On his way to Cairo, history records that after crossing the Sinai Desert, Lawrence arrived at the sea at Akaba (which is at the northern end of the Red Sea). In the film he turns left along the beach when he should have turned right (towards the Suez Canal). The scene was shot on a Mediterranean beach in Spain (from where Cairo WOULD be on his left!) See more...
According to Peter O'Toole, he and Omar Sharif were so nervous about possibly falling off the galloping camels that they both got roaring drunk the day the scene was to be shot, and Sharif decided to tie himself onto the animal. After racing down a sand dune on camelback, O'Toole turned to find Sharif's camel standing in a pond with its alcohol-anesthetized rider dangling upside-down by one foot. A crew member proceeded to "sober" Sharif by cutting the bindings and allowing him to fall head first into the water. (As told to Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" March 24, 2008). See more...
starring Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Claude Rains, Peter O'Toole (add more)
Genres: Adventure, Biography, Drama, War
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
After promoting O'Toole to Major, Jack Hawkins and Co. go out for a drink. Inside the establishment, Hawkins is wearing his Sam Browne belt. Out on the veranda he is not. [As the original submitter said in a subsequent submission, Jack Hawkins puts the belt back on when he goes to leave the veranda.]
Corrected by Bob Blumenfeld
While crossing the desert to attack Akaba, Omar Sharif reams out Peter O' Toole for wasting water shaving. However, Sharif somehow remains clean shaven throughout that campaign.
[It's not the actual shaving that he's objecting to, it's the use of water while doing it. It's quite possible to shave without it.]
Corrected by Tailkinker
On the journey to meet Prince Feisal, Lawrence is offered food by his guide and accepts using his left hand. This would have been considered an insult as Arabs always eat using the right hand. The historical Lawrence would have known better. He had spent many years in the Middle East before the war. [You are assuming that all Arab cultures are completely intolerant of Western practices, and they aren't. They do not expect their practices to be universally accepted and some, in fact, would have been amused, not insulted, at Lawrence's use of his left hand to eat.]
During this time period the "Turkish" flag that was shown throughout the film was not the flag of the Ottoman Empire. Rather it is the modern flag of the Turkish Republic, which was founded in 1923. [Incorrect. The modern Turkish flag is the same as that of the Ottoman Empire which was standardised in 1844. See:
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/tr-ottom.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/ottomanflag.]
In the scene where Gassim is trudging through the Nefud Desert after having been left behind by Lawrence's party heading for Aqaba, the sun is rising. The party is traveling north towards Aqaba through the Nefud, yet the sun is rising on Gassim's left, which would be the west. Be aware of the sun's position during the following scene where Lawrence returns to the Arab camp in triumph after having rescued Gassim. The director used shots made at various times of the day, as can be seen by the characters' shadows. [The party led by Lawrence approached Akaba *from* the North. The Nefud desert extends north of Akaba, therefore the sun is rising in the right place in relation to Gasim.]
Peter O'Toole is left-handed and he plays T. E. Lawrence, who was right-handed, so he had to pretend to be right-handed. But pay attention to the scene where he talks to Anthony Quinn, soon after the arrival in Akaba: Peter pretends to write on a paper using his right hand, but he moves it from right to left, instead of left to right, as Arabic is written. [Arabic is written from right to left.]
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