Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

It's only *the experience* when it's on the BIG screen.

No snark from this R1. It's my favorite film, OP.

So many iconic scenes, but the introduction of Omar Sharif's character, Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish, is considered by many to be the greatest "entrance" in film history.

You're welcome.

Thank you, r2, but I prefer...

The desert was the star in that movie.

Some movies were made to be seen on the big screen. The pandemic notwithstanding, when was the last time you specifically went to a big screen movie?

I love this movie.

Do you think Lawrence was sodomized in the prison? It is certainly hinted at.

I found it boring as hell.

I can appreciate grand visuals, I love cinema, but this was a total bore for me.

What is the appeal? Seriously though...

Well, who still has a BIG screen?

It's all about the sweep, r8.

R8 The appeal?

First, the acting:

You have five of the greatest actors of that time in one movie: Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Jose Ferrer, Anthony Quinn, and Anthony Quayle.

You have two very very great actors ending their careers: Claude Rains and Sir Donald Wolfit (he was a Sir when it was rare and actually meant something).

Two brand new actors who give damn good performances: Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif.

Second, the story: If it wasn't for T.E. Lawrence, WW1 could have ended very differently. He almost single handedly took down The Ottoman Empire.

Third, you have to have an attention span. Lawrence of Arabia is not a Jean Claude van Damn movie. It is a slow building epic that builds characters. Yeah, it might be slow, but the pay off is divine.

Terrific film that of course covers up Lawrence’s homosexuality. But you could not expect it to not be in the era it was made.

Lawrence was obviously meant to be a homosexual but it’s reduced to subtext because of the era. Peter O’Toole was beautiful before the alcohol hit. Not to mention Omar Sharif….

So many of those European/foreign actors were so much hotter and more talented than the American men of that era.

I don't think that the film covers up Lawrence's homosexuality. Given when the film was made, obviously Lean could not show explicit sex. But all you have to do is see the extended sequence in which Omar Sharif appears: as Lawrence, and the camera, stares, out of nothing but heat and sand materializes . . . a tall, dark, handsome man. This is one of the rare films in which a historical character's sexuality isn't incidental; is a key to his character and to what made him important. Lawrence's obsession with the Arabs and Arabia (as well as his unmistakable sadomasochism), are what motivates him.

I think it is obvious he is both intrigued and devastated by the Turkish Bey experience.

Some actors just have it from the git-go. No getting better as they age. The actors who had it from the start include Peter O'Toole, Raimu, Brando, Monty, James Dean, Spenser, Burton, Louis Jouvet, Alec Guinness, but oddly not Larry. He was just another posh English actor posing as Ronald Colman lookalike, in his first Hollywood foray. One could never imagine having watched "Perfect Undersanding," in 1933, that a mere 30 years later, he would turn in one of the greatest performances of all time: "Othello." He absolutely nailed it. No one has remotely come close to it.

Ah, yes, the Turkish experience. Best performance Jose Ferrer ever turned in

R16 What are you talking about?

Well, reply 18, look at O'Toole's performance in L of A. He was 26 when he first started the role in 1960. Did he look like a gawky, lost beginner actor, or did he already have gravitas? Same with the others on my list. What's not understand?

Forgot to add to that list, my main girl, Renee Flaconetti in "La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc

Another great entrance, John Wayne in Stagecoach. “Hold it!”

Never got John Wayne until I saw that movie.

[quote] The pandemic notwithstanding, when was the last time you specifically went to a big screen movie?

Dune.

[quote] Do you think Lawrence was sodomized in the prison?

If I were posted to the dark side of the moon I could not be more isolated.

[quote]DL loves classic movies, yet no one has mentioned Lawrence of Arabia.

Yes, OP, it has been mentioned. Around Thanksgiving there was a lively discussion over whether Lawrence had been sodomized.

[quote]Terrific film that of course covers up Lawrence’s homosexuality. But you could not expect it to not be in the era it was made.

R13 and R14 are correct; it's there, but somewhat understated. For 1962, though, it practically amounts to a screaming headline: 'Lawrence was a bugger!'

But on the whole, I concur with R4.

"Affection is a pressure I can bear."

