I watched Lawrence of Arabia today. On my 29" television. In chunks. Got almost to the intermission at one go (about two and a half hours), but then a phone call interrupted me. The final hour and a half--a different movie altogether--didn't grab me as much, plus I had cooking to do, so I paused more, but I still call it good.
I went in critical, because of all the hoopla, and I still enjoyed it. The first bit--the rise of our hero--is a wonderful boy's own adventure, if a little draggy in the desert; the rest--the crest and the fall--is choppier and less seamless but still fine. Lawrence is not two dimensional (Peter O'Toole is awfully good at emanating perversity and golden innocence at the same time), and even the flatter characters (Omar Shariff's, Anthony Quinn's, many of the Brits) are still interesting or at least entertaining (Jose Ferrer's lascivious Turk is a fine example of the latter). Claude Rains does a particularly nice turn as the puppet master. I was perturbed by Anthony Quinn's fake nose, and one scene, where Lawrence is supposed to have been sitting stock still for hours as the sands sweep across the desert yet his footprints are as defined at the end of the scene as at the beginning, irked me, but that's just enjoyable quibbling. All in all, well worth watching, and don't kid yourself you need to see it in a theater to do it justice. In fact, the possibility of pausing may make you like it more (and boy was I glad to be able to fast-forward through the overture and intermission).
Positive enough for you, DfK?
Derailing enough for you, Jouster?
ADDENDUM: Forgot to mention the almost complete absence of women. At one point, one sees what might be the backs of the heads of some heavily covered Arab ladies, and a bit later several are visible ululating in the distance. And a few dead, presumably raped women appear near the end, That's it, as far as I noticed.
See, what did I tell you: boy's own adventure.
