fans as the two of us, what is the Kantian imperative? The two of us. What is the Kantian imperative? So this was just sort of the concept that Kant would have on morality. So take, like, tell the truth. The imperative is you need to tell the truth. So you tell the truth no matter what. Right? So if Nazis come to your door looking for the Jewish people that are there and they say, do you have any Jews here? You have to tell them that they're there. Right? That would be one way of looking at this. So that's what kind of reminded me of that Alex Guinness figure because he plays that German general and he's very... British general. I'm sorry. British general and he's, I'm thinking... Colonel, I think he is, but yeah. Okay. Colonel. Right. I'm really butchering this whole thing. That's fine. No, it's fine. It's fine. I've struggled many times. But anyway, and he's kind of... Especially they contrast him with the American. They probably do this a lot, right? The British, you know, stiff upper lip and they do things by the rule. And then you've got this renegade American officer, or at least we think at the time officer, is just ragtag and has... Of course, he'd been there for a long time and had a much more cynical view. He had no interest in keeping the... The clip that you played is the Japanese not keeping to the rules of the Geneva Convention, where he didn't want the officers to be doing manual labor. But you could have the enlisted do manual labor, but not the officer. Yes. It's so interesting because it seems ridiculous. Prisoners of war. Yeah. But he is willing to be tortured. Yeah. And his men to be tortured. He won't back down on this. Seems absolutely ridiculous, but it actually works. Yeah. He won't even compromise. He won't compromise at all. But it actually ends up working, gives them this big victory, which is interesting, especially from the American side of where it's more like a Hawkeye from Ash kind of do. Exactly. Yeah. So let's talk about that, because I think it's really kind of an interesting movie about pride in that it is kind of a movie of two halves, where in terms of storytelling language, Nicholson is kind of unambiguously the hero of that first half, right? Yeah. He's Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yeah. He's presented as someone who has a belief in a cause and suffers and is going head to head with the villain of the piece and just comes out completely victorious. And it gets to the thing with pride where you kind of believe your own hype. And we get into the second section where it's much more ambiguous as far as his rationale and why he's doing what he's doing, because he ends up building, as it's put in the movie, building the Japanese, their enemy, a better bridge than they would have been able to do on their own. And it's a bridge that's important for the Japanese war effort at that time to connect, I think, Bangkok to Burma or what's now Myanmar at the time. And it shows kind of that fine line between taking a righteous stand for your principles and taking a stubborn stance for your preferences. And it almost causes you to kind of rethink that first half of the movie that was victorious and really kind of question what his motivations really were the whole time. Yeah. So really fascinating. I think Nicholson, Colonel Nicholson, is a really fascinating character. We don't really learn a whole lot about him, so it makes him kind of hard to figure out. And I really like how, in his obsession with getting the bridge built on time, he has his officers do manual labor. I know. And I love how that's presented, where it's not like a moral dilemma where he does that. He just kind of says it offhand. He says it offhand while he's trying to get men from the sickbed to do labor. Right. Because he doesn't want to use the Japanese. Right. Because there are extra men there. That would have been another way to go around that, but it's got to be, we have to show them British. Yeah, how our can do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, which then makes you go back to, well, I thought your whole thing, why didn't you compromise before then? If you're compromising now, what's the difference? Yeah, because he at one point had the option to have his senior officers not do manual labor. Right. Certain things. I really love that first half of the movie, and I do want to single out Setsu Hayakawa, who was, as I said before, a Japanese-American actor to get this role. He was actually a silent-era Hollywood star, because he was actually very good-looking as a younger man, had kind of an exotic look, didn't transfer because of his accent and not speaking good English. You talk about that. Yeah, exactly. Probably an artist, maybe wings, but yeah, didn't transition well to sound, to talkies, but now he gets this really juicy role, and he's so great. Yeah. Another instance of great character introduction, because