It's a film that's so beautiful and rich that I'll only watch it on the big screen. It cannot be properly appreciated on television, regardless of the size of the screen.

[quote]A lead tour-de-force performance by Peter O'Toole.

Yeah well, The Academy thought Gregory Peck was better.

Florence of Arabia

Lawrence of my labia

It’s gorgeous but I can never remember the plot. Is there one?

R29 they best movies do not have plots.

R29, there isn’t a conventional plot, and it doesn’t build to a heroic or affirmative conclusion. It’s really a meditation on Lawrence’s personality and how he can never belong any place. He’ll never be able to stay with the desert tribesmen and he’ll never fit in with the British. Every time I see it I’m surprised that it was made.

Has anyone read the book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence?

Not enough dirty dancing.

Despite the massive improvements in home viewing, to me there are four movies that are just better in a theater with a huge screen: this, 2001, Apocalypse Now, and Playtime.

I've never been bored by Lawrence of Arabia. I get sucked in every time. For a blockbuster, It deals with its subjects (imperialism, orientalism, sexuality, etc) with incredible subtlety and complexity. There are so many thrilling moments. Last time I really noticed how great Maurice Jarre's score is. One of the best.

Let's give some love to Robert Harris and James Katz who restored the film in the late 80s when the negative was deteriorating and the original film was almost lost forever. The original negative had been cut for later releases and even they couldn't restore everything but they got most of it back.

Harris and Katz also restored My Fair Lady and Vertigo before they were lost, as well as many other important films, including major Hitchcocks. Don't judge their Vertigo restoration too harshly. Universal forced them to put in many sound and visual effects that weren't in the original in order to finance the restoration. But they were able to save original film elements that preserved the original film and supported later, more faithful, versions.

^ Vertigo was in terrible shape when Harris and Katz were assigned to it and although most of the restoration came from the deplorable original camera negative, the famous scene of Judy's transformation, when she appears bathed in green light, was 16 generations removed from the original. It was the best they could find.

There was at least one scene in the Lawrence restoration where all they found was the film itself, but not the soundtrack, and they called in voice doubles to redo the sound, including Anthony Hopkins to dub Olivier. Open to correction.

OP: LOVE your response at R11. Just perfection. You should be a professional film critic or teach teach at the university level. Bravo.

Seven Pillars of Wisdom has some serious gay porn.

To reply 37: It's Spartacus, Not L of A.

I stand corrected, r40.

The film was based both of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom and journalist Lowell Thomas's book With Lawrence in Arabia. Producer Sam Spiegel bought the screen rights to both.

Thomas accompanied Lawrence for awhile during his adventures and filmed a lot of it in silent black and white. His book was a huge success and made Lawrence's reputation but Thomas also did a hugely successful vaudeville tour talking about Lawrence's exploits accompanied by the filmed footage. It established both Thomas and Lawrence.

R38 Thanks, I have been a cinephile for years now. My personal favorite performance in the movie is Claude Rains. I believe it was his last movie.

R42 Lowell Thomas was depicted as having both respect and contempt for Lawrence.

R43, Rains’s final line, as he ponders the coming fall of the British Empire, is the best: “On the whole, I wish I’d stayed in Tunbridge Wells.”

R44 That's a good one. My favorite dialogue is right before intermissions. Colonel Brighton (Quayle), General Allenby (Hawkins), and Mr. Dryden (Rains) are discussing giving out artillery.

General Allenby: I've got orders to obey, thank God. Not like that poor devil. He's riding the whirlwind.

Mr. Dryden: Let's hope we're not.

INTERMISSION

Yes, I've read "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom", and he explicitly discusses being raped in a Turkish jail. He also talks about the Bedouin fighting men getting it on with each other on page two, so while he doesn't come out in the book, he's very frank for his times.

And yes, R14 is very correct that Lawrence's homosexuality is key to his character in a character-driven film, it's the root of his fascination with the Bedouin (where the men get it on with each other and the women hide from him), and it's also part of his increasing instability. He loves the Bedouin with a general lustful love and particularly loves Sharif Ali, and the subtext is that his love is uncomsumated until he's raped in the Turkish jail. It's both a fulfillment and an agonizing nightmare, and when he reunites with Ali, there's a moment when they stop talking and look meaningfully at each other... and that look said "We could have been lovers, but now Lawrence has been ruined, it cannot be". And Lawrence gets crazier and more reckless after that realization, his innocence is gone and his capacity for love destroyed.

