Transcript of 70mm’s Lawrence of Arabia (1967) Episode.
SLIM Heey, it’s your old pal Slim and this is 70mm, a podcast for film lovers. Every Monday, I’m joined by famous artist Danny Haas.
DANNY [Danny wheeze/laughs for 5 seconds]
SLIM And spiritual advisor, Protolexus.
PROTO Was I shopping for white robes on Amazon?
SLIM And together as friends forever, we discuss recently watched movies. Later in this episode, we complete our Lean journey by covering Lawrence of Arabia from 1962. Is it the greatest movie ever made? Do I literally start crying talking about the 4K UHD restoration? Let’s find out… now.
[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM I gotta start off the show reading a quote from a review. This is for Lawrence of Arabia, we’re gonna be covering in the bottom the hour. This comes from Protolexus on Lawrence of Arabia quote “am I getting a restraining order on Alec Guinness?” [Danny & Slim laugh] I can’t! Oh my God, that’s maybe like my all time favorite Letterboxd review for a movie. I mean, were we mentally prepared for the journey we would go on with Alec Guinness?
DANNY No.
SLIM During this Lean journey, has it ever been done, Proto?
PROTO I had no idea what we were getting into. [Danny & Slim laugh] I had no idea. I mean, all I knew Alec Guinness was from Star Wars. That’s all I knew. No.
SLIM This is the biggest secret in the history of Hollywood. We’ll get into it at our Lawrence of Arabia segment later in the show. Danny’s pick for the month will be happening later, too. There’s been a lot of buzz in Discord about what movie Danny’s gonna pick. He can pick whatever movie he wants for next week. There’s no theme. He can right a wrong if he wants to. He can pick a musical. He can pick an animated movie. How do you feel Danny? You’re announcing your pick probably in an hour from now.
DANNY I feel okay about it. I almost pivoted tonight in Discord chatting pre-show. They brought up Signs. And man, I want to watch Signs.
SLIM Ohhhhhhhh.
DANNY I just really do.
PROTO It needs to be done.
DANNY Am I going to pivot before the end of the show?
SLIM Holy cow. How ‘bout that scene where they’re flashing back and you just look at Mel’s eyes in that moment?
DANNY It came up because I saw a trailer for his new movie. Have you seen this?
SLIM Old.
DANNY That looks incredible!
SLIM I was forced to see a trailer when James and I went to see F9. I’m on a sabbatical from trailers. So I had to sit there and —
DANNY It looked good though!
PROTO I heard an alternate title for that was going to be Garbage. [Danny laughs]
DANNY I think it looks pretty cool though.
SLIM Proto is firing on all cylinders tonight. All cylinders.
DANNY Really feeling himself.
SLIM If you’re listening to this on your Spotify, your Apple, your Pocket Cast and you’re not a patron of 70mm, you missed out on a Hercules episode. Thanks to our dear friend and heart and soul of the VHS Village, Marcie, who chose that movie for us to do and you can listen to that in the Spotify app. You can unlock that or go to patreon.com/70mm, four bucks a month. Uncut eps, exclusive eps and more importantly join the VHS Village Discord. We got some new friends this week. Pat, Josh, Tyler, Barrett, Raymond, Rene and Christian. And if people are keeping score for the road to Harry Potter 200, I think we’re around 163ish.
PROTO So close.
SLIM Groogrux wrote it down before the first of the month, Patreon declined charges kick in and we lose like 20 people at the beginning of every month. So we’re close. Real close.
PROTO I can smell the butter beer already. [Slim laughs]
DANNY Oh baby.
SLIM There he is. Jcarp just posted our sweet prince. Alec Guinness in chat right now. Proto, did you watch any movies this week?
PROTO I did. I think I mentioned this in our DMs. I had a rare moment where I didn’t have to watch a movie for a show, read a book for a show, do anything. I could just sit down, pick any movie I wanted to watch. And I picked a movie called Monos.
DANNY Oh yes.
PROTO Which is a movie in 2019. And I remember seeing, I think I saw a clip of this, I think it might have been nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars. Because I remember seeing clips of this, I think it was at the Oscars. And I was intrigued by it. And it’s this, it’s a story of these rebels. I think it’s, I think it’s supposed to be set in South America. But a group of rebels there’s about eight of them, and they’re all teenagers. And they have this task, they’re in like, the middle of the jungle, a task to, to guard, a, a US citizen as a prisoner. She’s like, she’s being held hostage. So that’s their job, and they’re on their own. One of them’s the leader, and they have to, they have to guard this prisoner. And then they have like this commanding officer who would come in, like visit them, and make sure that they’re like, doing what they need to do. It’s basically like a Lord of the Flies story. If you’ve read, if you’ve read that or are familiar with that with that story. But I was like, man, this movie is so gorgeous, like the setting where it’s at, like amazing landscape shots of the surrounding area. And then just the story it tells. There’s not, there’s a good amount of dialogue but it’s, but it’s not, there’s not like a ton for you to get familiar with the characters but of these like eight teenagers that are in it, they all, they all feel like that, like their story is told. And then there’s just like, beautiful, like, like, layered meaning between them and like their relationships. And I was just like, it was just like an amazing time. I was totally like immersed in this world. And I loved it, so I gave it five stars. And I actually I put it in my, I replaced it in my, it replaced Metropolis as my favorite movie of that I’ve watched this year for the first time. So this is now in my, sitting in my top four. I really really love this movie.
SLIM Excuse me?
PROTO So my highest recommendation.
SLIM Excuse me.
DANNY I have like 10 movies on my watchlist. And this is one of them. [Slim laughs] I’ve had it on there for a while. The poster alone grabbed my attention and the trailer is quite good. So maybe I’ll dip into that this week.
SLIM Are you saying you’re gonna watch Monos within the next week? Is that what you’re saying?
DANNY No, I’m not saying that. I said maybe.
SLIM Because if I remember correctly, you said you were gonna watch Ninja III. [Proto laughs] And that didn’t happen.
DANNY What’s that streaming on?
SLIM Tubi.
DANNY I pay for 17 streaming services, I’m not going to go on Tubi right now.
SLIM It makes me sick.
PROTO Wow.
SLIM Okay? Tubi army rise up. Right now.
DANNY Let ‘em.
SLIM Now Proto, I saw something on it that you are starting a Cronenberg movie. Are you ready to reveal what movie you started watching that was directed by David Cronenberg? We’re ready… now.
PROTO That may have been ill advised. [Slim laughs] I have not finished this movie yet. I have not, I only started it, it was late at night. You know, I went against better judgment. I shouldn’t have started. I only watched like the first 20 minutes. I plan on finishing it. Like that’s what I’m watching next. It’s in the hop, it’s you know, it’s in the lane. It’s going to be watched. So I’ll fill you in once it’s completed. Tune in next week.
SLIM Is it a very sexy Cronenberg movie? Could you describe it as very sexy?
PROTO No.
SLIM No? Okay.
PROTO Sexy… No. Not in the first 20 minutes.
SLIM Danny, what about you? Did you watch anything?
DANNY I did. I watched two movies this week. One that really sucked and we’ll talk about it real quick. I was still vibing off of our Indiana Jones Month and I was looking at, I came across a list while we were a couple weeks back with a bunch of movies adjacent to Indiana Jones adventure, treasure hunting, etc. and Romancing the Stone was on there. A Zemeckis Indiana Jones film with Michael Douglas. And I don’t remember who the female lead was. I could click on it but I’m not going to. Danny DeVito is in it.
SLIM King.
DANNY And it’s, it’s absolutely… garbage. I gave it two and a half stars because I’m, it’s my own fault for watching it. But then I was like, damn, there’s a second one. And I kinda wanted to watch the second one. [Danny laughs] Because of how bad the first one was. It’s just not good. It’s not good at all. I couldn’t get over how bad it was.