we kind of hear about him before we meet him. First of all, we meet Sears, the American, is the first person we meet, while he's digging in graves. Yeah. Right, so that sets up his perspective. So he talks about Saito as this basically irrational madman, right? And so then when you finally meet him, he's addressing these soldiers, the British soldiers, and immediately comes, bumps up head-to-head. He's definitely introduced to us as the bad guy. But we actually end up learning a lot more about him and his motivations than we do about Nicholson. We learn, okay, he studied in London, and he was going to be an artist, and his dad made him go into the military. And we learn the much more personal stakes for him in getting this bridge built on time is he's kind of in between a rock and a hard place. He has to do it. If he doesn't do it, he's going to have to commit suicide because of their honor system in the imperial Japan. So it's just like, as the section goes on, even though in terms of story structure, Nicholson is like the unambiguous hero, we're never given stakes for him to actually get under his skin and feel it other than. And so I think that helps it to unravel later on where emotionally, I think we do get to develop stronger ties with Saito. And I really love Hayakawa's performance here. It was just great. Well, it's interesting too, because you have the two, you know, like you said, with the American, the Shears guy, who had just, you know, there was a complete imbalance of power between him and Colonel Saito, right? And so he just, he calls himself, he was a slave. That guy was the master, right? And nothing ever got better. So his whole thing was, you just endure and then try to escape from them. Nicholson, regardless of what his motives were, his, you know, because he seems like, the one guy at first seemed like it's like, do almost Machiavelli, do whatever it takes to get, you know, you're not sticking by the rules. But it's actually Nicholson, who by sticking by the rules, actually increases in power, so that he kind of insists upon being equal power, almost with Colonel Saito, because they're both colonels, right? But he ends up superseding him, right? And then it becomes about, you know, about being more in power, because it's about... Saito is visibly rejected. Right, you see him diminishing, and so it's really Nicholson was more, he was able to sideline Saito, whereas Shears was never, there was no way he was going to do that. Nicholson was actually his equal, and then his, you know, his better, you know, and they, that scene where they, he's like, here's how to build the bridge, and it's, and you can see, this is after he'd been kept, you know, just been treated very terribly. And then that scene where he's like, okay, here's our plan to help you get this bridge built on time, and he takes over this meeting, even though he's at the foot of the table, and Colonel Saito's at the head, but by the end of it, it's like he's at the head of the table, and Saito's at the foot. Ordering a tea. Yes, exactly, he's just, you know, could you have some tea brought in for us? Yeah. You know, and then it's just, like, you can see that he's now treating him like his... Second in command. Yeah, exactly, get some dinner ordered for us, while we're going to, really talking down to them, you know. Yeah, and you can see them, I think, very sensitive to this humiliation that he must feel. And there's a really fascinating scene towards the end, where they're having their, the British are having their celebration, the prisoners of war, but they're, like, having a party, and you just see Saito, by himself, like, for a second, you almost think he's going to commit suicide. Yeah, right. But he's, like, he cuts off his topknot, which I learned from Seven Samurai that that's a sign of submission. Oh. Yeah, or of humiliation. Okay. Yeah, so, yeah, very, very interesting stuff there. That whole part was very, very fascinating. Yeah, and it's almost, it's not so much a military movie, because you don't see them actually doing soldier work, but they're more like laborers, right? Yeah. It's more like management. It's also about the dignity of work, and having purpose, you know, what happens when you feel like you have no purpose? Exactly. You know, and there's a lot of human dignity. Yeah, and you can reinterpret that stance he takes in the first half of the movie as him defending a social hierarchy, you know, management versus labor, in this instance, or officers versus the enlisted, because if it's simply the rule of law, he does very quickly and cavalierly just reverse it later on when it serves his purposes. But I think that's kind of, we never see it from the grunt's eye point of view, unless you count Shears, who, right, we meet him as an officer, but he's an imposter, we learn later. But the opening shot is of a train with, on top of the train