Plot
In 1935,
Thomas Edward "T. E." Lawrence (
Peter O'Toole) is speeding his motorcycle down a narrow English country lane. He crashes and dies to avoid hitting two boys who are cycling on the wrong side of the road. Later, at a memorial service held for Lawrence at
St Paul's Cathedral, reporters try to gain insights into this remarkable, enigmatic man from people who knew him, with little success.
On the journey, his Bedouin guide is killed by Sherif Ali (
Omar Sharif) for drinking from a well without permission. Travelling on alone, Lawrence encounters his superior officer, Colonel Brighton (
Anthony Quayle), who orders him to keep quiet, make his assessment of Faisal's camp, and then leave. Lawrence promptly ignores Brighton's commands when he meets Faisal. His knowledge and outspokenness pique the prince's interest.
Brighton advises the Arab leader to retreat to
Yenbo after a major defeat, but Lawrence proposes an alternative, a daring attack on
Aqaba. If taken, the town would provide a port from which the British could offload much-needed supplies for the rebellion. Since it is strongly defended against a naval assault by heavy artillery, Lawrence proposes a surprise attack on the lightly defended landward side. He convinces Faisal to provide fifty men on camels, led by Sherif Ali. As they prepare to leave, two teenage orphan boys, Daud (John Dimech) and Farraj (Michel Ray), attach themselves to Lawrence as his servants. They cross the
Nefud Desert, considered impassable even by the Bedouins, travelling day and night on the last stage to reach water. One of the men, Gasim (
I. S. Johar), succumbs to fatigue and falls off his camel unnoticed during the night. The rest make it to an oasis, but Lawrence turns back for the lost man alone, risking his own life. When he rescues Gasim, the Bedouins are very impressed, even the formerly sceptical Sherif Ali.
Lawrence meets with
Auda abu Tayi (
Anthony Quinn), the leader of the powerful local Howeitat tribe, and persuades him to turn against the Turks by claiming there is gold in Aqaba. Lawrence's plans are almost derailed when one of Ali's men kills one of Auda's because of a
blood feud. Since Howeitat retaliation would shatter the fragile alliance, Lawrence declares that he will execute the murderer himself. He is stunned to discover that the culprit is Gasim, the man he had rescued earlier, but he shoots him anyway. The next morning, the intact alliance overruns the Turkish
garrison in Aqaba, but Auda is dismayed to discover that there is no gold there, only paper money. Lawrence appeases him by promising to get gold from the British.
Lawrence heads to Cairo to inform Dryden and the new commanding general,
General Allenby (
Jack Hawkins), of his victory. During the crossing of the
Sinai Desert, Daud dies when he stumbles into
quicksand. Lawrence is promoted two ranks to major and given arms and money to support the Arabs. Lawrence initially refuses the promotion, revealing that he is deeply disturbed that he enjoyed executing Gasim, but the general brushes his qualms aside and Lawrence comes around. He asks Allenby whether the Arabs' suspicions that the
British have designs on Arabia after the Turks are driven out have any basis. The general says at first that he's not a politician, then when pressed that they have no ambitions in Arabia.
Lawrence launches a
guerrilla war against the Turks in Arabia, blowing up trains on the
Hejaz Railway and harassing the Turks at every turn. American
war correspondent Jackson Bentley (
Arthur Kennedy) makes him world famous by publicising his exploits. With winter approaching, many of the tribesmen go home for the year, leaving fewer and fewer die-hard supporters to continue fighting. On one raid, Farraj is badly injured when the detonator he is carrying blows up prematurely. Unwilling to leave him for the Turks to torture, Lawrence is forced to shoot him before fleeing.
Down to twenty men, Lawrence scouts the enemy-held city of
Daraa with Ali, but is taken, along with several Arab residents, to the Turkish
Bey (
José Ferrer). Lawrence is lasciviously stripped, ogled, and prodded, and striking out at the Bey he is severely
flogged and thrown out into the street.
In
Jerusalem, Allenby urges him to go back to the fighting to support his "big push" on
Damascus, but Lawrence is a changed, tormented man and, at first, does not want to return. Finally, Lawrence relents and recruits an army, including many killers and cutthroats motivated by money, rather than the Arab cause. They come upon a column of retreating Turkish soldiers, who have just slaughtered the villagers of Tafas. One of Lawrence's men is from the village and another man seeing the carnage demands, "No prisoners!" When Lawrence hesitates the man from the village charges the Turks by himself and is killed. Lawrence takes up the dead man's cry, resulting in a massacre in which Lawrence himself participates with relish. Some days later his men then enter Damascus before Allenby's.