SLIM Marcie is pointing out Kathleen Turner is in it. I remember I did the same thing and I love Kathleen Turner. And Amanda and I started watching that maybe last year, we shut it off I think after like five or 10 minutes.
DANNY It’s, it’s hard. It’s a hard watch. And I’ve just went back to work and let it keep playing.
PROTO But what is it? Is it the story? Is it the action?
DANNY It’s the story, it’s kind of stupid. The performances are bad. Michael Douglas kind of sucks as a romantic lead as well. It’s just, it just felt like phoned in like we’re trying to make — it’s weird because it’s Robert Zemeckis, but I don’t think he should be making like an adventure movie like this. Like, go back to what you’re good at. And then he made a second one. So like, I don’t understand that there was like a hype around this. Enough to make two.
PROTO To me, Michael Douglas belongs in a suit. Like yeah, I can’t imagine him —
SLIM Oh, yes.
DANNY Like he walks, in his intro, he walks down a hillside pretty much dressed like Crocodile Dundee without the hat. He’s got like a leather vest t-shirt. That he just, not pulling off this look at all.
SLIM You need Gordon Gekko Douglas or his character from Basic Instinct. If I had to, I mean, if you remember me talking about that sex scene that those two had with Sharon Stone.
PROTO The sex those two had in that sex scene.
SLIM It was scandalous for that film. And that’s out in 4k right now in a disk, and I’ll tell you what it’s called for like 100 bucks on eBay right now.
PROTO 4Sex.
SLIM I’m just putting it out there. Anything else?
DANNY Yes. Last night kind of had a an unofficial official Villager meet up with two villagers. Junkiepenguin and Andy from the Discord. We all live in Orlando. We met up to watch F9. Fast and Furious 9.
SLIM Whoa.
DANNY IMAX, at my old stomping ground where I watched the first Fast and the Furious 20ish years ago after high school. So we watched it, had a great time. A lot of fun. Gave it four stars. Exactly what I thought it was going to be for a Fast and Furious movie. So had a good time. A lot of fun. I’m actually in the middle of watching a movie right now. That I won’t say what it is. I’ve only stopped it because it got late at night. But it has the potential of making my top four.
SLIM What?!
PROTO Wuut?
DANNY I’ll probably finish it tomorrow night. Not tonight. But this movie I’m watching right now, I’m really vibing with it.
SLIM Is Kirk Douglas in it?
DANNY He is not.
PROTO Is Roy Scheider?
DANNY Roy Scheider is not in it either. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Real quick, we talked about Letterboxd, the infamous Proto, Lawrence of Arabia, no star rating. We love using Letterboxd and every week we give out a free year of letterbox Pro for anyone that shares our show on social media. You can get a free year, no ads and you’re able to sort by where movies are streaming. You get some really cool stats at the end of the year sent to you. So this week’s winner for free year of Letterboxd Pro is AK Donnelly, Anthony King on Twitter.
DANNY King.
SLIM He did it.
PROTO AK.
SLIM Host of a cult movies podcast.
DANNY Oh, nice.
SLIM I have not listened to it. It’s not, a you know, not plugging it, just saying it exists. Maybe it’s the best podcast you’ve ever heard.
PROTO Maybe we should ask them for their definition of a cult movie. You know? [Slim laughs]
DANNY Mmm, that’s not a bad idea.
PROTO Because we’ve struggled.
SLIM We have struggled and if you want to upgrade to Letterboxd Pro or Patron status and you didn’t win the free year, you can do so at 70mmpod.com, get 20% off. I watched this week. I think last week I said I was going to watch A Fantastic Woman. And I did watch A Fantastic Woman.
DANNY Proud of you.
SLIM This is the movie with Daniela Vega as the lead. And Daniela Vega is a transgender actor who plays this character who is in love with an older man and he dies in the beginning of the movie. And in this movie, she is confronted by you know the transphobia society that thought that she may be had something to do with his death. So she like is coming fronting who she thinks she is, who the world thinks she is. And I believe I think Marcie said last week that this was nominated or potentially won Best Foreign Film Award a couple of years ago. And I enjoyed it. I wanted to go in, and and love it, you know, high praise from all around. But I didn’t love it. I liked it. I had some issues with potentially how they kind of, it’s a really tough watch. I mean, there’s so much adversity that Daniela’s character goes through against just the society around her. And so I was actually curious what the actual transgender community thought of this movie, because this is like, you know, this isn’t the kind of movie that is just a dime a dozen, you don’t have a transgender lead, in a, you know, kind of picture that is nominated for these awards. So it did get some criticisms from the community that it was just kind of like a certain superficial presentation of how transgender, the transgender community views themselves. So I tried to keep that in mind as I watched it, because I mean, you get like a regular, non transgender cisgender director telling that story, and it can kind of have that potential negative impact on the community, so I highly recommend watching it and I definitely learned a lot by seeking out other reviews on Letterboxd.
PROTO Yeah, I thought it was cool that you shared all these different reviews of the movie in your review. Did you feel like they had just like a better, like a, like a better understanding of like, what this movie entails? And like, could speak more to it?
SLIM Yeah, the one of the problems I had with it was, I didn’t learn what I wanted, like I didn’t learn enough from Daniela. Like Daniela is confronted by just like the scum of the earth, and you don’t like get an insight into who the character is. You like learn more about the character just from how people treat her so terribly. And like I wanted more like, I want to know what’s happening in your mind. I don’t, I just don’t want you like, walking by a mirror every five minutes and like, looking at yourself, and that being the exposition of being trans, like I wanted more like depth. And I did see that in a lot of the reviews too. Plus also like a lot of people thought it was just kind of like, almost like grief porn. Like that, you know, there’s more to the community than just kind of overt negativity about who I am and how I view myself. So still recommend to kind of watch it and educate yourself like I tried to do. The other thing I wanted to talk about, let’s see, I watched one other movie. I watched. I, Tonya for the first time finally.
PROTO Mmm!
DANNY Interesting. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Sometimes I read when Danny says that is like an insult or it’s positive, interesting. But I watched it because I was lucky enough to be asked to be a co-host on the Letterboxd Show season two, which hopefully everyone has checked out by now. And the format of that show is we’ll be interviewing Letterboxd members about their top four, about their favorite movies on Letterboxd. And I, Tonya was our first guests, in their top four. Demi Adejuyigbe. So I loved I, Tonya, I thought it was great. And I think Proto, you watched that and talked about on the show and you had, I think might have given that five stars, at least four.
PROTO I think I gave it four stars. Yeah, that movie. So interesting. So compelling, so many characters to hate and be like annoyed by. I think it was Kevin, that guy Kevin.
SLIM Oh my god.
PROTO What a character. [Proto & Slim laugh]
SLIM This guy is a pile of crap. But he was so hilarious during the movie.
PROTO Yeah, I mean, poor Tonya. I mean, it’s just like one of those movies where it’s just so entertaining and fascinating. That it’s worth watching.
SLIM Danny, have you seen I, Tonya?
DANNY No, no, sir. I have not.
PROTO It’s time.
SLIM Maybe that’s the movie Danny’s finishing that’s going to be added to his top four. [Danny laughs]
PROTO Wowww.
DANNY No, sorry. I’ll watch it.
SLIM We have to get into Lawrence of Arabia. It’s time that we, we’re rapidly running out of tape. This is a four hour movie. And this is Proto’s pick for this month. No theme, Freedom Month, call it whatever you want. You don’t have to, you’re not bound by any kind of rules this month. And this was your desired end for the Lean journey that we do in the VHS Village. Are you ready to walk us through the sands of our ends?