is a Southeast Asian man with the guns and a bunch of white soldiers laboring on the railroad, which is, has some irony just in the history of the America importing Chinese immigrants to build the railway across America. But I think there's a lot of undertones about colonialism, because the Japanese ambitions there is to create an empire. They're coming in from Japan to take over the region, and the British, like, they know how to build bridges in this region, because they've been doing it all through India. British is like, hey, we do colonialism, you'll never do colonialism. Exactly. Now hold my beer. Exactly. Yeah, and so it's like this face-off between these two imperial powers, and the native populations are, the indigenous populations are there. I mean, it doesn't focus on them, but the camera does kind of linger a bit on the one guy who has to sit outside Saito's cabin, cooling down the, fanning him, you know, keeping him safe. When Scheers is at his lowest, it is an indigenous tribe that gives him comfort and nurtures him in a non, with no strings attached, right? Not like when he gets to a paradise in Sri Lanka, controlled by a British colony at the time, which is like the one section of the movie that's just luxury. You know, the comfort he has there comes with a price tag, because they want him to go back. Right. And, yeah, so it's really kind of interesting from the perspective of exploiting labor. I've always really liked the movie, but in the past I've kind of tolerated the Scheers sections more. I like the stuff back at camp more than the William Holden parts. But I found it interesting this time around, because it does kind of have a similar theme of, like, the mission is more important than the people, in terms of the management of the enterprise. You know, you have this scene where, okay, Scheers has to, here's your suicide pill, because you can't get taken alive. Which is interesting, because the whole troop was ordered to surrender, but I guess for commandos it's different. I don't know what that was all about. But it's like, okay, the mission's most important, we can't hold things up for you, it has to go forward. But as things pan out, it's actually the officer who gets injured and ends up slowing everything down. And all of a sudden it's like, okay, well, he doesn't have to take a suicide pill. They build a stretcher for him and take him. There is the one point where he does say, oh, leave me behind and go ahead, but it's almost like we also see that he had had plenty of opportunities, just like he's already way far behind. He could have just cut. So it's almost like he brings it up when he knows they're going to tend to him. So it's like there's this disconnect between the management kind of defending this hierarchy and the laborers, which I found kind of fascinating here. Because it's not a movie that, watch it and think, oh, this has kind of a lefty bent. It doesn't really, but you can see a kind of sympathy towards the laborers and the dignity of labor. Also, interestingly, not to interrupt, sorry. No, go ahead. The screenwriters weren't credited until the 1980s because they were blacklisted. They were both really active in the labor movement and so accused of being communists. So the screenplay at the time was credited to, Pierre Boulle wrote the novel. It was a French novel and he doesn't speak any English. So he was credited with the screenplay. But it was actually written by Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, who were blacklisted at the time. Got credit after their deaths. And Pierre Boulle won an Oscar for screenwriting and the Academy belatedly gave Oscars to their widows of the two men who were blacklisted. Well, after Nicholson takes over and then he gets more work out of them, but their working conditions also improve greatly. And they look healthier. They do. You can see their morale builds. So there's all these dichotomies. And then you've got the doctor, who is like the conscience. Yes. And the conscience in the movie is just like, I don't know, sir. Shouldn't we be worried about this being like collaborating with the enemy? Do we have to do it this well? It's starting to put this, is this really about... And if it really were, then he'd be... If it really were about the men and about the social structure, then having it be blown up at the end would be no problem. Or keep them occupied building the bridge in a place where you know it's going to collapse the first train that goes over it. Because that's not your problem. No, it's not your problem. You didn't take the site, but they deliberately changed the location because of their colonial experience. And going back to Colonial's point, one of the lonely scenes between Shears and Nicholson, they're kind of arguing about the virtue of laws. At that point, I think Shears was questioning how they can't form an escape committee because