The Arabs set up a council to administer the city, but they are desert tribesmen, ill-suited for such a task. Unable to maintain the electricity, telephones, and waterworks, and bickering constantly with each other, they soon abandon most of Damascus to the British. Lawrence is promoted to colonel and then immediately ordered home, his usefulness at an end to the real victors. The negotiations are left to Faisal and the British diplomats. A dejected Lawrence is driven away in a staff car.
- Peter O'Toole as Thomas Edward "T. E." Lawrence. Albert Finney, at the time a virtual unknown, was Lean's first choice to play Lawrence, but Finney was not sure the film would be a success and turned it down. Marlon Brando was also offered the part, and Anthony Perkinsand Montgomery Clift were briefly considered, before O'Toole was cast.[2] Alec Guinness had previously played Lawrence in the playRoss, and was briefly considered for the part, but David Lean and Sam Spiegel thought him too old. Lean had seen O'Toole in The Day They Robbed the Bank of England and was bowled over by his screen test, proclaiming "This is Lawrence!" Spiegel disliked O'Toole, having worked with him on Suddenly, Last Summer (where O'Toole was an understudy for Montgomery Clift and considered to take over his part after Clift's alcoholism caused problems), but acceded to Lean's demands after Finney and Brando dropped out. Pictures of Lawrence suggest also that O'Toole carried some resemblance to him, in spite of their considerable height difference. O'Toole's looks prompted a different reaction from Noël Coward, who after seeing the première of the film famously quipped "If you had been any prettier, the film would have been called Florence of Arabia".[3]
- Alec Guinness as Prince Faisal. Faisal was originally to be portrayed by Laurence Olivier; Guinness, who performed in other David Lean films, got the part when Olivier dropped out. Guinness was made up to look as much like the real Faisal as possible; he recorded in his diaries that, while shooting in Jordan, he met several people who had known Faisal who actually mistook him for the late prince. Guinness said in interviews that he developed his Arab accent from a conversation he had with Omar Sharif.
- Anthony Quinn as Auda abu Tayi. Quinn got very much into his role; he spent hours applying his own makeup, using a photograph of the real Auda to make himself look as much like him as he could. One anecdote has Quinn arriving on-set for the first time in full costume, whereupon Lean, mistaking him for a native, asked his assistant to ring Quinn and notify him that they were replacing him with the new arrival.
- Jack Hawkins as General Allenby. Sam Spiegel pushed Lean to cast Cary Grant or Laurence Olivier (who was engaged at the Chichester Festival Theatre, and declined). Lean, however, convinced him to choose Hawkins due to his work for them on The Bridge on the River Kwai. Hawkins shaved his head for the role and reportedly clashed with David Lean several times during filming. Alec Guinness recounted that Hawkins was reprimanded by Lean for celebrating the end of a day's filming with an impromptu dance. Hawkins became close friends with O'Toole during filming, and the two often improvised dialogue during takes, much to Lean's dismay.
- Omar Sharif as Sherif Ali ibn el Kharish. The role was offered to many actors before Omar Sharif was cast. Horst Buchholz was the first choice, but had already signed on for the film One, Two, Three. Alain Delon had a successful screen test, but ultimately declined due to the brown contact lenses he would have had to wear. Maurice Ronet and Dilip Kumar were also considered.[4] Sharif, who was already a major star in the Middle East, was originally cast as Lawrence's guide Tafas, but when the above actors proved unsuitable, Sharif was shifted to the part of Ali.
- José Ferrer as the Turkish Bey. Ferrer was initially unsatisfied with the small size of his part, and accepted the role only on the condition of being paid $25,000 (more than O'Toole and Sharif combined) plus a factory-made Porsche.[5] However, he afterwards considered this his best film performance, saying in an interview: "If I was to be judged by any one film performance, it would be my five minutes inLawrence." Peter O'Toole once said that he learned more about screen acting from Ferrer than he could in any acting class.
- Anthony Quayle as Colonel Harry Brighton. Quayle, a veteran of military roles, was cast after Jack Hawkins, the original choice, was shifted to the part of Allenby. Quayle and Lean argued over how to portray the character, with Lean feeling Brighton to be an honourable character, while Quayle thought him an idiot.