[music from Lawrence of Arabia plays]
PROTO Yes I am. A long time ago, in a land far, far away. There was a desert that no man owned and few called home.Then, with a world at war, a foreigner journeyed to meet Prince Feisal unite the tribes and drive out the Turks. Like a shard of glass, the foreigner shimmered upon the desert’s horizon. He did what could not be done. He crossed the Nufus desert, pursued death and overcame it. And forever will be known not as an English man. But as Lawrence of Arabia.
DANNY I know the music’s playing right now, just let it play longer.
[music from Lawrence of Arabia plays alone, fades out]
SLIM David Lean does it again. He’s back.
DANNY Never missed. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Does he ever miss? The movie that is on every list. This is on AFI, that’s a list I think. It’s probably in the Library of Congress. Greatest movie ever made.
PROTO Quote, quote.
SLIM Most influential movie ever made. David Lean. Danny, do you remember hearing about this movie growing up?
DANNY Actually, no, I don’t remember the first time hearing about this film. And I think it wasn’t until former disgraced producer Ian, kind of, he posted in Discord or his Letterboxd review bragging about watching it in one sitting etc, etc. The typical Ian review. And then I was just kind of like I’ve heard it talked about, I’ve heard it referenced. But it was never on my watch list. It’s a long movie. The only thing that I loved about Lawrence coming into any of this would have been the poster. I think it has an absolute incredible poster. The art on that’s gorgeous. That’s but that’s, that was my, that was it for me. For Lawrence. I didn’t even know he’s a real person, didn’t even know this was based off of loosely his book. Whatever it was called, the Seven Pillars of wisdom. So, yeah.
SLIM Can I just say real quick too, Danny’s art for this episode that you’re seeing in your podcast app and on our IG, that’s top tier. That is maybe one of the most top tier things you’ve done.
PROTO Top.
DANNY Oh, thank you.
SLIM Ever. So good. Proto, what was your vibe growing up with this movie?
PROTO Yeah, I don’t think I knew about this movie. It’s not something you know, my dad would have talked about or, you know, had me sit down and watch. Yeah, I think I don’t think it was until I was like, on my own looking into movies, that, you know, you come across, you know, your Google, you know, greatest movies of all time. And you know, there it is Lawrence of Arabia. But then it was like, you know, when you sit down to watch a movie, are you gonna watch a four hour movie or any other movie? And up until this point, it was any other movie. [Proto & Danny laugh] Just like to have that moment where you’re like, Okay, yeah, I’m going to devote this time, it just never seems like a good, a good opportunity. Especially if you think like, well, what if I don’t like it? You know, what if it’s just an old movie that you know, you know, old, old people like because they saw them when they were younger. So I always just put it off. You know, I, I knew I’d watch it eventually. Like I’d carve out some time. But not when I was younger.
DANNY I think even when you think of these epics, these two discs, these two VHS, I always heard about Ben Hur and 10 Commandments talked about more than this, at least in the circles where I was. I never — these like epic movies. No one really talked about Lawrence around me to even know about it.
SLIM I can kind of understand that now after watching it. Where Middle East characters, you know, it seems like it’s less mainstream than the other two movies. And just the plot in general.
PROTO Yeah, well, like even what Danny said about it and you know, watching it, I didn’t know if he was a real person or not. And I was like, wait is this this is based on true story? Because you know, the way it’s set up, you assume, well, as I’m watching, I’m like wait, this has to be based on an actual person. But before that, I had no idea. I had no idea if this was a real person or not.
SLIM First note on my list, and I feel like it will be on all our lists. Everyone just sit down, calm down. Real quick.
DANNY Okay.
SLIM Okay? The official television of 70mm, the TCL series five. The 4K of this movie is insane. [Danny & Proto laugh] This might be the best looking movie I’ve ever seen with my own to please two eyes! Please! God! I mean, back me up here, Danny, right?
DANNY I 100% agree with you. I remember there were points where I was — and this was my first viewing of this film. But I had to stop a couple times and rewind. Not rewind. But I guess you know, go back a bit. Because I had to see it again. I didn’t want to wait till four hours down the road to come back to look at these amazing shots in 4K. I could not believe what I was looking at. And we’re watching the stream from Tubi, I can’t imagine if there’s any better — or not Tubi, VUDU. [Slim laughs] I can’t imagine if there’s a, if it could look better on disk.
SLIM The disk we said, I think off air. The the 4K UHD disc is only available in some kind of weird Columbia boxset?
DANNY Columbia, yeah.
SLIM Columbia, wake up!
DANNY It’s like $1,000 on Amazon or eBay.
SLIM It’s stupid.
DANNY I couldn’t get over it. I could not get over some of the shots. Even the faces, like even close ups of the faces. Especially Alec Guinness. You could just scrape the makeup off the screen. That’s how close it looked.
PROTO Yeah, the beginning of this movie, you know, when he is on the motorcycle. And he’s riding around, the grass was like so green. I was like, what am I watching right now? [Danny laughs] Like, the colors were so vibrant. And that’s not even like a top 20 moment in this movie. It was just like the beginning. I was so shocked at how good the grass looked! And then yeah, the rest of the movie was just, you know, there’s so many amazing shots in this. But yeah, far and above anything else that I’ve seen in 4K, easily.
SLIM Yeah. Jcarp says we can thank Spielberg and Scorsese’s OG restoration work for this. I know that there was like I think I saw on a video earlier that they worked with the company to you know, enhance it. And I mean, I’m just, I can’t stress it enough! When like when you go into Best Buy, and you’re standing firm like a $4,000 TV, and they’re playing any kind of BS, that’ll show you 4K, whatever. I mean, that’s what I’m talking about here. That is like, I don’t have a $2,000 TV. I have a $400 TV. And it’s that good. There was a scene that I wrote down where he’s holding, when he goes like nutso —
PROTO Yes! Agh!
SLIM When he has that knife. His arm is on the thing. The knife is bloody. He’s bloody — I’m like tearing up now! [Danny & Slim & Proto laugh] I’m just like, it’s like — [Danny & Slim & Proto can’t stop laughing] It’s like, like I was on set, watching this!
DANNY Stupid! [Danny & Slim & Proto continue to laugh] Oh, my chest.
SLIM Holy cow.
DANNY I watched the one hour making of documentary and they get into the restoration. And apparently when this hit cinemas, it was edited so much for time, a lot was cut out. And when they talked about doing a restore with all the original film, I forget the one of the executive producers, she was like, it’s not possible because it’s so old. They don’t know where it’s at. They don’t know, have this film. And they found one copy of it still on film, still usable visually. But audio was bad on it. So Peter O’Toole, Omar, they came back and redub for the restoration.
SLIM What?!
DANNY And there’s a shot of they’re projecting it on a wall. And Peter is like face to face on this massive screen. And he’s watching his lips to match his voice up with his lips from years ago. He’s so old now but his voice still sounded the same. So the restoration we have has new dubs, which is crazy.
PROTO What!
DANNY Absolutely crazy.
PROTO That’s crazy.
SLIM That is insane.
DANNY Anyway, let’s start talking about the movie. [Slim laughs]
SLIM What’s on your list for Lawrence of Arabia?
PROTO Um, yeah, so going into this, I had no, you know, as, as it starts to roll, I have no idea what this movie is about. I just basically know that there’s a British guy who somehow ends up in Arabia. And in my mind, I thought, oh, maybe he is assigned there for like 10, 20 years. And over that time acclimates to the environment and becomes, you know, one of them. Like that’s that what I was kind of expecting not knowing what happens. But that’s not it at all. So I was completely blindsided by this character. And is Lawrence one of the strangest characters ever in a movie?
DANNY Yes.
PROTO The beginning of this. I don’t even know what to make of this guy. You know, he does this, this little match trick. And his voice. He is so, so soft spoken. And just not the character that I was expecting at all. He’s so enigmatic of just you know, who he is, and like, what his deal is, and why he even gets this job. And like, what his angle is. He it’s, it’s easy to get absorbed into just like, being fascinated by this character.