Was Lean gay?

R46 Lean was asexual at best.

Lean was a philanderer.

[Quote]He almost single handedly took down The Ottoman Empire.

Luckily he didn't, because I like this one!

Lean was married six times. I don’t know how people find that kind of energy.

They are remaking Lawrence of Arabia. Directed by Michael Bay. An All-Star Cast:

James Franco as Lawrence

Shia LeBeouf as Prince Faisal

Keanu Reeves as Auda Abu Tayi

M. Night Shyamalan as Ali

John Travolta as General Allenby

Woody Allen as Mr. Dryden

Hayden Christensen as Colonel Brighton

Jared Leto as The Turkish Bey

Tommy Wiseau as Lowell Thomas

and Anthony Daniels as General Archibald Murray

Joking? ^

r51 And Jerry Mathers as.....

O'Toole's perfectly blue eyes. No special effects required.

Yes, this was fully discussed not too long ago, maybe this summer (I don't think it was Thanksgiving time). Because coincidentally, I had just bought a copy at a thrift store and my husband and I watched it. I was the dummy who said I don't think I would have known he'd been raped if I hadn't read it on DL, and everyone said I was naive as hell. Which is true. I also didn't understand the movie, but felt like we had really accomplished something by watching the whole thing.

I just watched it tonight on TCM. Had never seen it before but was always curious about it. Brilliant film and the acting was superb. And I was completely taken aback by the homoerotic subtext of the film; definitely was not expecting that at all. The sexual chemistry between O'Toole and Sharif was off the charts in my opinion (and both were stunningly beautiful at that time).

Just an all-around great film and I look forward to watching it again someday.

[quote]Despite the massive improvements in home viewing, to me there are four movies that are just better in a theater with a huge screen: this, 2001, Apocalypse Now, and Playtime.

I totally agree and would add Close Encounters to that list.

Lawrence of my labia

Obi-Wan Kenobi is fucking purple!

Needs to be seen on the big screen at least once in your life. I try to see it that way whenever a local revival house shows it.

Lawrencia Labia

There's a wonderful book "Setting the Desert on Fire" by James Barr, which details how Lawrence bribed the Hashemi clan Bedu to assist Britain in driving the Turks out of the Hijaz. It serves to clarify why in 1922, Britain gifted half of mandated Palestine to the Hashemis (kicked out of the Hijaz by the far stronger Saud clan) and the geo-political repercussions of Britain's empty-headed decision/gift to this day.

[quote] Produced by the unflappable Sam Spiegel.

He was a tasteless man of which David Lean was glad to got rid after two productions.

He overloaded his British products with Americans.

[quote] a Jean Claude van Damn movie.

a Jean-Claude van Damme movie.

[quote] Thank you, but I prefer...The Lion in Winter

R4 'Lawrence of Arabia' is pure cinema. It relies on visuals, music, camera movement and spectacle to tell most of the story.

It has short bouts of pertinent dialogue for about 30% of its length.

'The Lion in Winter' is a verbose filmed play; the puppet-characters shout, rant and bellow constantly for 97% of its length.

I just bought the original soundtrack on iTunes. There are several to choose from, so I made sure to select the one by Maurice Jarre released on December 10, 1962.

[quote] It’s gorgeous but I can never remember the plot. Is there one?

Did you see the First World War. Or perhaps the Second World War? Did you see the plot?

[quote] [Lawrence] was almost lost forever. … My Fair Lady and Vertigo before they were lost

These are clichéd phrases used to advertise the renovated product. Important films like these don't get "lost".

[quote] including Anthony Hopkins to dub Olivier

Wrong film, dear. R37

[quote] Claude Rains. I believe it was his last movie.

Peter O'Toole? What a vulgar name.

[quote]These are clichéd phrases used to advertise the renovated product. Important films like these don't get "lost".

