The Bridge at Remagen (1969) on Netflix
In 1945, Lieutenant Phil Hartman leads a platoon of the 9th Armored Division toward the Rhine. Major Paul Kreuger is ordered to keep the Remagen bridge open for the retreating 15th Army.
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Plot summary
Lieutenant Phil Hartman is a war-weary platoon leader in the 9th Armored Division, pushing toward Remagen in 1945. The Americans fail to take the Oberkassel railway bridge. After his company commander, Captain John Colt, is killed, Hartman leads the company. His superiors expect the Remagen bridge to be destroyed and promise the men a rest once they reach the Rhine. On the German side, Colonel General von Brock has orders to destroy the bridge, but he tells Major Paul Kreuger to keep it open so the 15th Army can retreat across it.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Bridge at Remagen (1969)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- With the film two-thirds complete, the Soviet Army's invasion of Czechoslovakia on 20 August 1968 halted filming, stranding most of the cast and crew in Prague's International Hotel on the advice of the U.S. Embassy.
- Fleeing the invasion, some cast and crew, including future U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia Shirley Temple Black, left in a 400-car convoy for Plzeň and Nuremberg, while 79 others escaped in a 20-car Czech-driven caravan that reached Austria an hour before the border closed.
- After six months of location scouting, The Bridge at Remagen became the first American film shot in Communist Czechoslovakia, chosen because West German officials barred filming there over shipping traffic on the Rhine.
- The Remagen town scenes were shot in Most, Czechoslovakia, whose old town was being demolished and rebuilt elsewhere so the lignite under it could be mined, letting the production blow up real buildings instead of backlot sets.
- When the cast and crew fled Czechoslovakia, the items left behind included many personal possessions, the last five days' worth of filming and $1 million of equipment, among it eight tanks and four cameras of unprocessed film.
- Director John Guillermin tried to ban producer David Wolper from the set; Wolper replied that if he could not direct with the producer there he would be fired, and Guillermin promptly apologized.
- Robert Blake was cast in a role in the film but departed to spend more time with his family, and Alex Cord declined to appear in it.