[clip of Lawrence of Arabia plays]
LAWRENCE Michael George Hartley. This is a nasty, dark little room.
HARTLEY That’s right.
LAWRENCE We are not happy in it.
HARTLEY I am. It’s better than a nasty, dark little trench.
LAWRENCE Then, you’re a big noble fellow.
HARTLEY That’s right.
[clip of Lawrence of Arabia ends]
SLIM To that, there’s so many scenes with him doing things in the movie that I was like, taken aback by. This is 1962. And his character is so different than what I would expect a 1962 mainstream movie to portray. So I actually was poking around, read this quick quote from Roger Ebert’s review. That really made sense to me. So he says, “there’s a moment in the movie where O’Toole dressed in the flowing white, white robes of a desert Sheik does a victory dance on top of a captured Turkish train, and he almost seems to be posing for fashion photos. This is a curious scene because it seems to flaunt gay stereotypes and yet none of the other characters in the movie seem to notice. Nor do they take much notice of the two young desert versions that Lawrence takes under his protection. What Lean, Bolt and O’Toole create is a sexually and socially unconventional man who is simply presented as what he is, without labels or comment. And I think that’s what’s like struck me watching this. I’ve never, Peter O’Toole, I don’t know how many movies I’ve seen Peter O’Toole in but he’s just not what I’m used to as like Jimmy Stewart in these movies, or Cary Grant, or, you know, these men, you know, like, quote unquote “men” you know, they’re just wearing suits. They’re, they’re dazzling women left and right. It’s just a totally different approach. And I really appreciated that.
DANNY It took me a while to warm up to Peter. I don’t, honestly don’t think there’s another movie I’ve seen with him in it, at least this aged Peter. And his performance to me was a little, I was honestly bored. I was, I was not connecting with him. And I didn’t, I just was not understanding the story in it. And then I was just like, oh crap, this is four hours of this, because when you look at any clip, any poster, any promo art for this film, it’s him with a gun, with a sword. And I was expecting like, Clint Eastwood in the desert, like, like going at it like this was like a leader like a strong leader of the of an army of a, like a crew of military and what we get from the get go is someone who is mapmaking. He, he does art, like he’s not at all what I was expecting.
SLIM He gives away his gun in the first like five minutes.
DANNY Gives away his gun. Like he doesn’t, he’s, he’s just soft spoken. He’s really awkward. And I’m just like, oh gosh, I don’t understand what is happening right now. Especially when it comes in and talks to the the main Sergeant Colonel whatever. And he kind of undresses him like, if you’re going to be in subordinate, just leave or whatever. And it was just like such a shocking scene because he’s, he’s like, this is just who I am. And like, oh, goodness. What is happening right now?
SLIM How did he even get into the military? Like, there wasn’t any other vocation that you might have wanted to do rather than join up with the military?
PROTO Yeah, how was he a Lieutenant? [Proto laughs] I think I, yeah, they don’t really give you much background, they don’t even give you like a line as to why he is given this assignment. But then as I thought about it, I was like, oh, he’s making a map, maybe he’s the guy who’s been like studying Arabia, because that would kind of make sense, because there’s certain parts of the movie even where he seemed to know all the customs. Like when he meets Prince Feisal, he’s like, sitting down in the proper way, while there’s the other guy there who’s like, like trying to stretch his legs, because he’s so uncomfortable. Like at every, every turn, Lawrence is doing the right thing to fit in culturally. So I kind of assumed, oh, he must have been doing his homework, to know how to, you know, fit in this environment. And that would make sense. Because of the way like, you know, he acts, it’s not like someone would just know how to, you know, the proper etiquette and how to communicate, you know, with people in Arabia, and you know, be able to speak to like, what their desires are going to be and like, what’s important to them, especially that scene with his, with his guide, where he gives him the gun. Like him giving the gun he just, like, bought his friendship and allegiance forever, you know? And you can tell like, oh, that was his motive in that moment. But he knew to do that. And I would think that he had done his homework to understand that rather than just like, this is just who he is.
SLIM Coffeecrusader, says “I believe he went to the region on intelligence missions previously.”
DANNY And it’s funny because we get a picture of him real quick in the, in his death, like we see him on the motorcycle going fast, reckless, killing himself, and then the two men talking about him that are interviewed, and they describe a man that we don’t see yet. When it finally cuts to the flashback, like we’re not seeing this man that they were describing, which is very interesting.
PROTO Yeah, I actually thought, well, first off the motorcycle scene, it totally took me out of it at the beginning, because he’s riding on this road. And he looks like he’s going over 60 miles per hour. But his hairs not moving at all. [Proto laughs] When it’s showing his face. I was like, okay, this isn’t — can we get a fan, David? [Slim laughs] And I didn’t really like that at the start that they showed, they started it with his death and that you just knew that he died somewhere in England. But by the end of the movie, I loved it. So I felt like it kind of, at first I was like, this doesn’t really work. But by the end, I thought it was, it was brilliant.
SLIM One quick note about Peter O’Toole, if they were to make this movie today. I mean, Michael Fassbender is, are they related in some way?
DANNY Oooh.
SLIM I mean, because I could easily just see Fassbender in this movie as Lawrence and just fit perfectly almost, the way he could do it.
DANNY They could not make this film today, though. Budget wise, it wouldn’t even reach the level of, you know, artistic ability of this film. Like there’s no way they could recreate this film.
SLIM And Marcie says Fassbender pretends to be human Prometheus. That’s like exactly the character I was thinking of.
PROTO Yeah. He actually does the match trick. He’s like watching the movie, and he does the trick.
SLIM Wait, and they’re real?
PROTO Yeah, in the movie. He’s watching Lawrence of Arabia. And he says, he says “The trick is not minding that it hurts.” And then Fassbender repeats the line in the movie.
[clip of Prometheus plays]
LAWRENCE [clip of movie David is watching] The trick William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.
DAVID The trick William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.
[clip of Prometheus ends]
DANNY Ex — what?!
PROTO That’s why I thought you had that in your review.
SLIM No! I don’t even remember that scene.
PROTO It’s at the very beginning of the movie. Yeah.
SLIM I just remember Fassbender’s character from these movies. And I was like, man, he’s like, Lawrence of Arabia.
DANNY Oh my word.
SLIM I’m getting chills. That is very strange. I’m getting, I’m chilled up right now. Do you guys feel that?
DANNY You feel that?
PROTO Yep.
SLIM I just saw an orb on Proto’s microphone. [Danny laughs] One of my next notes is Omar Sharif is legit in this movie.
DANNY Legit.
SLIM And he just has a certain swagger that is just so good in this movie. And as I was writing, I searched to make sure I had his name down right. He feels like a different generations Oscar Isaac.
DANNY Oh, yes. Yes.
SLIM Just kind of has this charisma that is undeniable and just exudes off of him on screen.
DANNY There’s a great interview with him on the making of documentary and he’s talking about, he was saying at the time, he was pretty popular, where he was as an actor. And when he got the call to ask to be, like, not interviewed, what’s the right word? Try out for this role. And he almost turned it down. He was like, no, I don’t do this. And he was saying that when he found out that it was David Lean, he said he just finished watching Bridge on the River Kwai and he was like, I’m just gonna go and audition just to meet David Lean. And he said, when he landed, in, he landed the plane in the desert where they were filming. And when he got off the plane, David walked up to him and literally took him from the plane straight to wardrobe and put a mustache on him. [Proto laughs] And like basically was giving him the role on the spot. It was amazing to hear him talk about it.
PROTO One of the most amazing intros to a character him riding on the camel through the desert and I mean those, talking about an amazing shot, that the camel on the horizon in the desert, just as like a sliver of black and then it coming forward and the guy just saying “adieu” and it coming closer. And then when that guy pulls out his gun and the Sharif just like blows them away, while still the you know riding the camel. Amazing. And then their whole interaction. Just what a scene.
