Lawrence of Arabia

Over the years, several attempts to film the story of the extraordinary life of T. E. Lawrence, most notably by Rex Ingram in the 1920s and Alexander Korda in the 1930s, had come to nothing. After the huge success of The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), which fused adventure story, spectacle and flawed heroics, the potential of Lawrence's story to a filmmaker of David Lean's genius was obvious.

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