Not lost literally but the quality is but maybe you enjoy a pan and scan VHS quality viewing experience of important films.

Meh. Sparky O'Toole and more depth.

And Dune had more sand.

R63 🙄

Though only partly filmed there, the film remains a great inducement for a visit to Wadi Rum.

It is a staggeringly great movie. I've seen it dozens of time - on home video, projected on a huge screen in 70mm, etc. But while I agree seeing it on the big screen is the ultimate experience, I think it's a mark of the film's quality that one could have watched it (as I did) on a tiny screen on VHS or on TV and still get sucked in. That's because it's not only a visual feast, but the script is so damn good and repays repeated viewings. It has a very ambivalent relationship to Lawrence, to the British Empire, and to the Arab uprising. Those looking for easy moral points are going to come away disappointed and, on reflection, it's amazing that a big studio film like this one could be so ambiguous and barbed in its political and historical shadings.

When people discuss Lawrence of Arabia, it is not about the movie, but about the experience.

This is what we have really been discussing.

The [italic]experience[/italic] of the [italic]movie[/italic] is exactly what R76 was describing, OP. What they left out was the impact of the stunning visuals which I agree is one of the most striking features of the film. Visual poetry or as Hitchcock always talked about, "pure cinema".

R65 and R78 agree. It is 'pure cinema'.

And Lean and Hitchcock were raised in the silent era when 'stars had faces then'.

Unlike that ranting gab-fest called 'Lion in Winter'.

R77, I'm not sure that's an incisive point, OP. Posters on this thread have, in fact, discussed the movie's structure, it's acting, and how it conveys meaning. People talk about the film as an "experience" because, not unlike Kubrick's 2001, it communicates in an all-absorbing, hypnotically visual way. Lean doesn't do what Kubrick did, which is reduce the spoken word to almost nothing, but, in both films, the story doesn't unfold in a conventional way. They are not meant to have traditional plots or, even worse, conventional "messages."

Aren't most of the wide-screen 60's epics more experience than plot?

R81, perhaps, but many of them are not artistically ambitious. The "experience" you often have is "wow, that must have cost a lot of money."

[quote] And Lean and Hitchcock were raised in the silent era when 'stars had faces then'.

Hitchcock cut his teeth as a director in the silent era. By the time sound was introduced he had mastered his craft — much like his contemporaries Renoir, Bunuel, Ford, Lubitsch.

David Lean is interesting in that like Alain Resnais he got his start as an editor, and when he finally became a director he made smaller scale films many critics felt was his best period as a director. None of his earlier films gave an inclination to the big scale John Ford/Kurosawa-type of epics he would eventually make starting with The Bridge on the River Kwai.

I adore his films he made with Noel Coward.

Ladies- I am shocked. 83 responses and NO ONE has brought this up yet when talking about the 1963 Oscars. What has DL come to.

As said above sometimes when they talk about a film being lost(as opposed to a film being literally lost like so many silents) they mean the original presentation of the film as audiences first saw it when that presentation was integral to the effect of the film as a whole. I saw Lawrence three times after the restoration at the Ziegfeld and each time it flew by. I went once with a friend who thought it should have been longer. To be perfectly honest I went with another friend who fell asleep.

[quote] Was Lean gay?

What makes you ask that, R46?

Do you think Michael Relph and Basil Dearden were gay?

Was Michael Redgrave gay? Come on fool.

Is everybody gay?

Noel Coward was with a friend walking through Leicester Square and a cinema had on its marquee Michael Redgrave and Dirk Bogarde in 'The Sea Shall Not Have Them.' Coward said, "I don't see why not everyone else has."

Vanessa Redgrave was once released early from filming and went home to find her husband, director Tony Richardson, naked in bed with her father, Sir Michael Redgrave. They invited her to join in but instead she left and instigated divorce proceedings not long after. The Redgrave family, led by Lynn, gave a press conference denying the story, but they never sued the biographer who first printed the story nor the Daily Mail, which had serialized the book.

R87, R89, R90. Yes, Michael Redgrave was beautiful but he's quite irrelevant to this thread.