DANNY And that Mirage is actually talked about quite a bit in a couple interviews where people were talking about their favorite shots of this film. And even Spielberg said that this is his favorite shot. And they talked about how hard it was to actually capture a mirage on camera because it’s really a trick of the eye. And so there were so many things they were doing to make the shot work and it was so impressive. Even watching it, I mean, the long one shot take of this is incredible.
SLIM I mean, let’s talk about the desert in general, the shots of the desert. Visually this movie is legit, obviously. I mean, everyone says it is, it is. Looks amazing. Like there’s a few scenes in here, where Lawrence kind of goes through like a trial, mental trial. He like freaks out, has to make a decision or whatever. There’s one scene where he makes the trip to see, leaves for Sinai in makes a decision in like a few seconds. It’s like a 10 day trip. Could you imagine making a whiplash decision like that? [Danny laughs] You’re living in a tent right now in the desert. I’m going to Sinai, I’m going now, I’m leaving, he just leaves! It’s 10 days! You’re gonna even make sure you have what you need on this trip? Like, you got to take a nap before you go? What time of day is it? It’s just so bonkers the decision making and the travel they had to do in this desert. I was getting really anxious thinking about it.
PROTO Yeah. And it’s so alternative to what you think of him from the outside because he seems like he should be this timid, you know, guy who, who can’t make a decision. But when push comes to shove, he’s always ready with the decision. And he’s always choosing the hardest possible thing. [Danny laughs] He chooses the impossible every single time in this movie. And it’s so jarring to see this character do that.
SLIM Yeah I think that was one of the main disconnects for me in this movie is, I think my expectations were just so off like you said, but his character is very different from I’m used to in a mainstream movie. And then he starts to believe his own hype during the halfway point this movie and it really screws him up bad. And I don’t know, I just, that whole character journey for him of thinking he is kind of like a miracle or he is this like huge leader that can lead and offer and grant freedom to this, this group of people in the Middle East, and then realize that like actually, maybe I’m not. And the whole political stuff at the end. I don’t know. I actually had kind of like, I also I think Seantana posted, I was on the Wiki every five minutes. I also kind of had to be like, okay, what’s happening here? What is this insinuating?
DANNY It’s, it’s really I’m with you, Matt. It’s it’s kind of a shocking, it’s hard. This is not what I expected from the story arc. And it really peaks at intermission. I mean, we have this amazing growth of Lawrence’s character and his story arc and then post intermission it is just a spiral. And I think that is when he’s introduced to Bentley, who the journalist comes in, and he starts making him into this mythical type hero, war hero, and he starts buying into the story about himself for Americans. And I think that’s when he starts spiraling down to this destructive path that he takes.
PROTO Yeah, that’s a great point, because the movie really does have a different kind of arc where the peak really is at intermission. And like the first half is really like a rising action and then the after that is really just like downward. And I wonder if they do that, you know, if Lean was trying and of course, I don’t know the historical accuracy of the story at all. And I’m kind of interested in reading you know, Lawrence’s autobiography and then you know, other information about it because I heard like he embellishes some of it but if that’s the case that Lean was trying to be accurate it does, it does work because he it’s not you know, it doesn’t end you know, happily it’s not like, you know, Lawrence is the hero at the end of this or things work out the way you know, there’s no like pretty bow on the end of the story. It’s really, after intermission, it’s kind of like a downward, like you said, a downward spiral to the end.
DANNY Should we talk about Alec? We have to, right?
SLIM We got to, we got to talk about Alec. We talked about the top of the show.
DANNY David Lean’s Golden Boy.
SLIM The master of disguise himself. [Slim laughs] Here’s, here’s my thing. We talked about other movies in the past few months, that would be considered problematic. Westside Story came out in the kind of the same timeframe, right, that was 60s. And that, you know, essentially had brownface for the one group of characters. And this movie, Prince Feisal is played by Alec Guinness.
[clip of Lawrence of Arabia plays]
PRINCE FEISAL I think you are another of these desert-loving English. Gordon of Khartoum. No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There’s nothing in the desert. No man needs nothing.
[clip of Lawrence of Arabia ends]
SLIM He’s a white man. And also Anthony Quinn, with maybe the worst makeup. I don’t even want to say this is 4K’s fault because I saw some SD footage and that nose still looks like shit. [Danny & Proto laugh] It’s not even the right color. I mean, was the person colorblind? There is, you know, some inappropriate like brownface, like the Middle East characters, the main ones, I mean, it’s Alec Guinness. But this is just one of the things that I feel like nobody talks about, like where are the people complaining about this? And this is, I’m not calling anyone’s review out or whatever. It’s just that like, you know, masterpiece, masterpiece, masterpiece. Alec Guinness is not Middle Eastern. You know, I know it’s a different time or whatever. But like, come on, like what’s what’s happening here? Let’s, let’s put everyone on the same playing field and call out when we see it.
DANNY I found it very interesting when, ’cause I have that initial shock of, of Alec doing brownface. And in US reviewing this in 2021 of course, this is the take we’re gonna have. But I watched the interview with Omar Sharif and he talks about him meeting Alec and he sat down and had like tea or a dinner with Alec for like two hours, just the two of them. And Alec was learning how to speak his like his kind of like accent in his English voice. And it was weird because he wasn’t offended by it. Like and he praised Alec, and it was like 40 years from now, what movies are we okay with that are happening now where they’re going to be not okay? And so I wonder if it’s just it’s just, it’s really hard to like, you know, come down on Alec or David for this when it’s just, it’s just interesting to me on how you know the goalposts move.
PROTO Yeah, I was, you know, definitely something of the time. But for me, you know, we went on this Lean journey, and I had never seen Alec Guinness in anything other than Star Wars. So, you know, we started with the, you know, Bridge on the River Kwai. And he’s an English officer in that, you know, great. Then I watched Dr. Zhivago. And he’s playing a Russian in that movie. He has a Russian name, but he has a, he just has his normal English accent. So that was kind of jarring. But that was like I guess a choice they made not to have like Russian accents. Then I watched, you know, Passage to India, and that which is was worse than this where he plays an Indian man, it is just horrific. And then this on top of it. So yeah, you know, it’s just one of those I guess director actor relationships where Alec Guinness was David Lean’s guy and he’s in all of his movies. But seeing them in succession like this, and just never even hearing about it, you know? To me, Alec Guinness, having now washed all these movies. I don’t think he’s an amazing actor. He’s like serviceable, he’s good, I guess. But he’s not amazing in any way. So like, to see him in these roles, and having never heard, I just felt so blindsided by this, that, you know, he has this part and it’s, it’s a, it’s a large role. He’s like, you know, top five characters in this movie. You know, he has a lot of scenes. So the fact that I never heard about this, but I don’t know, you know, it is a four hour movie. So maybe in that regard, it’s just not a movie that a lot of people have seen. You know?
SLIM Yeah, it could be.
PROTO I’m not sure but —
SLIM Is Alec Guinness the Scarlett Johansson of his day? [Danny laughs] The last thing I’ll say, we don’t have to, covered it already. But I did watch that Steven Spielberg behind the scenes video where he’s talking about the restoration a little bit and he does talk about how, you know this is a different time, the 60s, if that video ever gets out widely, Steven’s gonna be in some trouble. He was like calling out people for being too politically correct. Like if this movie, he was doing the Steven voice [Slim in what is supposed to be a Spielberg voice] “If this movie came out today and reviewers were reviewing it,calling out the political incorrectness and trying to make a name for themselves. Yeah, they’d be in trouble.” And I’m just like, woah, Steven, slow down, my friend. Like I get you love it. But it’s not…
DANNY He doesn’t care.
