The Bridge
A World War II action adventure movie written, and to be directed by Ben Mole.
Logline
The true story of a commando mission to blow up a vital railway bridge in Nazi-occupied Greece, and the price paid by the locals who made it possible.
Story
Winter 1942. Nazi-occupied Greece. High in snowy mountains as dramatic as any Hollywood Western, a single railway line crosses a narrow bridge over a vertiginous canyon.
Sixty trains a day haul men and munitions down this, the only line, from Germany to the Mediterranean, feeding the German war machine in the African desert, where the Nazis are winning the war.
Sixty trains a day haul men and munitions down this, the only line, from Germany to the Mediterranean, feeding the German war machine in the African desert, where the Nazis are winning the war.
Five hundred miles to the south, Operation Torch, the American-led invasion of North Africa by land, sea and air is only days away. If the invasion is a success the establish a beachhead in the Mediterranean. From there they can can invade Italy, split the Wermarch down the middle, and ultimately retake France on the beaches of Normandy.
Someone has to stop the Nazi’s resupply. Someone has to blow up this bridge.
Someone has to stop the Nazi’s resupply. Someone has to blow up this bridge.
Eddie, a tough, American commando from the Office Of Strategic Services, and Chris, a British Oxford classics professor-turned-spy pick a rag tag bunch of misfits, rejects from the conventional army. A quiet but deadly French North African assassin, an escaped Greek Army Sergeant, a Kiwi and a Glaswegian Sikh explosives duo. They parachute into enemy occupied land.
They soon discover the bridge is well defended. Eddie and Chris must recruit local resistance fighters to form an assault force. But this is a world bypassed by modernity, ruled by bandits. Forming a cohesive assault force seems impossible.
Hunted by enemy patrols, the commandos scour the mountains for allies, racing between cat-and-mouse ambushes, to pitched battles and night-time assassinations, suffering betrayals and sacrifices and pushing endurance to the limit.
Midnight. Zero-hour. The attack goes in.
Flares soar, illuminating the bridge and the icy torrent below. The crack of machine gun fire and the blast of grenades rock the canyon walls. Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
The fascists counterattack. The explosives team in the canyon can’t set the charges while bombs and bullets rain down from guards above. Enemy reinforcements arrive. Time is running out.
The fascists retake a machine gun post, giving them unrestricted fire over our sappers. All seems lost. Eddie decides to send in the reserves, including the young Pistoli boy and all that means for reprisals against their families.
Eddie leads the second wave himself. They capture the bridge and destroy it. Mission accomplished.
Flares soar, illuminating the bridge and the icy torrent below. The crack of machine gun fire and the blast of grenades rock the canyon walls. Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
The fascists counterattack. The explosives team in the canyon can’t set the charges while bombs and bullets rain down from guards above. Enemy reinforcements arrive. Time is running out.
The fascists retake a machine gun post, giving them unrestricted fire over our sappers. All seems lost. Eddie decides to send in the reserves, including the young Pistoli boy and all that means for reprisals against their families.
Eddie leads the second wave himself. They capture the bridge and destroy it. Mission accomplished.
The Nazis vent their fury on the locals in murderous reprizals, but the Pistol family manages to espcape to America.
The assault helps win the war in North Africa, but goes much further. It sets the hearts and minds of Europe ablaze. Inspired by this, the first and largest Special Operation of WW2, resistance groups spring up across the continent. Hope of freedom in Europe returns.