But what delicious gossip, r91, and this is after all a gossip site, not a film forum.

What about Sir Donald Wolfit's sex life?

What about Ernest Thesiger's sex life?

Yes, r91, may I suggest Home Theater Forum? They have a thread about Lawrence of Arabia started by Robert Harris himself that is now hundreds of pages and thousands of replies long. Endlessly fascinating, as the saying goes.

I couldn't find that thread immediately with a google search but here is a 22 long page thread he started started on how his restoration was retweaked for the blu ray release of which he heartily approved back in 2012,

For some reason Lawrence in 4k is in a box set and not available individually. Thank god the 4k My Fair Lady is and looks spectacular. Even better than the great 50th anniversary bluray. I don't know how they did it. You do see too much even more than you would have probably seen first run in 1964 but you get used to it.

You see details of the actors' makeup and costumes in the latest versions of The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind that you would never have seen in 1939. Sometimes that's good but other times not. '

In the latest DVDs and Blu Rays of of the early 50s version War of the Worlds, you can see the wires holding up the Martian spaceships. At the time, they wouldn't have been visible to theater audiences.

There used to be a lot of discussion on the film forums about whether it was correct for modern restorations to show more detail than what would have been visible to audiences at the time. The various creative artists involved with the original films knew exactly what the audiences of the day would have seen, or not seen, and made their creative decisions accordingly.

Let's circle back to Lawrence of Arabia

Why do hall monitors always kill threads?

[quote] Why do hall monitors always kill threads?

Why do the Bedouin hate the Howeitat?

The two boys who play crucial roles in the film and one has one of the all time great death scenes in the history of cinema have never been interviewed about the film and are probably the only two surviving members of the cast.

R103 Michael Ray (Farraj), who married into extreme wealth.

John Dimech (Daud).

Also living, Zia Mohyeddin (Tafas).

R104 Wolfit

[quote]In the latest DVDs and Blu Rays of of the early 50s version War of the Worlds, you can see the wires holding up the Martian spaceships. At the time, they wouldn't have been visible to theater audiences.

Not any more....

R106, thanks for that! I don't keep up with film restoration the way I used to and that is so good to know.

Would O'Toole have been as memorable if he had done the film before his nose job?

See link of him before.

Supposedly done because "he wanted to be a movie star".

There was even a previous DL thread (from 2014) about the nose job.

Another picture with the old nose - much more noticeable here.

Interesting that Jennifer Hudson and Cynthia Erivo were both nominated for playing Aretha Franklin, the former in the major motion picture, the latter in the mini-series.

Oops, sorry, I meant to post that in the SAG thread lol.

[quote]Supposedly done because "he wanted to be a movie star."

That can't be right. According to some DLers, it is only Americans who aspire to be rich and famous actors; the British are really in it for the art. 🙄

O'Toole and Burton openly admitted it.

Fun fact: 0mar Sharif's grandson is family. He and his hole can be found on Los Angeles Grindr most nights of the week.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

It seems that this enormous blockbuster was in the red for a decade.

Donald Wolfit gives the best performance in the movie, hands down.

Well, R120, I know you're going to tell us that Wolfit presented the full gamut of emotions in his three minutes on screen. And that his three minutes on screen was a full and appropriate summation of his five decades of thespian chiaroscuro.

But. I notice that David Lean booted him out after those three minutes and replaced him with Jack Hawkins.

R121 He was actually in five minutes and fifty-four seconds of the movie. And he was a thespian in the early twentieth century. The defining Lear of his day.

Ha. I just looked Wolfit up on Wikipedia and according to the article, Hermione Gingold once said that Olivier was tour de force but Wolfit was forced to tour.

Hermione Badgold was lemon-mouthed bitch.

She was an appalling drag queen in a female body.

Really, R124? You say that like it's a bad thing.

John Dimech was the really cute one. He has that tremendous camel ride racing towards O'Toole coming out of the dessert and the death scene everyone remembers. Nobody seems to know what became of him.

I’d love to see Doctor Zhivago and Ryan’s Daughter on the big screen some day. I saw Lawrence in a huge revival house in Boston a few years ago under the influence of edibles. 🤙

Peter O'Toole blowing out the match which then cuts to the desert is cinema at its best.