- Claude Rains as Mr. Dryden. Rains had previously worked with Lean on The Passionate Friends. Lean considered Rains one of his favourite actors and was happy to work with him again.
- Arthur Kennedy as Jackson Bentley. In the early days of the production, when the Bentley character had a more prominent role in the film,Kirk Douglas was considered for the part; Douglas expressed interest but demanded a star salary and the highest billing after O'Toole, thus being turned down by Spiegel. Later, Edmond O'Brien was cast in the part.[6] O'Brien filmed the Jerusalem scene, and (according to Omar Sharif) Bentley's political discussion with Ali, but he became ill due to a heart attack on location and had to be replaced at the last moment by Kennedy, who was recommended to Lean by Anthony Quinn.[7]
- Donald Wolfit as General Murray. Wolfit was one of O'Toole's mentors.
- Michel Ray as Farraj. At the time, Ray was an up-and-coming Anglo-Brazilian actor, who had previously appeared in several films, including Irving Rapper's The Brave One and Anthony Mann's The Tin Star. This however would be one of his last roles. Ray, under the name Michel de Carvalho, later became a prominent British businessman and, through his wife, Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, is the majority shareholder in the Heineken brewing company, worth over £8,000,000,000 sterling as of 2002.
- I.S. Johar as Gasim. Johar was a well-known Bollywood actor who occasionally appeared in international productions.
- Zia Mohyeddin as Tafas. Mohyeddin was one of Pakistan's best-known actors, and launched a successful stage career in London after this film's success. Most famously, he played Dr Aziz in the stage and TV adaptation of A Passage to India in the late 1960s.
- Gamil Ratib as Majid. Ratib was a veteran Egyptian actor. His English was not considered good enough, so he was dubbed by Robert Rietti in the final film.
- John Dimech as Daud. Dimech was a waiter from Malta. His only prior film appearance was in 1959's Killers of Kilimanjaro.
- Hugh Miller as the RAMC colonel. Miller worked on several of Lean's films as a dialogue coach, and was one of several members of the film crew to be given bit parts (see below).
- Fernando Sancho as the Turkish sergeant. A well-known Spanish actor, best remembered for his roles in many spaghetti Westerns.
- Stuart Saunders as the regimental sergeant major
- Jack Gwillim as the club secretary. A well-known English actor often playing supporting roles in British war films, Gwillim was recommended to Lean for the film by close friend Anthony Quayle.
- Kenneth Fortescue as Allenby's aide
- Harry Fowler as Corporal Potter
- Howard Marion-Crawford as the medical officer. Marion-Crawford was cast at the last possible minute, during the filming of the"Damascus" scenes in Seville.
- John Ruddock as Elder Harith. Ruddock was a noted Shakespearean actor.
- Norman Rossington as Corporal Jenkins
- Jack Hedley as a reporter
- Henry Oscar as Silliam, Faisal's servant. Oscar frequently played ethnic parts, including the Sudanese doctor in The Four Feathers(1939).
- Peter Burton as a Damascus Sheik
Various members of the film's crew portrayed minor characters. First assistant director
Roy Stevens played the truck driver who transports Lawrence and Farraj to the Cairo HQ at the end of Act I; the Sergeant who stops Lawrence and Farraj (
"Where do you think you're going to, Mustapha?") is construction assistant, Fred Bennett; and screenwriter
Robert Bolt has a wordless cameo as one of the officers watching Allenby and Lawrence confer in the courtyard (he is smoking a pipe). David Lean can be heard as the voice of the motorcycle driver asking Lawrence "Who are you?" at the Suez Canal.
The film is unusual in that it has no women in credited speaking roles.
[edit]Real characters
[edit]Fictional and fictionalised characters
- Sherif Ali — A combination of numerous Arab leaders, particularly Sharif Nassir — Faisal's cousin — who led the Harith forces involved in the attack on Aqaba. The character was created largely because Lawrence did not serve with any one Arab leader (aside from Auda) throughout the majority of the war; most such leaders were amalgamated in Ali's character. This character was, however, almost certainly named after Sharif Ali ibn Hussein, a young leader in the Harith tribe, who played a part in the Revolt.
