James Caan in A Bridge Too Far (1977)

Vitals

James Caan as Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun, determined U.S. Army paratrooper

Holland, Fall 1944

Film: A Bridge Too Far
Release Date: June 15, 1977
Director: Richard Attenborough
Costume Designer: Anthony Mendleson

Background

Established in the United States after the Civil War, Memorial Day honors the memory of American military personnel who died during their service. This year takes on additional poignancy as the 80th anniversary of many pivotal World War II campaigns that cost American lives, from D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge.

My great-uncle, Sergeant Joe Kordas, was among these fallen troops when he was killed in action on October 4, 1944 while serving in Holland with the 82nd Airborne. As I was born 45 years later, I naturally never had the opportunity to meet my uncle, but his memory is among those I honor on Memorial Day.

My understanding is that Uncle Joe was part of the 82nd Airborne Division’s fourth and final combat jump, parachuting into Holland in September 1944 as part of Operation Market Garden. This Allied offensive was designed to create an invasion route into the Netherlands as a combined force of American and British airborne forces (“Market”) would seize nine bridges, which British land forces (“Garden”) would then follow over. The largest airborne operation of the war to that point, Operation Market Garden was not an Allied victory and criticized by one of its planners as attempting to take “a bridge too far,” a phrase borrowed by historian Cornelius Ryan for his 1974 volume of the operation that was subsequently adapted for the screen by William Goldman.

More than a decade after he starred in his own star-studded World War II screen epic, The Great Escape, Richard Attenborough was again behind the camera for A Bridge Too Far, his third directorial feature. Chronicling the operation from the American, British, Polish, Dutch, and German points of view, A Bridge Too Far boasted a talented international cast including—but certainly not limited to—Dirk Bogarde, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Hardy Krüger, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, Maximilian Schell, and Liv Ullmann.

Most of this cast played real-life figures or composites of them, with one of my favorite performances being James Caan’s portrayal of Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun, a noncommissioned officer in the 101st Airborne based on the real-life Sergeant Charles J. Dohun, to the extent that A Bridge Too Far was the first of Caan’s films I chose to rewatch after learning of the actor’s death in July 2022. Continue reading →