Midweek Mention.... Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia

Reegs: Peter, you chose this week's midweek.

Pete: I did well, I chose it twice because I originally chose something. And then I got brave and I chose the big one.

Sidey: what was it originally going to be? I can't remember.

Pete: It was originally gonna be star dust, just cause it's

Sidey: Oh, that's right. Yeah.

Pete: pleasure of mine has got a bit of. And ensemble cast. You two guys, especially hadn't seen it, but there was a bit of a link.

And then I had to change the top five for the, for the main show.

Sidey: If you fucked it up.

Pete: And then, and then I thought seeing as that's going to be sand, one of the Sandy films I know is Lawrence of Arabia and Peter O'Toole bizarrely is also in star dust, albeit not for very long. But I thought I'm, I've been aware for some time now of the fact that Riggs has not seen Lawrence of Arabia.

And there's quite a, a nice little position to be in for me because there's a few classic films that I haven't seen that everybody's been like absolutely. A Gar star,

Reegs: Nightmare on Elm street three, for instance,

Pete: I might've seen that, things like off the top of my head, like Pappy, I'd never seen 'em

Reegs: you'd never seen the shining. Had you

Pete: I'd never seen the shining.

Yeah. There's loads of what I would say. Very iconic and classic films almost like must see films. And this is right up there

Reegs: Yeah. And if you consider yourself a cinephile and you haven't seen it,

Pete: They're the ones who are interested in kids. Is that right?

Reegs: is that what you're saying? Yeah. Cinephile.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. Like you guys very much are bigger cinephiles than, than, than I. And so rigs really, especially as one of the main protagonists of this podcast, you, you had to have seen it this, a little smirk on your face.

Eric's like, you didn't fucking bother your ass.

Reegs: Yeah, no, I still haven't seen it. I'm sorry. I'd say I haven't seen it. Yeah, I know. Yeah.

Pete: are you pulling my leg?

Reegs: I'm not, no, I'm not. I did this this week has been a, we didn't even know we were going to be able to get podcasts together. It's a four hour film. My process is usually to watch the movie twice and half the time I end up watching it on my phone, I'm like, I'm going to see one of the epic movies of all time on like a 16 inch screen or whatever.

It's. So no, it didn't happen. I will sit down and watch this. But, you know, this is it's, it's a big commitment

Sidey: than that.

Pete: Yeah, as I pointed out shear, it's less of a commitment than the fucking Marvel week that you like put me.

Reegs: yeah, I know. Yeah. When you added that stuff up as well, it was, yeah, it was an eye opener.

Pete: Yeah. I

Reegs: I do feel bad about it. It's a gaping hole in my CV, but it just was never going to happen. This.

Sidey: well, then we're, we're done. I don't want to spoil too much of it for you, but also in a midweek episode is going to be tricky to run through three in a three quarter hour plot in its entirety. So, so we'll keep it brief, but we'll talk about why it's so amazing why it's

Pete: what I would say what I would say side it's like the plot in itself is not,

Sidey: There's not that much to it in.

Pete: convoluted there there's, there's some, some events that happen.

Sidey: Yeah. There's a lot of camera writing.

Pete: There is a huge amount of camel riding. Yeah. I mean, what did we, what did we start at the beginning? So the, the film opens, he does die. Yeah. He dies right.

Sidey: at the start.

Pete: So big spoiler alert.

Yeah.

Sidey: Which I was thinking of that from maybe a top five of where the main protagonist dies right at the start. I don't know if you know the story of his life, but he he has a motorcycle accident and yeah, passes away

Pete: and this is, so this time that I watched it, I think it was my third time, all the way through. And for some reason, For, for some reason in my head. Cause I hadn't watched it for quite a long time. I had it in my head that the that the death was almost like clouded in a little bit of doubt. Because you just see, you don't actually see what you see is him driving along.

Initially in the opening credits you see like UN sort of from above shot of him, like walking up to his bike a couple of times, I think giving it a little Polish or whatever, then as soon as the film opens, you see him hurtling along on his bike. This is in the days where helmets were not a thing.