Speilburg agrees with you, R127.

Greatest entrance in cinema history?

I always think Peter O'Toole was too much of a theater actor to be a good movie actor. Always too much over the top, very little nuance, too hammy.

He was a very beautiful man though, before the booze killed his looks.

[quote] Music beautifully composed by Maurice Jarre.

Some sections are savage and atonal as well as eerily beautiful.

Jarre definitely stole some rhythms and orchestral sonorities from Bartok as well as from the orgiastic-climax to this—

Marvelous film

[quote] Jarre definitely stole some rhythms and orchestral sonorities from … the orgiastic-climax to this—

The last minute of this orgiastic-climax can also be heard in Maurice Jarre's excellent film score.

R11 Were Claude Rains and Sir Donald Wolfit really "very very great actors?"

No, R135, only silly people make these claims.

Those silly people never saw Rains and Wolfit on stage (which is where you see proper acting; standing in front of a camera is proper acting.

^

No, standing in front of a camera is NOT proper acting.

Wolfit can be only be seen in about 6 movies. Neither had a starring role.

Does this have Lawrence’s gangbang rape scene?

NO ONE knows if there was a gangbang rape scene.

He liked to tease us.

[quote] The actors who had it from the start include Peter O'Toole, Raimu, Brando, Monty, James Dean, Spenser, Burton…

Are you still lusting after Jeremy Spenser?

R126 As of a few years ago at least, living in London in retirement. No acting. Worked for Claridges then Mecca in security. Born 1942.

[quote] Larry. He was just another posh English actor posing as Ronald Colman lookalike

Larry did what the director wanted, R16. If the director wanted knockabout comedy, he gave it to them.

R136 Have you seen them on stage?

No, I haven't but I guarantee that none of Datalounge have.

Wolfit had no starring roles on film— the exception happened in 1954 when he was called in to replace another scenery-chewer who was indisposed with alcohol-poisoning.

Here you go!

R136 R144. Wolfit was not a screen star. He was of the generation who preferred stage. I have a recording of his full Lear and it is very good. I am looking for a copy of him as Macbeth.

Most of the movies he appeared in were good- The Pickwick Papers, Svengali, Room at the Top, Lawrence of Arabia, The Charge of the Light Brigade, and Becket (he was really good as the Bishop). Blood of the Vampire is a fun Hammer Horror style movie.

I saw L of A in Kansas City when it was first released - it was filmed in either CinemaScope or Cinerama -HUGE three-screen presentation , seemed to enclose viewer inside a half-arc ( might not have been that massive, but my memory makes it so). Absolutely stunning , enveloping, engrossing. I have no idea if it can even be seen in that type of environment anywhere today . Seeing it that way definitely confirms a statement from above: THE DESERT IS THE STAR !

Excellent.

Some Dataloungers are quite obsessive with active imaginations

[quote] Wolfit …The Charge of the Light Brigade

R146 Wolfit's appearance in that movie lasted for less than a minute.

[quote] Some actors just have it from the git-go. …The actors who had it from the start include …Raimu…

R16 Raimu started in 1908.

[quote] There was at least one scene in the Lawrence restoration where all they found was the film itself, but not the soundtrack, and they called in voice doubles to redo the sound, including Anthony Hopkins to dub Olivier. Open to correction.

The oysters and snails scene between Olivier and Tony Curtis. That is Anthony Hopkins imitating Olivier in the restored scene.

R150 that is Spartacus

The real TEL was a real weirdo. I started reading his letters and diaries in collage.

I do think he had vaguely romantic feelings for men but I'd bet my life he never had sex with anyone ever. (unless you count the rape.) He had a serious aversion to touch even before the war which developed into an outright phobia.

There's a letter from his basic training days. One of his COs demands that he complete the hand to hand combat section. "You could very well die if you don't have these skills" He says.

Lawrence replies, thanks but that he'd MUCH rather die than physically touch another person. Gross!