- Mr Dryden — The cynical Arab Bureau official, was based loosely on numerous figures, including Sir Ronald Storrs, who was head of the Arab Bureau and later the governor of Palestine. It was largely Storrs' doing that Lawrence first met Faisal and became involved with the Revolt. This character is also partially based upon Lawrence's archaeologist friend, D.G. Hogarth, as well as Mark Sykes and Henry McMahon, who historically fulfilled Dryden's role as a political liaison. He was created by the screenwriters to "represent the civilian and political wing of British interests, to balance Allenby's military objectives."
- Colonel Brighton — In essence a composite of all of the British officers who served in the Middle East with Lawrence, most notably Lt. Col. Stewart F. Newcombe. Newcombe played much the same role as Brighton does in the film, being Lawrence's predecessor as liaison to the Arab Revolt; he and many of his men were captured by the Turks in 1916, though he later escaped. Also, like Brighton, Newcombe was not well-liked by the Arabs, though he remained friends with Lawrence. (In Michael Wilson's original script, he was Colonel Newcombe; the character's name was later changed by Robert Bolt.) Brighton was apparently created to represent how ordinary British soldiers would feel about a man like Lawrence: impressed by his accomplishments but repulsed by his affected manner. (Lean argued that Brighton was "the only honourable character" in the film, whereas Anthony Quayle referred to his character as an "idiot".)
- Turkish Bey — The Turkish Bey who captures Lawrence in Daraa was — according to Lawrence himself — General Hajim Bey (in Turkish,Hacim Muhiddin Bey), though he is not named in the film. Though the incident was mentioned in Lawrence's autobiography Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a few historians have conjectured that this event never happened. This is not the view of Jeremy Wilson, The Authorised Biography of T. E. Lawrence (ISBN 0-689-11934-8) or the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning biography A Prince of Our Disorder, John E. Mack, (ISBN 0-316-54232-6).
- Jackson Bentley — Based on famed American journalist Lowell Thomas, who helped make Lawrence famous with accounts of his bravery. However, Thomas was at the time a young man who spent only a few days (or weeks at most) with Lawrence in the field - unlike Bentley, who is depicted as a cynical middle-aged Chicago newspaperman who is present during the whole of Lawrence's later campaigns. Bentley was the narrator in Michael Wilson's original script, but Robert Bolt reduced his role significantly for the final script. Thomas did not start reporting on Lawrence until after the end of World War I, and held Lawrence in high regard, unlike Bentley, who seems to hold him in contempt.
- Tafas — Lawrence's guide to Faisal is based on his actual guide, Sheikh Obeid el-Rashid, of the Hazimi branch of the Beni Salem, whom Lawrence referred to as Tafas several times in Seven Pillars. Tafas and Lawrence did meet Sherif Ali at a well during Lawrence's travels to Faisal, but the encounter was not fatal for either party. (Indeed, this scene would create much controversy amongst Arab viewers.)
- Medical Officer — This unnamed officer who confronts Lawrence in Damascus is based on an actual incident in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Lawrence's meeting the officer again while in British uniform was, however, an invention of Wilson or Bolt.
[edit]Historical accuracy
The historical accuracy of the film, and particularly its portrayal of Lawrence himself, has been called into question by numerous scholars. Most of the film's characters are either real or based on real characters to varying degrees. The events depicted in the film are largely based on accepted historical fact and Lawrence's own writing about events, though they have various degrees of
romanticisation.
Some scenes — such as the
attack on Aqaba — were heavily
fictionalised, while those dealing with the Arab Council were inaccurate, inasmuch as the council remained more or less in power in
Syria until
France deposed
Faisal in 1920. Little background on the history of the region, the First World War, and the Arab Revolt is provided, probably due to Bolt's increased focus on Lawrence (while Wilson's draft script had a broader, more politicized version of events). The theme (in the second half of the film) that Lawrence's Arab army deserted almost to a man as he moved farther north was completely fictional. The film's timeline of the
Arab Revolt and
World War I, and the geography of the
Hejaz region, are frequently questionable. For instance, Bentley interviews Faisal in late 1917, after the fall of Aqaba, saying the
United States has not yet entered the war; yet America had been in the war for several months by that point in time. Further, Lawrence's involvement in the Arab Revolt prior to the attack on Aqaba — such as his involvement in the seizures of
Yenbo and
Wejh — is completely excised. The rescue and execution of Gasim is based on two separate incidents, which were conflated together for dramatic reasons.