So he's just got some goggles on and he's absolutely hurtling along. And there's a. It's more of a noise some screeching of tires. And then you just, if you hear a big like crunch and then you just see some goggles hanging from a tree,

Sidey: Yeah, it's almost a little bit carry on that, that bit

Pete: it is, it

Sidey: because of the technology and how you're used to seeing crashes these days, this is. quite primitive, but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't take away from anything. Then it cuts to a, I think it might even be supported cathedral. Was it with his Memorial service?

Pete: Yeah, it was either that Westminster Abbey. It was definitely a,

Sidey: it was pretty hoity toity. And then you go through basically a who's who of British actors of that era. And even if you don't know the names, I didn't know what their name is particularly, but you recognize people from all these other films that you've seen from that era.

They're fucking all in it, everyone's in this. And then they started telling the story of who he was, why he's got a big lavish you know, the whole story of his life.

Pete: So the, the, the main kind of thing you take from the, from the Memorial that's, that's being held, it's not clear whether or not it's the funeral or just like a, a Memorial, but what is clear is there's there's like there's reporters there and everyone's asking about this so much kind of like mystique.

Around this character, Lawrence of Arabia there's a lot of people, you know, they'll say, oh, did you know? He was like, yes. And then he said, okay, well, you know, what was he like? You know, w w where all the stories true was he really that you know, like enigmatic and stuff like that. And they said, oh, well, I'll say I know him.

Like, I shook his hand in the mess hall in in an, in Colorado or whatever. Very few people that are there and there's masses of people that actually know anything about him because as you find out in the story, he is very different. He is very enigmatic in charismatic but also misfit, certainly in the in, in the, amongst the ranks of the British army.

So it then cuts back to, I think it is Cairo back at the beginning of his time, serving in the, in the British army. And I should know this, but what sort of time is it? It's the,

Sidey: There's about half three,

Pete: yeah.

Sidey: well, 19, 19 35 was when he died. So it would have been before that,

Pete: It's, it's sets in the first world first world war. So this is first of all, is, is going on. And the British are in what I presume they're in Egypt, which I presume is still part of the empire at the time. And you've got this

Sidey: well, he's called in to see his commanding officer. Isn't it.

Pete: Yeah, because I think that there's an opportunity that's come up.

Lawrence has done a bit of studying. He's very, he's very studious he's he's very sort of interested in, in, in the culture. Yeah. He is a misfit and he, but he's very interested in the, in the culture of the, the places that he's visiting his own and wants to kind of immerse himself into it. So he's certainly done.

His homework and but he is because he's a bit of a misfit. He's a little bit sort of insolent and a bit yeah, sarcastic.

Sidey: on them. He thinks he's better than them in a way, because he's, he is an educated man. I think he's Oxford some sort of university education. And he certainly feels that. He's got a level of superiority on even his superior officers, because he just knows more than them and or they, they don't like that about him.

So he's, he's basically sent on a really, really vague mission

go and learn stuff,

Pete: He's he's also the the bastard son of a Lord, isn't he? But he will, he'll never take on the title because he's not so as a, you know, because he's a busted, but yeah, he's, there's an opportunity they see to, to send somebody else to meet with and effectively kind of like shadow prince Feisal.

Who's is he a, what is it? Well, he's a, he's a prince of a, of an Arabic. Tribe

Sidey: yeah. Prince Pfizer's leading a revolt against the Turks. And this is the first point for me to talk about because he's played by Guinness.

Pete: So Alec Guinness.

Sidey: And so it's, there were brown face black face, and there's quite a lot of it in this. Even Omar Sharif, I think it looks like he's got some makeup on to make him look more. It's like, well, I get, you know, certain things that you have to make things look like a certain way on camera, but and they go out of their way to say that how amazing his makeup was and how convincing he wasn't when he was walking around, because everything here is on location. This is not, you know, Pinewood studios, whoever this is.

And they say, oh, we're now that guests is walking around and fucking brown face. Everyone thought he was the real prince Fiser. And you're like, did they.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a

Sidey: I think it's just a cultural touch point that you wouldn't have it done that way. Now

fucking

Reegs: is what, how many years old now? This.

Pete: It's 63 62. So no, it was made in 62. So it's it's

Sidey: Well, it was made a fucking years but it was released in 62, so Yeah, there's, there's that sort of thing to be aware of in it that. You know, different attitudes at the time.

