Outtakes : ‘Lawrence’ Saddles Up

The sands of time have eroded David Lean’s 1962 epic “Lawrence of Arabia.” Originally released at 220 minutes, it was cut to 200 minutes shortly after its London premiere. Another 40 minutes were hacked for its 1971 reissue.

But the true “Lawrence of Arabia” will ride again!

“We’re putting it back together--making it as it was before the rats got at it,” said Lean, who’s in town to work with editor Robert A. Harris on the restoration of the film that won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, and made a star of Peter O’Toole.

“It’s quite a tremendous feeling, I can tell you,” said the revered director, who’s 80. “We’ve found bits of lost footage everywhere. And we’ve only just found the negative.” (After an exhaustive search, the negative turned up at the Technicolor lab in London.)

Some of the voice track was destroyed, “So we’ve just finished re-voicing.” That process reunited O’Toole (T. E. Lawrence) and Alec Guinness (Prince Faisal), who got together in London to redub. (A “double” was used for the late Jack Hawkins, who starred as Gen. Allenby.) And some re-voicing was also done by Anthony Quinn (Auda abuTayi) and Arthur Kennedy (Jackson Bentley).

Pointing out that the film was shot in Super Panavision (70mm)--twice the size of the 35mm frame that is the screen standard--Lean said, “The look of the film, alone, should be wonderful. So few pictures have ever been done on real 65 negative film.” (70mm film allows 65mm for the image; the extra space beyond each side of the sprocket holes provides the sound. The process was last used in Disney’s “Tron,” 1982.)

Columbia, which released originally, will handle the re-release, possibly late this year.

As for the indefatiguable Lean’s future credits: He revealed that the financing for “Nostromo”--based on Joseph Conrad’s 1904 novel of the same name--is nearly finalized.

Lean predicted that the project, about a small silver-mining country in a state of revolt, probably will begin filming late in the year. “It will be done with Warner Bros. Steven Spielberg helped me by getting them interested in the film,” Lean said. “It’s been a dream of mine to get this picture made.”