[edit]Representation of Lawrence
Many complaints about the film's accuracy, however, centre on the characterisation of Lawrence himself. The perceived problems with the portrayal of Lawrence begin with the differences in his physical appearance: 6-foot 2-inch (1.87 m)
Peter O'Toole was almost nine inches (23 cm) taller than the real Lawrence. His behaviour, however, has caused much more debate.
The screenwriters depict Lawrence as an
egotist. The degree to which Lawrence sought or shunned attention, such as his use after the war of various
assumed names, is a matter of debate. Even during the war,
Lowell Thomas wrote in
With Lawrence in Arabia that he could take pictures of him only by tricking him, although Lawrence did later agree to pose for several pictures for Thomas's stage show. Thomas's famous comment that Lawrence "had a genius for backing into the limelight" referred to the fact that his extraordinary actions prevented him from being as private as he would have liked. Others disagree, pointing to Lawrence's own writings in
Seven Pillars of Wisdom to support the argument that he was egotistical.
Lawrence's sexual orientation remains a controversial topic amongst historians; though Bolt's primary source was ostensibly
Seven Pillars, the film's portrayal seems informed by
Richard Aldington's then-recent
Biographical Inquiry(1955), which posited among other things that Lawrence was homosexual. The film features Lawrence's alleged
sadomasochism as a major part of his character (for instance, his "match trick" in Cairo, his "enjoyment" of killing Gasim); while Lawrence almost certainly engaged in flagellation and like activities after the Deraa incident, there is no biographical evidence he was a masochist prior to that incident. The movie's depiction of Lawrence as an active participant in the Tafas Massacre was disputed at the time by historians, including Lawrence's biographer
Basil Liddell Hart, but most current biographers accept the film's portrayal of the massacre as reasonably accurate.
Although the movie does show that Lawrence could speak and read Arabic, could quote the
Quran, and was reasonably knowledgeable about the region, it barely mentions his archaeological travels from 1911 to 1914 in Syria and Arabia, and ignores his espionage work, including a pre-war topographical survey of the Sinai Peninsula and his attempts to negotiate the release of British prisoners at
Kut in
Mesopotamia in 1916.
Furthermore, in the film, Lawrence is only made aware of the
Sykes-Picot Agreement very late in the story whereas the "real" Lawrence, while fighting alongside the Arabs,
[8] knew much earlier, but had hoped that the Arabs' contribution to the Allied victory would convince the Allies to grant the Arabs their independence. Lawrence was, as the film suggests, torn between loyalty to the British and his promises to the Arabs, but by delaying his knowledge of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the film removes the early catalyst for this conflict.
[edit]Representation of other characters
The film portrays General Allenby as cynical and manipulative, with a superior attitude to Lawrence, but there is much evidence that Allenby and Lawrence respected and liked each other. Lawrence once said that Allenby was "an admiration of mine"
[9] and later that he was "physically large and confident and morally so great that the comprehension of our littleness came slow to him".
[10] In contrast to the fictional Allenby's words at Lawrence's funeral in the film, upon Lawrence's death Allenby remarked;, "I have lost a good friend and a valued comrade. Lawrence was under my command, but, after acquainting him with my strategical plan, I gave him a free hand. His co-operation was marked by the utmost loyalty, and I never had anything but praise for his work, which, indeed, was invaluable throughout the campaign"
[11] Allenby also spoke highly of him on numerous other occasions, and much to Lawrence's delight publicly endorsed the accuracy of
Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Although Allenby admittedly did manipulate Lawrence during the war, their relationship lasted for years after its end, indicating that in real-life they were friendly, if not close. The Allenby family was particularly upset by the Damascus scenes, where Allenby coldly allows the town to fall into chaos as the Arab Council collapses.
[12]Similarly, General Murray, though initially sceptical of the Arab Revolt's potential, thought highly of Lawrence's abilities as an intelligence officer; indeed, it was largely through Lawrence's persuasion that Murray came to support the revolt. The intense dislike shown toward Lawrence in the film is in fact the opposite of Murray's real feelings, although for his part Lawrence seemed not to hold Murray in any high regard.
The depiction of
Auda abu Tayi as a man interested only in loot and money is also at odds with the historical record. Although Auda did at first join the
Arab Revolt for monetary reasons, he quickly became a steadfast supporter of Arab independence and abandoned the cause only after the collapse of the Arab government in Damascus. He was present with Lawrence from the beginning of the
Aqaba expedition and in fact helped plan it along with
Prince Faisal.