Pete: Yeah. But he does, he travels out to, to meet with prince Feisal. He goes off with his, he's got a Bedouin guide. There's there's him and this and this other guy half-ass and they're on their camel camels. Th th what they do so brilliantly in this film and the reason, one of the reasons why it's so long, albeit I'd like to add it, doesn't, it doesn't feel like.

Onerous as you're watching it, but the scale of everything is absolutely fucking frightening. And, and they do that because this is the journey that this guy made. You know, he's had to go on this fairly epic journey just to even get to this post that he's been put in. So you sort of see him learning how to ride a camel a bit better.

There's a really poignant part very early on. He stops to have a drink of water, just to like a small cup full of water and the bedroom guy, he says to the Bedouin guy, he goes, are you not drinking? And he says, I'm Bedouin. You know, I, I, I live in the desert. I don't need to drink as much. So Lawrence pulls his water back into his bottle and said, I'll drink when you drink.

And that's like, his, he's got this kind of like, It's defiance, but it's also because what he wants to do is immediately immerse himself into the culture, be accepted and also not be seen as, as either superior or inferior.

Sidey: Yeah. he wins over there that he says something earlier, really early on in the film with with a match. Think he's putting out with his fingers or he's doing something. And one of the guys says, well, doesn't it hurt your, you know, they think, oh, you're weird. You know, does that not. And it says, Yeah. it does.

But the trick is to not let it bother you or not let it to end that that's the way he sort of takes it. The rest of the film is in these like parallel situations or is out in the desert for days upon end, which would kill anyone later on. They have to cross a, you know, in a boat of commerce, on crossable bit of desert to get somewhere.

And he has to go back to rescue someone and he does it And it's like, I just don't, it doesn't let it phase him. he's, got that this superhuman constitution that he can just put up with anything. Just about.

Pete: And he's, he's got a pretty sort of like, you know, jovial disposition most of the time, but, you know, there are things that happen along the way that do get to him and, and it seriously affects his mental health all the way through this store. But he, he keeps kind of plodding on nonetheless. I mean, before he gets to prince Feisal, there's that absolutely iconic scene, which even you must've seen reeks of him and his Bedouin guides to stopping to drink from a well, and there's the music and you just very, very slowly see a man on a camel and Arabic guy on a camel coming closer and closer.

And this is Omar Sharif kind of like riding out. The desert. And before, before the guide gets to he sees him coming and he runs

Reegs: of minutes or something

Pete: it is. Yeah, yeah,

Sidey: It's quite long. Because it's such a deep field of whatever. Yep. They, they had to create a lens. It's a special 482 mil lens made by Panavision. They still have the lens it's known amongst cinematographers as the David lean lens. And it's never been used since if you think.

Crack it out if it's that good, but you know, let everyone have a go. But it is amazing, you know, you see him in the Mirage then sort of a pair. He even said stupid things like the other book of Baba fat, you know, when

the battery a hundred repairs and it, it feels like everything's referencing because it's so iconic.

But Yeah. you just guns the guy down. It's like drank out my world without permission. So you fucking gone.

Pete: Yeah, and, and Lawrence was very put out by that he's, he's sort of, you know, befriended this guide. And the fact that he's an he's even, he's even annoyed that this guy doesn't want to shoot him because he sort of sees that he's a British army officer and, and respects that. Whereas, because this guy was just a Bedouin drinking from a well that he wasn't permitted to, he yeah, he got the treatment and he got blown away.

What's it. So Omar Sharif character who is called Sharif. Yeah. But, but yeah, sheriff, Allie Eben, L Chrish to use his full name. So he

takes

Sidey: before they do anything, he like when he's shouting at him, Lawrence of Arabia does say, you know, you'll never get anywhere. You're just killing each other all the time, you know? And then, you know, his whole thing is about uniting everyone

Pete: yeah.

Sidey: in this, campaign against the Turks.

Pete: Yeah, because how can they find the topics if they're sort of fractured themselves, but yeah, sheriff takes his company. Playfully and then Lawrence against the fine again, defiantly, he says I'll find my way manages to do so makes his way to prince Feisal camp. And that's where, you know, there's another British serving officer that who outranks Lawrence who's already there.

