8 Movies That Had No Regard For The Environment

8. The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)

Based on a book by Pierre Boulle, David Lean's 1957 epic tells the tale of British prisoners of war who have to build a railway bridge over a Thai river but secretly plan to blow it up in an act of vengeance against their Japanese captors. It's a classic film that won seven Oscars, but the pursuit of authenticity in its filming led to some nasty consequences for the local area.

Producer Sam Spiegel desperately wanted the film to be realistic and selected a rich jungle in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to film the bridge scenes. Local labourers were called in to help build the bridge, which took eight months in total to construct. This meant chopping down over 1,200 trees from the surrounding forest, disturbing local ecosystems and wiping out wildlife.

After all that construction, the bridge was then blown up for a shot that only lasts a few seconds in the final film. Any trace of the blast has faded away by now and the vegetation that was chopped down has gradually managed to recover, but the film's production wasn't exactly eco-friendly.