Faisal, far from being the middle-aged man depicted, was in reality in his early thirties at the time of the revolt.
[13] Although Lawrence considered Faisal to be a wise and insightful man, Faisal was noted for his predatory sense of humour, often involving mean practical jokes, which is not shown in the film. The two men also had a much closer relationship than the film implies.
A particularly telling fact of the film's inaccuracies is the reaction of those who knew Lawrence and the other characters. The most vehement critic of the film's inaccuracy was Professor
A.W. Lawrence, T.E.'s younger brother and literary executor, who had sold the rights to
Seven Pillars of Wisdom to
Sam Spiegel for £25,000. Lawrence went on a campaign in the United States and Britain denouncing the film, famously saying, "I should not have recognised my own brother". Lowell Thomas was also critical of the portrayal of Lawrence and most of the film's characters, believing that the train attack scenes were the only reasonably accurate aspect of the film.
The criticisms were not restricted to Lawrence. The Allenby family lodged a formal complaint against Columbia about the portrayal of their ancestor. Descendants of Auda abu Tayi and the real Sherif Ali, despite the fact that the film's Ali was fictional went further, actively suing Columbia due to the portrayal of their ancestors. The Auda case went on for almost ten years before it was finally dropped.
[14]Jeremy Wilson, among others, has noted that the film has "undoubtedly influenced the perceptions of some subsequent biographers" such as the depiction of the film's Ali as the real Sherif Ali, rather than a composite character, and also the highlighting of the Deraa incident.
[15] (In fairness to Lean and his writers, the Deraa connection was made by several Lawrence biographers, including Edward Robinson (
Lawrence the Rebel) and
Anthony Nutting (
The Man and the Motive) before the film's release.) The film's historical inaccuracies are, in Wilsons view, more troublesome than what can be allowed under normal dramatic license.
[edit]Production
[edit]Pre-production
Previous films about T. E. Lawrence had been planned but had not been made. In the 1940s,
Alexander Korda was interested in filming
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom with
Laurence Olivier as Lawrence, but had to pull out due to financial difficulties. David Lean himself had been approached to direct a 1952 version for the
Rank Organisation, but the project fell through. Also, at the same time as pre-production of the film,
Terence Rattigan was developing his play
Ross which centred primarily on Lawrence's alleged homosexuality.
Ross had begun life as a screenplay, but was re-written for the stage when the film project fell through. Sam Spiegel grew furious and unsuccessfully attempted to have the play suppressed, furore at which helped to gain publicity for the film.
[16] Dirk Bogarde had accepted the role in
Ross; he described the cancellation of the project as "my bitterest disappointment". Alec Guinness would play the role on stage.
Lean and Sam Spiegel were coming off the huge success of
Bridge on the River Kwai, and were eager to work together again. For a time, Lean was interested in a biopic of
Gandhi, with Alec Guinness to play the title role and
Emeric Pressburger writing the screenplay, but Lean eventually lost interest in the project.
[17] Lean then returned his attention to T.E. Lawrence.
Columbia Pictures had an interest in a Lawrence project dating back to the early '50s, and when Spiegel convinced a reluctant
A.W. Lawrence to sell the rights to
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom for £25,000, the project got underway.
When
Lawrence of Arabia was first announced, Lawrence's biographer
Lowell Thomas offered producer Spiegel and screenwriters Bolt and Wilson a large amount of research material he had produced on Lawrence during and after his time with him in the Arab Revolt. Spiegel rejected the offer.
[citation needed]Michael Wilson wrote the original draft of the screenplay. However, Lean was dissatisfied with Wilson's work, primarily because his treatment focused primarily on the historical and political aspects of the Arab Revolt. Lean hired
Robert Bolt to re-write the script in order to make it a character study of Lawrence himself. While many of the characters and scenes are Wilson's invention, virtually all of the dialogue in the finished film was written by Bolt.
Lean reportedly watched
John Ford's film
The Searchers (1956) to help him develop ideas as to how to shoot the film. Several scenes in the movie directly recall Ford's film, most notably Ali's entrance at the well and the composition of many of the desert scenes, most notably the exit from
Wadi Rum. Lean biographer
Kevin Brownlow even notes the physical similarity between Rumm and Ford's
Monument Valley.
