Who composed the score for David Lean’s 1957 war film The Bridge on the River Kwai?

Malcolm Arnold composed the score for David Lean’s 1957 war film The Bridge on the River Kwai.

The film is set in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma during the Second World War. Alec Guinness plays Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson, a British officer who becomes determined to prove the superiority of his men by overseeing construction of a railway bridge for their captors.

Arnold’s score combines original orchestral music with military and popular tunes. The best-known musical element is the Colonel Bogey March, whose melody was written by Kenneth J. Alford in 1914. Because the tune is so strongly associated with the film, it is often mistakenly credited entirely to Arnold.

Arnold won the Academy Award for Best Original Music for the score. The film itself won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Guinness. The story was adapted from Pierre Boulle’s novel, and several major events are fictionalized rather than being a direct account of one bridge’s history.