R152 But his homosexuality was important

When I watch this brilliant film, and when I watch Ben Hur, damn the sparks fly off the screen at the chemistry between O' Toole and Omar Sharif. The suggestion of the homoerotic relationship between Sharif Ali and Lawrence was undeniable. Same with Messala and Juda Ben Hur. Seriously

[quote] Best performance Jose Ferrer ever turned in

Fuck you!

R152 Don't be so judgemental.

R153 This man doesn't have to conform to your wishes.

[quote] He almost single handedly took down The Ottoman Empire.

R11 Silly hyperbole which ignores British artillery and Arab militias..

R157 "Almost" is not "did"

r156 Not judging. I like weirdos

saw this during one of its re-releases at the Zigfield Theatre in New York City on a big screen where it demands to be seen. The film has only female in it; a reporter who asks a question at the beginning of the film.

'And Lawrence is for all its enormous and somewhat excessive length and despite the unanswered question at its core a major film and a magnificen.t Lawrence remains one of those rare films that cannot be merely watched but have to be lived through'-John Simon

As a side note, blocking one of the outside entrances of the Zigfield theater when I went to see it was Gary Shandling kissing some blonde. Yeah, that's what I thought too.

[quote] Lawrence replies, thanks but that he'd MUCH rather die than physically touch another person.

But being touched by objects was OK.

After leaving the Colonial Office he changed his name to John Hume Ross and enlisted into the Royal Air Force. After four months reporters from the Daily Express discovered what he had done and he was discharged. In March 1923 he joined the Tank Corps as Private Thomas Shaw. Lawrence became sexually involved with John Bruce. He later told the authors of The Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia (1969) that Lawrence paid him a regular retainer of £3 a week to birch him on his bare buttocks.

Lawrence served until he was dismissed from the service in 1925. This was partly because he had developed a relationship with a young soldier, R.A.M. Guy, who was described as being "beautiful, like a Greek god." According to Desmond Stewart, the author of T. E. Lawrence (1979), Lawrence dismissed because he was about to be exposed as being involved in a sexual scandal:

"Lawrence had unwisely attended flagellation parties in Chelsea conducted by an underworld figure known as Bluebeard, and Bluebeard's impending divorce case threatened to release lubricious details concerning Lawrence and one of his aristocratic friends which had already been hinted at in a German scandal-sheet.... Sacrificing caution, he wrote to the Home Secretary asking for the expulsion of Bluebeard and a ban on the German magazine."

Lawrence also expressed racist views about black people in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: "Their faces, being clearly different from our own, were tolerable; but it hurt that they should possess exact counterparts of all our bodies."

R160, one of the many brilliant choices the film makes is to show us the world as Lawrence saw it—i.e., a world without women. It never attempts to “explain” Lawrence by, for example, showing him with his mother, even though, if I’m recalling this correctly, he once brought one of his Arab friends home to meet her.

Excellent post R162

R162 I agree. There are absolutely no women in Lawrence of Arabia. Not even a nurse

[quote] There are absolutely no women in Lawrence of Arabia

And don't think for a moment we are done with them over this.

R165 That's dramatic

It's not just that he was raped but that, as a closeted repressed Victorian, he came handsfree that upset him the more.

Great film that messed with the truth. He was homosexual. But it was 1963 after all.

R169 The never said he wasn't. Also O'toole played him pretty flaming.

I also took him as homosexual

[quote] He was homosexual. But it was 1963 after all.

No it was 1914. Lawrence was celibate.

You can't judge people born in the 19th century with your values.

The 19th century bears small resemblance to the 21st century.

R172 Not to me.

I visited Wadi Rum in Jordan and you could just imagine Lawrence and the Bedouins riding across the sand.

TE Lawrence was attractive

R171, no the film was made in ‘63 and his homosexuality was not dealt with. And he was not celebrate. Winston Churchill (a friend and admirer) knew he was gay (other words used at the time of WW1) and knew of his “activities” which he was on record as saying essentially, so what?

Celibate

Well, we know he liked being whipped. (There's a quick allusion to it in the movie, when they show his uniform with bloody stripes on the back).

LoA was made in 1962

[quote] O'Toole's perfectly blue eyes. No special effects required.

He did have some special effects, R44; hair straightener, hair bleach, two nose jobs.

