BRIDGES IN MOVIES

Spanning cinema for greatness…

1

THE GENERAL

Buster Keaton didn’t have CGI in 1926. So that’s a real locomotive plunging from a collapsing train trestle (blown up with dynamite) into the river. Aone-shot-only deal, it was the most expensive stunt in silent-movie history. Buster bust a gut to make it happen.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III

As thrilling as any of the more famous stunts in later instalments, this ballistic set-piece on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge involves drones, a chopper, a firefight and Ethan Hunt being blasted into the side of a car. Tom Cruise naturally did the stunts himself.

IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA

The Golden Gate Bridge features in Vertigo, Superman, AView to aKill, Pacific Rim, Godzilla and countless other movies, but we’re going for Ray Harryhausen’s giant octopus attack. The beast only had six tentacles due to budget constraints.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN

OK, this only features two ends of a bridge, but how can we not include James Bond’s AMC Hornet corkscrew leap? The perfectly balanced car hit the ramp at precisely 48mph, and… ‘Bingo… one take,’ recalled director Guy Hamilton.

LOTR: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

‘You shall not pass!’ Gandalf the Grey battling the Balrog of Moria is a gold-standard boss battle. Both wind up plummeting off the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, though the wily wizard returns, suitably whitefaced, in The Two Towers.

LA LA LAND

The LA freeway flyover counts, right? Then let’s include the sixminute opening scene of Damien Chazelle’s musical, as people stuck in a traffic jam leap out of their cars to hoof and holler. ‘It’s three shots stitched together,’ admits Chazelle of this ‘oner’ wonder.

STAND BY ME

‘Traaaaaain!’ The central set-piece of Rob Reiner’s exemplary comingof-age adventure sees a thundering train arrive just as the boys are crossing a towering trestle. Oldschool movie magic –long lenses and matte paintings –make the danger seem terrifyingly real.

MANHATTAN

It’s the poster shot from Woody Allen’s ode to NYC: Isaac (Allen) and Mary (Diane Keaton) sitting on a bench at sunrise with the Queensboro Bridge silhouetted against the sky. ‘This is really a great city… a knockout,’ says Isaac. No argument there.

INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM

‘Steven [Spielberg] was really scared… It was a real suspension bridge over [a] 150ft clear fall,’ said Harrison Ford of the climactic scene where Indy shakes off his pursuers by cutting the rope. Now that takes (Sankara) stones…

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

David Lean’s epic tale of British POWs forced to build, well, a bridge on the River Kwai –and the Allied forces’ attempt to destroy it. It’s claimed the bridge cost $250,000 to construct. The film won seven Oscars.