PROTO That’s the words of somebody who’s been burned by a journalist, you know, a reviewer before. [Slim & Danny & Proto laugh] For sure.
SLIM Danny, what else is on your list for Lawrence of Arabia?
DANNY Holy cow. I don’t think we’ve done half my list. The execution scene of the man that he went back to save.
SLIM Oh my god.
DANNY Was incredible. You have, I mean, the uncrossable desert scene is awesome. And it goes back and saves a man and the kids are excited. And then the gunshot happens at night when they’ve joined this, this troop and he stole from someone. And David or David, not David Lean. Lawrence chooses to be the one to execute this guy that he just saved from the desert. And, and then it gets to where I mean, he shoots him like seven times. But it gets to where he’s back at the headquarters. And he’s talking about the life he took. And he keeps saying, like he keeps saying like, I didn’t enjoy it or something. Or I did enjoy it or something affected him. But he was just trying to say that, the guy, the colonel kept interrupting him. He’s trying to come across and say, no, I like to killing this man. And I liked this taste of of war that I’ve now tasted and that it feels like that is the major turning point for his character when it comes to the war aspect because he’s, he said in the beginning on how much he doesn’t like it or he’s opposed to it or you know, the killings and stuff like that. So just that, the execution, felt like a shock a little bit to the system.
[clip of Lawrence of Arabia plays]
LAWRENCE I killed two people. I mean two Arabs; one was a boy. That was… yesterday! I led him into quicksand. The other was a man; that was before Aqaba, anyway. I had to execute him with my pistol. There was something about it I didn’t like.
ALLENBY Well, naturally…
LAWRENCE No, something else…
ALLENBY I see, well, that’s all right. We’ll give you a warning.
LAWRENCE No. Something else.
ALLENBY What then?
LAWRENCE I enjoyed it.
[clip of Lawrence of Arabia ends]
PROTO Yeah, this kind of like a reverse because normally you’d have somebody who’s maybe, you know, gung ho about violence and war and being a soldier and then gets disillusioned by it. With Lawrence, it’s almost like the opposite where he’s like, you know, he’s a pacifist. He doesn’t want to be you know, violent. He gives away his gun. And then by the end of it, he’s like, a bloodthirsty maniac. Like seeking to kill people.
DANNY No prisoners and, yeah.
SLIM Yeah, those scenes are really hard to watch. I mean, yeah, him saying he loved it. You have your main character, kind of going off the rails. You know, there’s another thing I wasn’t expecting, like, this guy’s messed up. What is going on here? And him just like you know, murdering people during that fight. And him, you know, his boy, Omar, he’s thrown him to the side, like he’s a psychopath at certain points of this movie. During those fights scene. He’s like totally red with rage and murderous rage, very strange. Proto, what else is on your list?
PROTO Some of the moments, or one of the scenes I loved is, I can’t remember which part it was. I think it’s when they were with Anthony Quinn’s tribe. And they were like raiding the trains, maybe. But they come into a valley. And I think they’re like almost maybe like back home because then there’s like women who are on like the mountain side. And they start like calling out to them. And then the men start singing a song in reply to them. The audio of that was just incredible. Because it felt like it was all recorded right there like in this valley, where they like this amazing echo back and forth, back and forth between them. I love that.
SLIM I just remembered, remember when I cried talking about the 4K UHD quality of this movie? [Proto & Slim laugh]
DANNY I do want to come back to that, Matt. The scene where he talked about, the scene where he’s got the blood in the knife. It’s such a brilliant callback to when he looks at his reflection, the first time he’s wearing those white robes. So he does the thing where he’s he’s spinning desert, puts the knife in the air looks at his reflection of his kind of like his new self. And then he does the same thing he’s been murdering and killing is covered in blood. And he has the knife wrapped around. He sees myself covered, but, it’s not, it’s just he’s not the same person again, like he’s this killer, murderous, you know, war almost like a war criminal, it feels like, of a person and I just, that’s such a brilliant David Lean’s, like, you know, that’s just like brilliant storytelling.
PROTO You know, you’re saying that and it made me think I wonder if like, what’s trying to be communicated through that is that like, Lawrence had this expectation of like, who he is now as an you know, as a man living in the desert with these robes, which is not truly what it’s like to be, you know, in the desert, a part of a tribe. And then when he is killing and you know, they find that brigade and which is another amazing moment where they see the brigade of Turks going off into the desert, and the one man whose tribe was slaughtered by them. He just like sprints, you know, his horse starts galloping towards them, and they, and they, they cut them down. And then that’s when they all run in. And then like that’s, that’s Lawrence actually experiencing what it’s like to be a part of a tribe. So it’s like this, you know, this glorification of it, and like, in his mind what it’s like, but then there’s like, the reality of it later on.
DANNY Crazy stuff.
SLIM There was another scene where he kind of like wakes up, I think maybe the scene where he realizes he isn’t, you know, the savior he thought he was. Is when he waltzes into the town with Omar. And first of all, he almost gets hit by a car. And I thought that was like, oh my god, that looked dangerous. Like one inch, he would have gotten hit by a car. But he gets kidnapped and kind of interrogated and tortured. And he’s a changed man after this moment. And I just remember when I was watching it, there’s this one character felt like it was like very deliverance-ish. Like he was like, kind of licking his lips when they were tying Lawrence, I was like, this is a weird scene. Apparently, in the Wiki and maybe in his book, he says that he was sexually assaulted during this moment. Which, you know, they allude to as big as they possibly can. I guess for 1962, but yeah, very tough scene.
PROTO It’s very Christ like that scene. I mean, here’s a guy who’s stripped down and whipped and not a word comes from his mouth. I mean, it’s basically scripture from the Bible. And like the whole like white savior aspect of it there. Like holy moly.
DANNY And him walking into the city where he feels like he’s untouchable. And he does the like, sidestep with, there’s like a giant puddle. He does a sidestep with Omar there, but he steps back just to show himself walk on water. And it’s just like, it’s so obvious like it’s just that savior mentality. And he feels like he’ll just fly under the radar in the city and he obviously doesn’t.
SLIM Yeah, what a way to find out you are not the savior you thought you were. Cripes. Danny anything else you want to make sure we covered?
DANNY Oh man. Did we talk about the match cutscene? I guess we talked about it in the beginning. Cutting from him blowing up the match straight to the desert. I love that shot.
SLIM Oh yeah, that was an amazing transition.
DANNY There’s a great, I’m kind of mad at myself that I didn’t take this David Lean journey with you Proto. I just, I wasn’t feeling these movies besides River Kwai.
SLIM Five star rating confirmed for Danny for Lawrence.
DANNY Listen. [Danny & Slim & Proto laugh] There’s a shot that he does, this is one of the few shots that I went back and rewind because I wanted to see if I was watching it right. And I don’t remember where part of this movie was it’s after the journalist starts coming taking photos of Lawrence in the in the papers are coming out and there’s a shot where Obi Wan is at the table and it’s a shot of the table and it’s just the hat and there’s a reflection of of Lawrence in his, in his army outfit no longer the robes and Alec has like a line where he says something like “this is the real man” and he throws on the table the picture of of Lawrence in robes after fighting and it’s just a really interesting shot were the reflection of Lawrence is this one thing but what is actually being said about David is or about Lawrence is another thing and it was just a brilliant little piece of cinema that David Lean does. Oh, another one too sorry. He’s walking out of one of the city offices. And he’s realizing like things aren’t the way they what he wants them to be or he’s not who he is. And there’s a giant painting behind him of a fallen God. And it’s so like poignant. Like it’s so great that it’s behind him. It’s just this looks like God falling off of a chariot in the middle of a battle and it’s just like, it’s obvious where this is heading for Lawrence’s journey and it’s just that this is very smart filmmaking and I feel like a dullard for not realizing this sooner.
