MovieChat Forums > The Bridges at Toko-Ri Discussion > The scene in the ditch

The scene in the ditch

posted 10 years ago by dmjh64
4 replies | jump to latest

I remember that the version of this film shown on British Sunday-afternoon t.v. in the '70s showed Brubaker trying to warn off an approaching family of Korean peasants as they approach him in the ditch, just as the aircraft arrive and begin strafing the area to wipe out the encircling Commie troops.The family is blown away and Brubaker is anguished.
This scene-quite short-has disappeared from the film as it is shown today and you would never guess that it had been there. Were there different editions for other countries?

[–] onleft23 10 years ago

I can't recall this part of that gut-wrenching scene, and to this day
almost 50 years since first having watched it on tv, it is as powerful a movie
scene as I have ever experienced.

I was just a kid 9 or 10 and neither expecting - nor ready - to have it play out
the way it did. I remember just sitting there when it was over and being numb.
Hope that doesn't read as over-dramatic, but I really liked Brubaker and especially both Mickey Rooney's
& Earl Holliman's characters.

I've read since then that Bill Holden had only taken the role based on its
non-Hollywood ending, and we all know Bridges at Toki-Ri DOES NOT have a "the hero
wins out at the end" finish.

Next viewing - I still watch it every coupla years - I'll try to remember to
see if what you mention is onscreen.

Sure it had its melodramatic moments, nonetheless, Bridges at Toki-Ri remains
a powerful - and moving - movie.

[–] dmjh64 10 years ago

It's just possible that the scene of Brubaker's helplessly watching the peasants shot to pieces (off-camera) by the aircraft that have just arrived to protect him was removed from prints (for good) because the fictional horror had been overtaken by reality when, in 1972, a village in South Vietnam was fire-bombed (with napalm) by Skyraider aircraft just like those that were seen in the ''Toko Ri" final scene nearly 20 years earlier.The Vietnam incident was a propaganda disaster for the U.S. and may prompted a decision to remove the brief 'massacre' scene from the film (and so neatly that you wouldn't know now that it had ever existed).

[–] wyldemusick 9 years ago

The scene was in the book. I don't think they ever shot it, however.

[–] dmjh64 9 years ago

I saw the picture quite a lot many years ago and the scene was definitely there in some of the screenings.There may be many reasons why it has disappeared and there's probably no-one around today who knows enough about the production to back me up.We're only dealing with a very short scene that couldn't have lasted more than a couple of minutes at the most.