The Bridge on the River Kwai and Kitulgala, – By Sukumar Shan
Source : Sri Lankan Planters (SLP) Official FB page
The movie, explores the lives of British prisoners of war being held at a Japanese prison camp in Burma, was filmed in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) near the town of Kitulgala, which is known for its rainforests, adventure sports and activities. The movie was based on the 1952 novel by Pierre Boulle.
Images of the contstruction of the bridge at Kitulgala as featured in the Illustrated London Newspaper of 9th November 1957. The First Bridge Built by L&T won an Oscar for the Film! The very first bridge built by ECC was in the mid-1950s. Interestingly, it was for the film The Bridge on the River Kwai. It took nearly eight months to build the wooden bridge, and just 30 seconds to blow it up by director David Lean’s team. The film was mostly shot in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and the bridge built by Mortensen, who was assisting L&T’s firm in Sri Lanka, ( Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Construction Company ) was a carpenter’s masterpiece. Very few know that the project was originally budgeted at Rs 8 lakh, but got escalated to Rs 16 lakh. Sam Spiegel, the producer refused to pay the additional costs. He shouted at Soren Toubro who had arrived in Sri Lanka for a settlement, ‘You won’t get as much as an extra nickel out of me’. Toubro gently replied, ‘Then you won’t be able to blow up the bridge for your climax,’ and handed over a court order. With superstars waiting to complete the shooting till the dispute was resolved, Siegel reluctantly agreed to a negotiated settlement. The money was paid, and the bridge was blown-up in the film’s climax. The movie went on to win an Oscar, and the rest is history. Later, Mortensen became the first general manager at ECC and purchased for a trifle 26 acres of land at Manapakkam, on the outskirts of Madras. This made the Company permanently headquartered in the city. Though established in Madras, ECC did not have much business there till it won the contract to build the Jawahar Wet Docks for the Madras Port Trust in 1958. It was Mortensen who cultivated the culture of quality and timely execution at ECC in the formative years.