He's like a bit of an age to prince Feisal and he effectively says to Lawrence Lee, you know, let me do the talking. Don't say anything but straight away. The prints played by surealic Guinness, as we said before, takes a bit of a shine to him. As you can see that he's and starts actually asking his counsel that he's, he's thinking, you know, tactically, how can they get a bit of a foothold in this, in this conflict with the Turks?

They know that a very key target or We'll see code location. Is that place called Akwaaba? Which is right on the coast of the tokes. Who've got it, but it's it's only got guns that face out to the sea because they've got absolutely no qualms or concerns that there's going to be anyone attack them from the rear, because outside alluded to before it's an uncrossable piece of desert.

That takes, I didn't really get a feel for it, but I think we're talking week.

Sidey: couple of weeks, I think.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. We're talking weeks of desert crossing and a period. I think of of days where there, they will not drink. It's all they basically have to during their loss, but then they go to a well, and then I think it's a number of days before they will reach another well. they get concerned about the camels dying and all of that kind of stuff, which is obviously leave him high and dry outside. He says that they're doing the crossing. He's kind of taken on these two. I guess you got servants, but that, you know, they, they've,

Sidey: There's two orphans.

Pete: Too often, boys who are very willing to, they want to, they're fascinated by this character at this stage, all of the, the Arabic guys have taken to calling Lawrence origins. Um Overruns. Yeah. For whatever reason. And one of the, one of the guys in, in the caravan, I guess he falls off his horse and his horse is camel in the middle of the night because they're having to travel by night because of the heat during the day.

And when they come to the following day or when they reconvene Lawrence realizes that this guy has fallen. So. He says, he's going to go back and they get they're like, well, you know, that's you dead because we've just crossed it's inhospitable and, and we're, you know, we might die. Anyway. He goes back and manages to find this. And then bring him all the way back to this kind of light, this the next well, where they come, where they know that they're probably going to be okay from that point. And at that point, all of the the Arabs, I guess, except him and they even, they give him robes don't they, you, they give him like the, the Arabic robes and Sharif who's previously been a bit of a, a bit of

Sidey: been on the fence is down on the fence about it. Isn't it? Yeah.

Pete: Yeah. He, he, he immediately just, you know, almost

Sidey: the real deal.

Pete: Yeah, just goes, I listen. Yeah, that, that that's that's you've got above and beyond there. So anyway, they take acaba You know, using only sort of what's it, it's only about 50 men. I

Sidey: 50 madness. yeah, the prince can in 50.

Pete: I think they probably lost a couple along the way.

But because of the element of surprise, they take acaba in prison, some tax, but sort of get rid of a lot as well. And then Lawrence decided. That that's, that's a good point in which to, to report back to Cairo, to, to say that that, that, you know, what he's done and that this has been a success.

And this film is in two acts and that's the end of the first act. Really? Isn't it. It's just that's it. I mean, we, we've not done it anywhere near enough justice at this stage. Like the scenes, the score,

Sidey: Yeah, this guy's going to say there you'd recognize the score. As soon as it came on, I was like, oh yeah.

fuck. I haven't heard that in a while, but instantly recognizable. There's there's a lot of places in the film where you could just, I was just like, I'm just going to pause that and just leave that shot on the screen for a little while.

Cause it's so fucking epic. I can't remember is in act one, act two, but it's like a sunset over the desert, but it's by the shoreline as well. And it's just so immaculately conceived. It's just amazing. And it's just visually so stunning. It's a must-see, it's like a sort of cliche where you say, well, they don't make them like this anymore, but They really

Pete: They do. I don't

Sidey: was, this was a 14 month location

Reegs: yeah. With thousands like 10,000 extras or whatever.

Sidey: Yeah.

it's just absolutely unbelievable.

Pete: And I mean, I don't know about you side, even on the third, watch that, that first act, which is a couple of hours long, it flew by for me. It's not a, I'm not there again. I'll come and I'll where's that bit or anything like that. There's none of that at all. It flows the rhythm of this field. It's not a fast pace film by any stretch.

