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  “THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI” – By Des Kelly Yet another personalized version of a very famous Movie made in Ceylon. George Braine has written this version of the story very well indeed, and I am pleased to present it to all eLanka readers with a bit of additional information, that perhaps George himself was not aware of. My brother Ian, a famous Swimmer in Ceylon of the fifties, was chosen to be the “stand-in” for William Holden, who starred in”The Bridge”, when David Lean & Co., decided that  the “swimming scenes” (where several swimmers take the plunge to get to the section of bridge where the explosives are placed in order to blow it up), were too much of a risk for William H. to take, and perhaps he wasn’t a swimmer, anyway. Ian Kelly was not only strong enough, but he was an expert swimmer, even ...