[18] The film's plot structure also bears similarity to
Orson Welles's
Citizen Kane (1941), particularly the opening scenes with Lawrence's death and the reporter inquiring notables at Lawrence's funeral.
[edit]Filming
The desert scenes were shot in
Jordan and
Morocco, as well as
Almería and
Doñana in
Spain. The film was originally to be filmed entirely in Jordan: the government of
King Hussein was extremely helpful in providing logistical assistance,
location scouting, transportation, and extras; Hussein himself visited the set several times during production and maintained cordial relationships with cast and crew. During the production of the film, in fact, Hussein met and married
Toni Gardner, who was working as a switchboard operator in Aqaba. One of the film's technical advisors/horse wranglers in Jordan was a descendant of
Auda abu Tayi.
[citation needed] The only tension occurred when local Jordanian officials learned that English actor
Henry Oscar, who did not speak
Arabic, would be filmed reciting the
Qur'an; permission was granted only on condition that an
imam be present to ensure that there were no misquotations.
In Jordan, Lean planned to film in, among other places, the real Aqaba and the archaeological site at
Petra, which Lawrence had been fond of as a place of study. However, the production had to be moved to Spain, much to Lean's regret, due to cost and outbreaks of illness among the cast and crew before these scenes could be shot. The attack on Aqaba (one of the more stirring and memorable scenes in the movie with a spectacular pan shot of dust rising up from behind the charging Arabs while Turkish cannons are aimed harmlessly out to sea) was reconstructed in a dried river bed in southern Spain; it consisted of over 300 buildings and was meticulously based on the town's appearance in 1917. The execution of Gasim and the train attacks were filmed in the
Almería region, with the former's filming being delayed because of a flash flood. The city of
Seville was also used to represent
Cairo and
Jerusalem, with the appearance of the
Alcázar of Seville and the
Plaza de España. All of the film's interiors were shot in Spain, including Lawrence's first meeting with Faisal and the scene in Auda's tent.
The Tafas massacre was filmed in
Ouarzazate, Morocco, with Moroccan army troops substituting for the Turkish army; however, Lean was unable to film as much as he wanted because the soldiers were uncooperative and impatient.
[19] One of the second-unit directors for the Morocco scenes was
André de Toth, who suggested a shot wherein bags of blood would be machine-gunned, spraying the screen with blood. Assistant director
Nicolas Roeg approached Lean with this idea, but Lean found it disgusting. De Toth subsequently left the project.
The film's production was frequently delayed because, unusually, the film started shooting without a finished script. After Wilson quit early in the production, playwright
Beverley Cross worked on the script in the interim before Bolt took over, although none Cross' material made it to the final film. A further mishap occurred when Bolt was arrested for taking part in an anti-nuclear weapons demonstration, and Spiegel had to persuade Bolt to
sign a recognizance of good behaviour for him to be released from jail and continue working on the script.
Camels caused several problems on set. O'Toole was not used to riding camels and found the saddle to be uncomfortable. While in
Ammanduring a break in filming, he bought a piece of
foam rubber at a market and added it to his saddle. Many of the extras copied the idea and sheets of the foam can be seen on many of the horse and camel saddles. The
Bedouins nicknamed O'Toole " 'Ab al-'Isfanjah " (
أب الإسفنجة), meaning "Father of the Sponge".
[20] The idea spread and to this day, many Bedouins add foam rubber to their saddles.
Later, during the filming of the Aqaba scene, O'Toole was nearly killed when he fell from his camel, but fortunately, it stood over him, preventing the horses of the extras from trampling him. Coincidentally a very similar mishap befell the real Lawrence at the
Battle of Abu El Lissal in 1917. In another mishap, O'Toole seriously injured his hand during filming by punching through the window of a caravan while drunk. A brace or bandage can be seen on his left thumb during the first train attack scene, presumably due to this incident.
Along with many other Arab countries, Jordan would ban the film for what they felt to be a disrespectful portrayal of Arab culture. Egypt, Omar Sharif's home country, was the only Arab nation to give the film a wide release, where it became a success through the endorsement of President
Gamal Abdel Nasser, who appreciated the film's depiction of
Arab nationalism.
The
score was composed by
Maurice Jarre, little known at the time and selected only after both
William Walton and
Malcolm Arnold had proved unavailable. Jarre was given just six weeks to compose two hours of orchestral music for
Lawrence.
