LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) *** What a cast, what shots, what an epic, what's it supposed to be about? Linear plotline that's not difficult to distinguish, for sure, but there's also a very definite 2001: A Space Odyssey feel to it, and not just because space seems a more likely spot for intelligent life than the desert. Peter O'Toole is an unusual soldier, England apparently pioneered the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy in so many areas, and he's madness in his eyes. Don't know if it fits the real Lawrence, but it's certainly how we all remember him quasi-fondly now. Omar Sharif is even better as the black sheik, an actor capable of immediate cold-blooded murder and subsequent rehabilitation toward sophistry and bartering as desirable art forms. I guess that's progress, and I know that it's part of the lunar continuum. Anthony Quinn as the aging warrior dog who lacks interest in new tricks because the old ones brought all that he wanted, and variations ended up trying to make him head of the telephone company. Sir Alec Guinness with a dark beard, and Claude Rains as the invisible hand (requisite political hack) behind it all. When you think about it, being out in the desert with no chicks to be seen anywhere, even in grotesque and formless burqas or anything...what else would there be than to take thousands of feet across the desert and blow up trains...anyway O'Toole cuts quite a figure riding a camel into battle at full tilt but it remains an unspoken mystery as to how he may have united the macho arabs behind him.
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