PROTO Yeah, I was just thinking at the end of this is I feel like I would get so much more out of it on my, on a rewatch. I was like interested in rewatching it almost immediately because it’s like four hours long but it’s so much to take in and there is, there’s a lot of meat on the story. And then like even the ending, I don’t know, did you guys have any like thoughts about the ending of him just being in a Jeep, motorcycle passes by, and that’s really like the end of it?
DANNY Honestly I kind of had like a solid sigh of relief, I don’t know if that’s the right kind of feeling I had, but we know he dies, like we know, we see the motorcycle accident and the last shot of him or motorcycle driving past him. It just felt like I don’t know his destructive path doesn’t actually end in the desert it ends back at home and he doesn’t really recover from this and I don’t know I kind of loved the ending. I thought it was kind of, it’s so frustrating that this movie is four hours long because I want to do a rewatch so bad but there’s no, there’s no time for it. [Danny & Slim laugh] It’s frustrating because there’s so much I want to watch. Man, yeah, I really enjoyed the ending.
SLIM I’m having trouble finding a rating for this movie. You know everyone and their mother, five stars. I mean what’s our, the according to VGER, our supercomputer who loves movies. Four and a half star average rating from everyone in the Village. “A masterpiece in every sense of the word.” Haitch, host of Dune Pod. You heard it here first. I don’t know, visually this is a five star movie. I mean I can’t stress enough the restoration of this movie it, this may be, you need this to be your first 4K purchase if you upgrade your TV. When you do it. It’s disgusting. Okay? It’s life changing, the experience I had watching this. With that said, I don’t know if I really loved the story itself. You know, visually, production wise. Yes, this is historic film. Did I, you know, really connect with Lawrence? I hate when people ask themselves a question and they answer it, which I just did. But did I connect with Lawrence? No. [Slim & Danny laugh] Just being honest with everyone. But I just have a hard time grappling, like I’ll probably rewatch this just to look at it. Otherwise I’m not sure. So I’m like teetering on three and a half stars, four stars just because of the you know, I just had such mixed emotions watching it. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Allah Guinness is very strange in this era. And I think people need to probably have a discussion about how that guy gets a pass for some reason. But that’s just me, I enjoyed it, I didn’t love it. Visually, I had an out of body experience. Danny?
DANNY I was thinking about it in it, this falls in so where I was at for Seven Samurai, I have this like, I know this is a five star film. But man, it took me a while to really connect with the story, to actually enjoy Peter O’Toole’s performance, I thought he was it was hard to understand coming into it. And for a minute, I just, I was not connecting with anything. The story was convoluted a little bit. And it wasn’t what I was expecting. But by the end of this journey, I mean, I was really vibing with it. I connected strongly with understanding what they were doing with the Lawrence character. Whether or not it’s historically accurate. So I’m, I’m five stars.
PROTO Wow.
DANNY This is such a gorgeous film. And David Lean feels like a master with this film. And I think honestly watching the hour making of this film also helped. Watching what they did, what they went through to make sure this, I mean in this desert, what they were doing with trying to cover the cameras because it was melting the negatives and having to put them in freezers just to keep them from destroyed, like it’s it’s fascinating that this even got made and, and so yeah, I’m at five stars for this film right now.
SLIM Sheeesh.
PROTO Yeah, like Danny said, the look of this movie. You can see why this is the one Lean is known for, having watched a bunch of his movies now. This is just so far and above anything else he did. The scale, I’ve never seen any movie, I’ve never seen shots like this in any other movie. It just captures so much and it’s so big. It’s a sight to behold and not to ask a question and to answer it. But, you know, was I shopping for white robes on Amazon? [Danny laughs]
SLIM The amount of DMs we got this week of Proto saying, you know, me doing this and it’s just Lawrence in a white robe with his hands, [Slim laughs] Like, Proto of Arabia, I think was tossed around out a few times. [Danny laughs]
PROTO I love, love, love, love this character. I, oh my gosh, this this is my jam. Okay? I love this story. Everything about it, Lawrence. You know, I love it. I just, I can’t wait to rewatch this. It’s a five star movie for me.
DANNY Mmmm.
PROTO It’s just an incredible movie. It’s in like, like Slim said, it’s it’s not what I expected. But in the best way. Because I feel like it kind of turns expectations on its head in terms of you know what you expect from you know, you know, a typical hero, it’s something completely different. Um, and it looks amazing while doing it.
SLIM Wow, two five bangers. And then me. This will be one of those episodes where someone references “Oh, remember when Slim…”
DANNY We’ll throw it back on you. Don’t worry.
SLIM Next week is Danny’s pick. Megan agrees with me. Thank you, Megan. Thank you. We can DM, you know, the amount of DMs Megan, I’ve gotten this week in support of my future thoughts on Lawrence of Arabia has just been through the roof. Next week is Danny’s pick, we’re going to reveal that in just a mere moments. We do have some letters and a voicemail to get to. And we actually got some fact checks came back for our Indiana Jones Month that I’m going to read through. We got some comments on IG, specifically saying your experts were wrong. And here’s the facts. So we’re going to get to that in mere moments. Let’s get to some of our VMs slash letters. Josh left a VM. Let’s get to that VM.
[voicemail plays]
VOICEMAIL Hey guys, Jcarp, Josh Carpenter here. New to the pod. New to the Village. And I just have to say finding your show has been the gift that keeps on giving. I’m completely addicted. I’ve been binge listening to it for the past like four days straight. I’ve gone from The Abyss to The Shining.
DANNY My goodness!
VOICEMAIL Skipped a couple episodes here and there. Couple films I looked at and went oh, that’s on my watch list. Others I just saw and went, oh, garbage. But what are you going to do? I’m excited to travel to Arabia here with you guys. Lawrence of Arabia. I don’t know why but I always get this film confused with Hidalgo. Never seen it, can’t wait to check it out for the first time. So yeah, let’s get into it. Take it easy!
[voicemail plays]
SLIM Jcarp, welcome. What a journey. they start with The Abyss episode.
DANNY The Abyss.
SLIM God remember the excitement we had with that episode.
DANNY My gosh.
SLIM We knew we were cooking with gas. Let me pull up my letter machine. Boop beep boop beep boop beep. Lawrence of Arabia letters, this comes from Ty. You can leave us a VM or a letter at 70mmpod.com. “Hello 70mm. First, I would like to thank you for Indiana Junes Month, the episodes were fantastic and all the art was so good. Now Proto, I’m speaking directly to you. Thank you so much for picking Lawrence of Arabia. Me and my grandpa used to watch this all the time when I was younger. Can I give you a reason why a little kid would sit through that movie? No. But my grandpa loved it. So I did too. This is actually the first time I watched it since my grandpa passed four years ago. Yes, I cried the whole time. But I loved watching it again. Proto, thank you for choosing this and not only because it’s a great movie, but also because for a few hours I was transported back to my childhood sitting on my grandparents floor playing with Legos. While me and my grandpa watch this masterpiece. Love you guys. Ty.”
DANNY Ty.
SLIM The redemption journey that Proto has been the last hour from what transpired in our Hercules episode to now. Has this ever been done yet? This is like the first intermission of Lawrence of Arabia. [Danny laughs] This is the reverse. We’re going in reverse right now. Amazing letter. Thank you so much. I think we have one more letter, hang on one second. From our heart and soul, Marcie. Subject line: Lean Journey. “Hello, I’m not sure how I managed to watch Passage to India and Lawrence Arabia back to back days. That’s 390 minutes of David Lean cinema. Bringing my Lean journey to an end. The films selected for this journey had been on my list forever. I’m so happy I finally got to see them. Thank you, Proto. This was an amazing experience. I’m going to keep going through the catalog of Lean with Summertime next. Excited to hear what the next journey is while also completing the Alien journey I missed.” Thank you, Marcie.
