Lawrence of Arabia A Great Epic Film

I went to see this film when it first came out.I was 13 years old at the time and I was awe struck, to say the least. I knew then and there that even if I never ended up acting, I could still write about it someday!

This was a major award-winning film that received ten Academy Award nominations and seven Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Picture, Best Color Cinematography (Freddie Young), Best Color Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound (John Cox), Best Music Score (Maurice Jarre), and Best Film Editing (Anne V. Coates). Its nominations for Best Actor (Peter O'Toole, with his first of seven unsuccessful Oscar nominations) and directed by David Lean

The opening scene of the film is both a prologue and an epilogue, depicting Lieutenant T. E. Lawrence's (Peter O'Toole) death in mid-May of 1935. After the credits, Lawrence races his motorcycle along an English country road. His daredevil face is alternately illuminated and darkened - foretelling his own destiny

At age 29, young Lawrence began his career in the British headquarters in Cairo during World War I (January 1917), working at a lowly desk job. Bored out of his mind, he desperately wants to go where the action is. He ends up in Arabia.

Once in the desert, he befriends Sherif Ali Ben El Kharish (Omar Sharif, making one of the most spectacular entrances in movie history) and draws up plans to aid the Arabs in their rebellion against the Turks.His first orders is to investigate the progress of the Arab revolt against Constantinople and to appraise the strength of the Arab tribes for the British political bureau. The British desperately want to keep the Turks from gaining control of the Suez Canal.

After successfully completing his mission, Lawrence becomes an unwitting pawn of the Allies, as represented by Gen. Allenby (Jack Hawkins) and Dryden (Claude Rains), who decide to keep using Lawrence to secure Arab cooperation against the Imperial Powers. While on a spying mission to Deraa, Lawrence is captured and tortured by a sadistic Turkish Bey (Jose Ferrer). In the heat of the next battle, the blue-eyed Lawrence screams "No prisoners!" and fights more ruthlessly than ever.

The movie, filmed mostly in Spain and Jordan, ended up costing a then staggering 13 million and won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.The nearly four-hour long film featured a star-studded cast, with a virtually unknown, blue-eyed Irish Shakespearean stage actor, Peter O'Toole in his first starring role.