I've been lucky enough to travel a lot in my life, and IMO there is no place as spectacular and picturesque as the Arab countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia are my favourites). This movie captures the landscape and grandeur incredibly well. It looks like a dreamscape.

O'Toole is great in the film but for me Sharif just radiates star quality. He gets to do more in his Egyptian roles, but there's a great sense of poise and effortlessness to his performance here. The music is amazing. And T.E Lawrence may have been afraid to express his sexuality, but I get major bottom vibes from him.

(^.^) and a bossy bottom at that

Omar Sharif was an elegant man.

R183 be care. In 1962 elegant meant something else...

R176 He was celibate. You have nil record of his penis touching another's.

[R172] Not to me.

What do you mean? Are trying to be profound or are you blind?

Are you God or Methuselah?

Let's discuss Claude Rains as Mr. Dryden

Claude was the best thing in David Lean's "The Passionate Friends".

It starred Lean's wife whom he later described as frigid.

The movie is very, very cold and has outrageous chunks in it which have been stolen from "Anna Karenina" and "Brief Encounter".

R188 ooh I will have to look it up!

If he'd had a Tumblr he'd have called himself a Homo-Romantic Asexual. I think he was in love with Dahoum but never fucked him, or anyone else.

[quote] Lawrence said he never had a sexual relationship and most people who knew him found that credible. In 1927, he wrote to his friend the (homosexual) novelist E. M. Forster, ‘I’m so funnily made up, sexually,’ and later that same year went further. Having read Forster’s ghost story, ‘Dr Woolacott’, in which a man dies after a gay sexual encounter.

[quote]Lawrence wrote that ‘The Turks, as you probably know (or have guessed, through the reticences of the Seven Pillars) did it to me, by force . . . I couldn’t ever do it, I believe: the impulse strong enough to make me touch another creature has not yet been born in me.’

[quote]The following year, with Robert Graves, the poet and at that point his biographer, he had a discussion ‘about fucking’: ‘As I wrote (with some courage, I think: few people admit the damaging ignorance) I haven’t ever: and don’t much want to.’

[quote]The most important testimony, at this young, Carchemish stage of his life, comes from Lawrence’s Oxford friend and fellow print-enthusiast Vyvyan Richards, who would have been stunned to know that there was anything sexual in Lawrence’s relationship with Dahoum, as he had hoped for such intimacy himself.

[quote] ‘He had neither flesh nor carnality of any kind,’ Richards wrote, after confessing his love for his friend. ‘He received my affection, my sacrifice, in fact, eventually my total subservience, as though it was his due. He neither gave the slightest sign that he understood my motives or fathomed my desire. In return for all I offered him – with admittedly ulterior motives – he gave me the purest affection, love and respect that I have ever received from anyone . . . a love and respect that was spiritual in quality. I realise now that he was sexless – at least that he was unaware of sex.’

[quote]Even Woolley eventually mitigated his salacious remarks, insisting that Lawrence ‘was in no sense a pervert; in fact, he had a remarkably clean mind. He was tolerant, thanks to his classical reading, and Greek homosexuality interested him, but in a detached way, and the interest was not morbid but perfectly serious.’

R190 You have contributed the most credible post in this thread.

I wish David Lean succeeded in persuading Albert Finney to take on the role.

And I loathe the wrinkled, nicotine-addicted, Irish drunkard who did.

Anyway the second half of this 1962 interview retails some small impressions by people who met the real man fifty years previously.

This film was released in time for Oscar contention on this day 60 years plus 3 days ago.

One day at a time.

^ Lawrence's activities all happened just outside the scope of that map.

R194 I enjoyed watching that animated map bearing in mind the OP's silly hyperbolic statement —

[quote] Lawrence… almost single handedly took down The Ottoman Empire.

He cut off the supply

Streaming on HBO Max!

Gorgeous film.

Claude Rains was great in this, too

I saw this with my father when it first came out, in San Francisco. This was appx. 60 years ago and I still remember the chill up my spine at the opening scene. Brilliant movie.

R201 you mean the overture or the death scene?

On TCM now!

[quote] I am Bedu.

Meh.