[21] The score was performed by the
London Philharmonic Orchestra. Although
Sir Adrian Boult is credited as the conductor of the score in the film's credits, he was unable to conduct most of the score, due in part to his failure to adapt to the intricate timings of each cue, and Jarre replaced him as the conductor. The score went on to garner
Jarre his first
Academy Award for Music Score-Substantially Original
[22] and is now considered one of the greatest scores of all time, ranking number three on the
American Film Institute's top twenty-five American film scores.
[23]The original soundtrack recording was originally released on
Colpix Records, the records division of Columbia Pictures, in 1962. A remastered edition appeared on
Castle Music, a division of the
Sanctuary Records Group, on 28 August 2006.
[edit]Release
The film premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 10 December 1962 (Royal Premiere) and was released in the United States on 16 December 1962.
The original release ran for about 222 minutes (plus overture, intermission, and exit music). A post-premiere memo (13 Dec. 1962) noted that the film was 24,987.5 ft (70 mm) and 19,990 ft (35 mm). With 90 ft of 35 mm film projected every minute, this corresponds to exactly 222.11 minutes.
In an email to Robert Morris, co-author of a book on Lawrence of Arabia (Feb. 22, 2005), Richard May, VP Film Preservation at Warner Bros., noted that Gone With the Wind, never edited after its premiere, is 19,884 ft of 35 mm film (without leaders, overture, intermission, entr'acte or walkout music) corresponding to 220.93 min.
Thus, "LOA", slightly more than 1 minute longer than "GWTW", is the longest movie to ever win a Best Picture Oscar.
A later theatrical re-release ran for 202 minutes; an even shorter cut of 187 minutes briefly surfaced in the 1970s. The first round of cuts was made at the direction and even insistence of David Lean, to assuage criticisms of the film's length and increase the number of showings per day; however, during the 1989 restoration, he would later pass blame for the cuts onto by-then-deceased producer
Sam Spiegel.
[24][edit]Restoration/Director's cut
The current "restored version", undertaken by
Robert A. Harris and
James C. Katz (under the supervision of director David Lean), was released in 1989 with a 216-minute length (plus overture, intermission, and exit music).
Most of the cut scenes were dialogue sequences, particularly those involving General Allenby and his staff. Two whole scenes—Brighton's briefing of Allenby in Jerusalem before the Daraa scene and the British staff meeting in the field tent—were completely excised, and the former has still not been entirely restored. Much of the missing dialogue involves Lawrence's writing of poetry and verse, alluded to by Allenby in particular, saying "the last poetry general we had was
Wellington". The opening of Act II, where Faisal is interviewed by Bentley, and the later scene, in Jerusalem where Allenby convinces Lawrence not to resign, existed in only fragmented form; they were restored to the 1989 re-release. Some of the more graphic shots of the Tafas massacre scene—the lengthy panning shot of the corpses in Tafas, and Lawrence shooting a surrendering Turkish soldier—were also restored. Most of the still-missing footage is of minimal import, supplementing existing scenes. One scene is an extended version of the Daraa rape sequence, which makes Lawrence's punishment in that scene more overt. Other scripted scenes exist, including a conversation between Auda and Lawrence immediately after the fall of
Aqaba, a brief scene of Turkish officers noting the extent of Lawrence's campaign, and the battle of
Petra (later reworked into the first train attack), but these scenes were probably not filmed. The actors still living at the time of the re-release dubbed their own dialogue, though
Jack Hawkins's dialogue had to be dubbed by
Charles Gray (who had already done Hawkins' voice for several films after the former developed throat cancer in the late 1960s). A full list of cuts can be found at the
Internet Movie Database.
[26] Reasons for the cuts of various scenes can be found in Lean's notes to Sam Spiegel, Robert Bolt, and
Anne V. Coates.
[27] The film runs 216 minutes in the most recent
director's cut available on DVD.
[citation needed][edit]High definition
The HD premiere was telecast on
HDNet on 10 February 2008.
[28] Sony remastered the film into HD. In its
high definition version, the film is 216 minutes. Sony lists it at 227 minutes.
[edit]Reception
However, some critics — notably
Bosley Crowther and
Andrew Sarris — have criticized the film for an indefinite portrayal of Lawrence and lack of depth
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