Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

5 corrected entries

(3 votes)

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: 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.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: Arabic is written from right to left.

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: As the original submitter said in a subsequent submission, Jack Hawkins puts the belt back on when he goes to leave the veranda.

Bob Blumenfeld

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: 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.

Corrected entry: 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.

Correction: 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.

Factual error: When Lawrence arrives at the Suez Canal, the ship which sails past is The Priam, of a 1950's design, and I think actually belonged to a company called "Blue Funnel Line."

David Mercier

More mistakes in Lawrence of Arabia

Prince Feisal: You, I suspect, are chief architect of this compromise. What do you think?
Mr. Dryden: Me, your Highness? On the whole, I wish I'd stayed in Tunbridge Wells.

More quotes from Lawrence of Arabia

Trivia: 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).

Jean G

More trivia for Lawrence of Arabia

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.