PROTO Marcie. You’re so welcome.
SLIM I’m not even caught up in a Lean journey to be honest. If I can be frank with everybody. I still have Zhivago to watch.
PROTO I will say, as far as I know, Marcie is the only one who made it through the entire Lean journey. Oh my gosh, a tree just fell outside my house.
SLIM Are you serious?
PROTO Yeah, it’s a few houses away, but I just heard it or it was a huge branch.
SLIM Is anything getting electrocuted right now?
PROTO There’s a house on fire.
DANNY Marcie’s trying to break in. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Marcie’s doing some witchcraft. She was like, she has a doll that she’s poking her needles.
DANNY She’s at the top of Aizen Guard.
SLIM Alright, we will see, so throwmethewhip on Instagram might be an Indiana Jones expert, started listening to our Indiana Jones episodes, which we appreciate. And he gave us some feedback on some of the comments that were made on the show from our resident Jonesy expert for Indiana Jones. So I want to read some of those comments right now. This is for the Crusade episode specifically. “Going to have to correct your ultimate Indiana Jones expert.” I added a little twang to that sentence. You can’t read that via text. “While it’s true that in the second and third and even fourth film he does carry a Webley holster. He does not carry the Webley itself until Last Crusade, specifically a Webley government model with a bird’s head grip often mistaken for a Webley MK VI, the government model returns in Crystal Skull.” He goes on to say “Contrary to what Jonesy said in Temple of Doom, he carries a Colt police special. He also for a few frames insert shot of the gun falling out of the car as a Smith and Wesson Model 10 carries two different Smith and Wesson 1917s in Raiders named for their respective rental houses. And of course the browning hi power.”
DANNY Excuse me.
PROTO God, Jonesy!
SLIM Any comments Danny?
DANNY I just can’t believe he got it so wrong. That Jonesy would do this to us.
SLIM Feel embarrassed for the show.
DANNY Should we just delete those episodes?
SLIM I’m not going back to edit. I don’t know, I might have to go back and put an apology on the episode. However —
PROTO Do we just cut Jonesy out of the ep?
DANNY This is like Alec Guinness and brown face all over. [Slim laughs]
SLIM This is our Alec Guinness brown face.
PROTO When you’re pretending to be someone you’re not.
SLIM On the Crystal Skull episode throwmethewhip listened, had a great time, did have some feedback on a letter that we got, might have even been from Seantana. About Indy 5 taking place in the 70s. Is Seantana still with us? Or is he hard to work with Photoshop?
DANNY Oh gosh.
SLIM That’s misinformed.
DANNY It’s over for you, Sean.
SLIM “There has never been a one to one correlation between Indy’s age and Harrison’s. The film is not taking place in the 70s, it will take place in the 60s” So this might be some insider information here that hasn’t been divulged.
DANNY Spoilers.
SLIM He’s got some kind of connections that we don’t have. Already confirmed by James Mangold on his Twitter. Thrilled, very excited to see how — I asked, what did you think about the de-aging rumors, the whispers. He says “very excited to see how far the technology has come last couple years. I think the stuff in the 60s will have mild de-aging. Of course, there’s also scenes being filmed in Nazi occupied France somewhere around 1940 to 1944. So we’ll see something more dramatic there.” So he is alluding to there being extensive scenes taking place. 20 years previous that will be heavily de-aged. Danny, your thoughts?
DANNY Just —
PROTO Alright. Danny’s a wimp. [Danny laughs] I’m gonna say this is going to be the most heavily de-aged movie to date.
SLIM Wow. He’s alluding to the fact that there’s no Nazi exegol and that it’s a flashback to the 40s. So maybe he’s not fighting Nazis.
PROTO No exegol. What’s even the point?
SLIM We need, we still have to get to Danny’s pick. Thank you throwmethewhip for your feedback on our episode. We will share that with Jonesy. Danny, it’s time.
DANNY Mmmm.
SLIM What’s happening next week?
DANNY So I’ve had this film kind of in my brain for a bit and then we got to our Ladies Month and there was an actor that reminded me of a film that I wanted to watch again. I’m bringing it down a notch guys, okay? From Lawrence of Arabia. Look at me. Don’t look at the Discord. Okay? [Slim laughs] This came out 19…hold on. 1996.
SLIM Oh!
DANNY And it has our boy, Bill Paxton. And we’re gonna go through the Twister journey.
SLIM Oh my gosh!
PROTO Ohhh!
DANNY Streaming on HBO Max.
PROTO Okay!
DANNY And I have been dying to watch Twister for a while now.
SLIM Holy cow.
DANNY We talked about theme parks and we brought maps into our discussion in Discord. And I saw the Twister ride show at Universal again, like man, I want to revisit this movie. It’s got Philip Seymour Hoffman in it. Helen Hunt is in it. Cary Elwes. It’s just — Alan Ruck is in it. I love Alan. So I just been dying to watch this film again. It has one of my favorite trucks in cinema history. And so I just wanted to watch this film again. I wanted to have fun. So we’re doing it.
SLIM Sheesh.
PROTO How about the scene — [Slim laughs]
DANNY Don’t. Save it. Save it beb. Save it. HBO Max streaming. You probably have it on VHS or DVD. This movie was hot stuff.
SLIM This is very strange. Are you ready to get chilled up right now?
DANNY Tell me.
SLIM Because I was getting a haircut at Sun’s today during lunch.
DANNY Excuse me. Okay.
SLIM He had Kelly Clarkson show on as he always does. And Helen Hunt was the guest today!
DANNY What! Excuse me.
SLIM And she was talking about Twister.
PROTO No.
SLIM This continues to happen on this show.
DANNY I’m so excited. We’re talking about trailers.
PROTO If I see Twister trending this week, I’m gonna lose it. [Danny laughs]
SLIM Danny’s gonna find out, he’s gonna DM us, “Hey Twister came out 50 years ago this week.” [Slim & Danny laugh]
DANNY Today. 50 years ago.
SLIM Wow. Amazing pick. Thank you to everyone for joining us on the Lean journey in our VHS Village Discord. You can join us at 70mmpod.com. Four bucks a month, join our Patreon, we’ll see you in there. Proto was hard at work thinking of his next journey. He’s not ready to announce that yet. I think it’ll be at some point in August. So if you want to get in while the getting’s good, you can. Proto, can you take us into to the twirling winds of next week?
PROTO Yeah, a major theme in Lawrence of Arabia is identity. And I don’t have the exact quote. But he said, they said a bunch of times where Lawrence is talking about who you are and who you can be. And he says something along the lines of like you, you can be anyone. And I’ve said that before on the show, but I just I love that, that philosophy, that you know, tomorrow is a new day. And you can wake up tomorrow and you can you can be anyone you want to be. You can, you can move to the desert tomorrow and live out your days in the cleanest environment in the world. What a great line on that was. It’s clean, the desert. So just remember that, you know, be who you want to be.
DANNY Do you want to tell him, Matt?
SLIM No. Next week, Helen Hunt —
PROTO You guys cut out too.
SLIM Proto might be in a twister right now. [Danny laughs] He’s twirling around like it’s the Wizard of Oz.
[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM 70mm is a TAPEDECK production featuring original artwork provided by Danny Haas. Spiritual guidance and VGER, the robot who loves movies created by Protolexus. Producer emeritus Dale_a. Prints and other merch are available on 70mmpod.com. This episode was mixed, edited and produced by me, Slim. You can support our Patreon for access to the VHS Village Discord to talk movies with new friends, access to exclusive episodes, discounts on merch, and a physical membership card mailed to you. To check out other TAPEDECK podcasts, find the link in the episode notes. And if you’d like to support our friends at Letterboxd and upgrade to Pro or Patron status, you can do so with a 20% off discount using the links at 70mmpod.com. Goodbye!