Some of those there's some battle scenes and there's some, you know, stuff where it definitely where it quickens the pace, but it flows the entire way through. It's not like, as I

Sidey: It's weird. The one, the one that I, I bought the directors really stored or whatever it was addition on Amazon. And I thought it was broken because it starts off with four minutes of just music, like a black screen, I thought, oh, something's not right. Just skip forward and realize how it was, you know, it was just like a really long intro.

Then

Pete: had the same. Yeah, it

Sidey: actually given you are actually given the intermission and it's the intermission. It's not like it just cut back into film. You get a proper, it's like I've got a pause button. I can just

Reegs: what did he do? Go get an ice cream. Did you use your intermission or.

Sidey: I was a little bit just checking the runtime because it's the part, the first part of the film is a lot longer than the second. Well, a lot longer, it's probably about two hours to an hour and a half, something like that. So I just wanted to see, like when I realized it wasn't actual intermission that they given you just how long an intermission actually was. I can vaguely remember going to the cinema and having intermissions in films back in the

Pete: Yeah. I remember that.

Sidey: but I can't remember how long they were. I mean, this one was probably long enough to get

Pete: They were, they were five minutes. Comfort break. It was five minutes tops. It wasn't so that you could go in like get hot dogs and pick a mix and shit. It

Sidey: We're not cause you used to have the concessions thing in the, in

Pete: Yeah.

exactly. Yeah, yeah,

Sidey: Duda. I don't think we need to plow through like,

Pete: no no no

Sidey: is that he's basically, he ingratiates himself and becomes almost completely one with the Arabic people who unites them all or they, they go on all these various different missions to do things he's he seriously doubts that the office boys back home, you know, behind the desks have got designs on what they want to do with this empire. And he's like, are you going to do anything with these people? They just want to be left alone. You know, they keep asking me, what have you got designers on it?

You know? And he wants to be able to tell them that no, they're going to be left. We're going to get out and leave it all, you know? And he, but he doesn't trust the the top price one there.

Pete: Yeah, well, there's a bit of a recurring theme is, is he repeat this? You know, this after one is one of the F is the first time that he goes back to Cairo. Each time he's increasingly less. So he's increasingly more reluctant to go. He feels himself changing. He feels himself effectively becoming one of them.

Sidey: When he rocks up

Pete: kind of like

Sidey: he rocks up in the robes and his, and his Arabic robes with the two orphans and it goes into the

Pete: One, one, because one of them's died in quicksand.

Sidey: He has to kill the other one. He, yeah, that's sort of thing along the way. He's fucking ruthless. Like he

Pete: No, he doesn't. He doesn't, he doesn't kill is his,

Sidey: it does.

Pete: his, I know he kills, he kills the guy that he went back to save. He has

Sidey: kills one of the guys who gets injured, because if he gets captured, it would be even worse for him. So

Pete: Right. Sorry. Sorry. Yes, sir. Yes, he does that. That's like a, that's a mercy killing, but yeah, I mean, w another, another thing he has to do, which is very

Sidey: Oh, the, the, the feud thing.

Pete: is that, you know, when they pick up along the way and they pick up Anthony Quinn, another guy in brown face his his tribe, they seem a bit more kind of.

You know, less like tactical and considered a bit more barbaric. But anyway, there's a blood feud between one of his camp and one of prince Pfizer's camp Lawrence, because he doesn't want to lose the, you know, the, the togetherness that's been built. He says that rather than you execute, carry out the execution, I'll do it because I'm neutral.

And you, you guys are still one sort of our Rebecca army. And then they could at the crowd, like disperses and you realize it's the guy that he went back for to save his life in the desert that he then has to execute. Not only does he, does he do it? He done admits back in in the headquarters in Cairo that he actually quite enjoyed it.

Yeah. It's very yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, he, then, as a side says, he, you know, they, they then go run as sort of like tactical strikes on trains and, and in places that are occupied by the Turks very much of the rest of the story is, is just, you know, what's happening to Lawrence. He, at one point he gets captured by some Turkey soldiers.

There's a. Yeah, rather, I said, it's a bit of a weird scene where this Turkish kind of high ranking guy, it's almost like he's got designs online, maybe bombing him. This is a little bit.