they were ordered to surrender. So escape, he thinks, would be... or it's a gray area, he says. So Shears is questioning his motives. Nicholson's point is, this is what civilization is. It's law. And he goes, there's no civilization here. And Nicholson said, well, it's our job to bring it there. Which is the entire rationale behind the colonial imperialist sentiment is that we're bringing civilization. Yeah, as long as we're here, we might as well colonize. Yeah. Yeah, but it is tricky because there are certainly... there's a lot of stuff to point to where Nicholson turns out to be right. It's not cut and dry. Yeah, exactly. Here's the moral of the story and everything points to this. There's a lot of complexity here that's really kind of fascinating. Now, would you say the weakest part is the whole William Holden commando thing? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I appreciate the little boy this time because the thematic parallels that I saw more. But yeah, I don't... I think that's the weakest part of the movie. Nicholson and Saito are just such compelling characters. Right, yeah. Yeah, and it is sort of strange. We're going to build this team. We're training all these people. But we're going to, you know, we're going to... And I guess I get why they want the one guy who's been there before. Okay, so there can be... And then you have the language guy. That can be helpful. That was helpful. Yeah, it was helpful. And then you've got a good swimmer. So I suppose you want a good... But that's the best you could come up with? There was one other guy that got hung up, but it seems very... I don't know. Yeah, I mean, they're also fighting a war on two fronts, so it's not like... Yeah, but I mean, they actually did have people doing this in World War II, and it just seems like this should have been a more aggressive group that they sent out. But anyway, but that was the fun part. Adam's like, oh my gosh, they're splashing so much. It's like, yeah, there's a lot of critiques built. Although he did agree with the linguist officer when they mentioned commando, and he said something to the effect of, I don't like that term because it's so dramatic. Yeah. And Adam was like, yeah, I agree with that. Yeah. But anyway, but it was entertaining watching all of that with him. They're going through the jungle, and he's commenting on, I don't know. You remember all those things you were commenting on, Adam. He didn't mention snakes, but some sort of like bird things that were, I don't know. Bats. There were a lot of bats. He didn't mention bats. I don't know. Well, I saw that in the movie. Yeah. He was like, they weren't sweating enough. Yeah, I didn't think about that. It was just funny commentary through that whole part. Yeah. I mean, when they're planting the bombs, I, yeah, I mean, Adam would know more how realistic it was. You're talking about those plastic explosives. Oh, yeah. That was fascinating. Yeah. He said that was true. He said, yeah, they, he said you could heat MREs with them. Yeah. Yeah. I do like that it is set up well that before the nighttime scenes where they're planting the bombs or the explosives, we do have a scene with Nicholson out on the bridge, and he kind of drops his, like suddenly drops his walking stick, and that kind of shows us how far, how tall the bridge is, so that we kind of understand when we get to that scene that the sentries are not, are not that close to where they are. So we kind of understand it a little bit more. It's pretty, it's pretty close. And you're also down to your two least experienced men by that point. Yeah. Right. And they do kind of screw us. They do. But it is interesting. I mean, I think the whole water receding, and they can see it. There's so much tension in it. Yeah. It does build a lot of tension. But, and then I, you know, you say you've got the Nicholson who sees it, and then they're like, this is bonkers. Why is he acting on this? You know, he's lost his mind. Yeah. It's become about this pride thing. He's lost sight of it. But I do love how right at the end where he's like, oh, what have I done? You know, he like realizes, you know, right, you know, right at that point that. Good movie. Yeah. Yeah. Down there with the Saito. And, oh, the young kid actually does. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, Saito, Saito. Yeah. Good movie. Really good movie. Yeah. Directed by David Lean, who also directed Lawrence of Arabia. Okay. Two movies in the top 16. Lawrence of Arabia. Yeah. So, your trivia question for this week is, what best picture winners are named, are referenced by name in the Billy Joel song, We Didn't Start the Fire? Yeah. So, I came up with three of them. I had to look up a bunch because there's actually a lot of names that are from movies. Yeah. But. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 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