The Bridge On The River Kwai
English composer Malcolm Arnold added a counter-march, The River Kwai March for the 1957 dramatic film The Bridge on the River Kwai, set during World War II. The lyrics were not used in the film, but British audiences fully understood the humour of "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball" being whistled by prisoners of war. The melody is now so identified with the film that many people now incorrectly call it as "The River Kwai March". Arnold gave that name to a new march that he wrote for the movie. Since the film portrayed prisoners of war held under inhumane conditions by the Japanese, there was a diplomatic row in May 1980, when a military band played "Colonel Bogey" during a Canadian visit by Japanese prime minister Masayoshi Ōhira.
Read more about this topic: Colonel Bogey March
Famous quotes containing the words bridge and/or river:
“Home! Yes! she would see Trafalgar Square, again; and Nelson on his plinth; and Chelsea Bridge as it dissolved into the Thames at twilight ... and St. Paul’s, the single Amazon breast of her beloved native city.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“This ferry was as busy as a beaver dam, and all the world seemed anxious to get across the Merrimack River at this particular point, waiting to get set over,—children with their two cents done up in paper, jail-birds broke lose and constable with warrant, travelers from distant lands to distant lands, men and women to whom the Merrimack River was a bar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)