Sidey: man. It

Pete: Yeah, no, no. He w he wasn't, he was a handsome man. And I found out that it found out some interesting stuff about the, the guy, the actor is Jose for rare who plays this Turkish bay, B Y.

But anyway, they, he, he manages to, to escape that and effectively returns back to the Like the, yeah. The British headquarters in Cairo with all of his work done with the Arabs, having effectively conquered the, you know, or reclaimed the, the areas that the Turkish had taken. But it's, it's pretty much destroyed him as a

Sidey: He's, he's been promoted a couple of times. I think he's up to what he's up to major or something at the end. And he says, I'm going to fucking resign. You know, he's totally disillusioned with the whole system and they're like, you're fucking crazy. Like, don't do anything right in the heat of the moment to stay on your game.

Like all this money and military pension, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, no, fuck off. Like, I don't want any of that. And

Pete: re

Sidey: off and crushes his motorbike.

Reegs: Oh, I see.

Pete: really markedly there's a scene where

Reegs: that ties back into what happened at the beginning. Then with

Pete: yeah, you don't, you don't see that again. What you do see is as he's leaving Egypt, you see. No, as he's leaving Egypt, you see him just he's in a Jeep and he sees a guy fly past him on a motorbike. And obviously there's a, non-cell, that's a bit of me that and that's ultimately what kills him.

There is a really poignant scene back in, in the mess hall, in Cairo where he's, he's in his rags and he's, he's done all these like unbelievable things. He's become basically a general who's led an entire army to victory in multiple. Bottles he's, he's a successful, a generalist that would have been in the British army.

And he, he finally gets, because everyone sees him as this weirdo slash misfit. And he finally gets all of their respect. There's a bit where they're like cheering and they're all patting him on the back and stuff. And it's phenomenal acting because whilst he's getting all this Agilent. He's devastated.

He's terrified. He's like almost like crying because that's not what he wants it. He doesn't want the respect to these guys cause he has no respect for them whatsoever. But because of this, you know, the successes yeah, he's he he's got something that he never really sets out set out to achieve. He just wanted to help the people that he felt didn't have the same opportunities and advantages as his, as him or, or the British.

You can't do this.

Reegs: the, the, nowadays they would probably talk about the white savior trope. Does that play out here where you have a bunch of know. People who are saved by

Pete: there is that.

Sidey: I mean, that's essentially the film, you know, he is the white savior.

Pete: Yeah.

And it's, it's just,

Sidey: but it's the truth.

Pete: the, the true story. And what is, what is, is very, very relevant is that he is both. Incredibly respectful of, of the Arabs and the Arabic culture and immerses himself into it. And that's why he you know, it's, it's,

Reegs: Yeah. So considering when this was made in the sixties, they, they sounds like they've gone out of their way to show that he was trying to ingratiate himself

Pete: Completely. And again, he brings one of his, his, like his servants in inverted commas back with them. So when the first time he goes back and he goes up to the bar, he orders two glasses of lemonade. Obviously they're saying we can't serve him in here. This is like an Arabic kid. We can't serve him in here.

He's like, just give me two glossy lemonade. And you know, he, he manages to get them and then he's like, right. I want to. With adult with a bad, with fresh sheets and fresh lead in and blah, blah, blah, and everything. And they're like, yeah, of course, of course he goes, no it's for him. And it's for his servant.

So he, he. They go to great lengths to show that he is incredibly sort of respectful. He has an ear, isn't this like Knight in shining armor. He basically just, you know, it almost by accident became this this sort of like figurehead as part of you know, alongside the Arabic army, but they have incredible respect for him.

I mean, Omar Sharif character cries at the end when he knows that he's not going to see him again. And sequins characters, you know, still a bit, you know, he's still got a bit of the barbarian and him, and he's, he's less, less bothered about it, but yeah, you just cannot do this film justice in in a, in a half hour rambling on a podcast.

Anybody can do it. Justice rigs is to fucking watch it.

Reegs: I know I've got to sit down and watch it.

Sidey: But it's nice.

Pete: gobs. I'd be gobsmacked. If you didn't think that this is

Reegs: Yeah, it sounds

Pete: absolute classic.

Reegs: sounds great. You know, but I know the original was like a 70 millimeter presentation and all this, and it's like, I just want to see, you know, I want to be able to sit down and just watch it and enjoy it and not like, have to

Sidey: Well, I, I acquired it so we've, we can do it, the man cave one day on the big screen. Those there's some cool stuff. Like all the, all the journeys in the film and now fucking loads. They're all. All the movement happens left to right. To give you that feel of this continuous movement in one direction, you know, that is, it Never

Reegs: Never ends.

Sidey: They, they would, they would take forever, forever setting up these shots. They were on location. It was 14 month shoot in Jordan, Spain and Morocco. And then constantly having to drink, you know, cause it's hot. They had these plastic cups and they would they, every drink of water set up this big shot, do the shot and then the plastic cup would just blow across.

It would just blow across the shot and fucking ruin it when it happened load. So they had to, they had to change to a proper porcelain,

Reegs: And they would have been P you know, recording all on directly onto film as well, which would have physical film. It would have cost a fortune and they'd have to keep it in the right conditions about bet loads of it would have yeah, just

Sidey: 10, 10 Oscar nods. And it would have had an 11th, but someone forgot to to submit Phyllis Dalton's name. She was the costume designer and the costumes are like bag on. So sure that would have, that

Reegs: what did it, when the one editing did it?

Pete: I

want to load

Sidey: one of the, all the biggies.

Reegs: What about, editing's not big anymore. Anyway, you don't need that.

Pete: It didn't win. Didn't win best actor because Peter O'Toole has the record for most nominations without a win. I think it's

Reegs: All right. Plenties brother

Pete: which plenty. So, I mean that in itself is amazing because if, if a part doesn't define an actor's career as much as this, I don't know what does, and yet he went on to this.

That was his first Oscar nomination. I don't know what age. I think he was like 30. He's going to be playing a guy in his twenties and he's 30 at the time. It's an absolute powerhouse of a performance.

Sidey: the first choice there they wanted they wanted Brando and he didn't want to do it. And then they went weren't Albert Finney. He was basically unknown at that point. So It's funny how things all come together. Like this did he had terrible trouble with the camels. He had blood oozing from his his jeans.

When he was trying to learn to ride a camel, he said, this is a very delicate Irish OS to his instructor. And then eventually he would add a layer of sponge rubber under the saddle, which then became adopted by the actual Bedouin. And by nicknamed him AB owl is fan. father, of the sponge

Reegs: the sponge. That's a good bed trivia.

Sidey: show.

I think it's pretty cool.

Reegs: It was about art imitating a life imitating art there, where he's giving back to the better wind people. Again, as he's actually working.

Pete: Yeah, exactly. That just a quick bit on that Jose Ferrara, who's only in it briefly. The reason that he's worth mentioning is that Peter O'Toole said that he learned more about screenwriting from Farrah than he did in, in any class that he'd ever attended. But because this guy, I think he was a bit of a big deal, certainly in international sales.

Before this film, he was, he was pretty unsatisfied with the, with the size of his part, which is it's five minutes or something screen time that he's got. Yeah. So he only accepted the rolling on the condition that he, he was paid $25,000, which was more than Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif combined, and also insisted on them buying him a push.

So he got those things for five minutes work, which is not too bad at

Sidey: good negotiating.

Pete: Absolutely handsome chap. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's a million other

Reegs: we

Pete: talk

Reegs: review it again on the podcast. And watch it for the

Pete: I'm just so angry that you made me sit through Avengers end game, and I did it begrudgingly. And you

Sidey: You liked it though?

Pete: this not as much as I like Lawrence of Arabia. I will watch this film.

Reegs: not, it's not, I would like this. It's just, I want to sit down and watch it in a four hour chunk on a big screen where I can just enjoy that. And it just was never going to happen this week.

Pete: With the Willie out

Sidey: Do you do need that intermission? I'd have to say, I know Pete, you say flows, it does flow, but you know, you do get a bit numb. You need to get up and just, you know, have a breather for a couple of minutes.

Pete: third. So I'm watching, I still didn't get bored and I will definitely watch this

Sidey: Oh, definitely. What's important now.

Pete: Yeah.