‘Doctor Zhivago’ Treks Back to the Big Screen : Movies: 30 years after the David Lean epic premiered, a restored version of the classic is being released. It screens in Santa Ana starting tonight.

Thirty years after Omar Sharif and Julie Christie first heated up a frozen Moscow winter--and after countless newborns were christened Lara in honor of its heroine--”Doctor Zhivago” is trekking back to movie screens.

The Orange County Film Office will present a newly restored version of the David Lean epic tonight at Edwards South Coast Plaza Village, 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana. Sandra Lean, the director’s widow, will speak briefly before the screening, at 6 p.m.

Regular screenings of “Doctor Zhivago” will begin at the theater on Friday, when it also will go into anniversary re-release at the Alex Theater in Glendale, the AMC Century City and the AMC Santa Monica. All this will be followed by a new home video incarnation, thanks to current “Zhivago” owner Turner Entertainment, Turner restoration vice president Richard P. May and America’s unofficial patron saint of film restoration, Martin Scorsese.

It was Scorsese, May says, who started the process last year by requesting a print of Lean’s epic tale of the Russian Revolution, which was adapted from a novel by Boris Pasternak.

“We ran two or three reels,” May remembers, “and I thought, it’s pasty-looking--the faces aren’t how they ought to be. This picture got the Academy Award for cinematography, and it doesn’t look like it anymore.”

While inspecting the worn negative--which had been used to make an estimated 100 prints--May discovered one entire reel of the negative was missing, replaced by an inferior, duplicate negative.

Working with the Los Angeles print lab Crest National, May and his team worked from a test print from the negative, eliminating scratches, remixing the sound and finally producing a vivid new interpositive--a “virtually indestructible” master copy--which will be safely kept, aptly enough for “Zhivago’s” icy romantics, in cold storage.

Though the film has since become one of Hollywood’s most beloved epics, “cold” also describes much of the critical response upon “Zhivago’s” 1965 release--an event that was, typically, a make-or-break event for the financially teetering MGM. But the film’s romantic story of passion thwarted by politics was embraced by audiences, who made it MGM’s third-highest grossing film to that time. It also ultimately collected five Academy Awards (losing best picture honors to “The Sound of Music”).

Director Lean, fresh from his triumph with “Lawrence of Arabia,” assembled a cast combining famous faces--Ralph Richardson, Alec Guinness and lone American Rod Steiger--with stars-to-be Sharif, Christie and Geraldine Chaplin. He also lavishly re-created early 20th-Century Moscow on 10 acres outside Madrid--far from MGM supervision.

Lean’s shrewdness was demonstrated early on to co-star Chaplin, when the young dancer-turned-actress shot a screen test for “Zhivago” in Madrid.

“I was nervous as hell,” Chaplin recently recalled. “Well, David came to my dressing room and said, ‘This isn’t my crew, I don’t speak Spanish, I’m insanely nervous.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll translate for you.’ I forgot my own nerves, and he did it in a very clever way.”

Steiger remembers a defining moment in his work with the famously autocratic director, as they filmed--and refilmed--the moment Steiger’s character suddenly kisses Christie in a Moscow sleigh.

“Julie was anticipating the kiss and didn’t realize it. Finally I said, ‘Mr. Lean, can I talk to you for a minute? On the side?’

“I said, ‘You know, if you put down a little more length of track for the camera we could come around the corner (in the sleigh). I’ll kiss her, she’ll anticipate that, and I’ll kiss her again when she thinks the scene is over and you might get what you’re looking for.’

“Well, we got it in one take--and Lean never forgave me. When he was in Los Angeles for the last time before he died, I called the Beverly Wilshire about six times. He never returned my call. But we got along on ‘Zhivago’ on a very efficient, cold, professional level.”

One element key to “Zhivago’s” success was created after shooting--as composer Maurice Jarre struggled to write a theme for Christie’s character, Lara. Lean had grown fond of an existing Russian tune and hoped Jarre could write something similar.

“I wrote a theme and thought it was very good,” Jarre recalls. “It was a little like the music he liked. But David said, ‘I think you can do better.’

“I rushed back to my house and wrote another theme, played it for David and he said, ‘I think that’s too sad.’ . . .

“Finally, on a Friday night, he said, ‘Maurice, take the weekend off. Go with your girlfriend to the mountains, don’t think about a theme for “Doctor Zhivago.” Just think about a theme for love--write it for your girlfriend.’

“And that was the key. I came back on Monday, thought about the weekend, not about Russia, and in one hour I wrote Lara’s theme.”

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Jarre’s soundtrack went on to sell more than 600,000 copies, displacing even the Beatles at the top of the charts.

Less harmonious was the battle between Lean and MGM’s increasingly anxious executives. Despite its $12-million-plus cost, Lean insisted a second unit be sent back to Europe to re-shoot a field of daffodils for what would become one of “Zhivago’s” most indelible images.

“It became quite a fight,” recalls MGM’s then-assistant general manager Roger Mayer. “But David got his way. A second unit was sent, the footage came back--and it was better, and it became an absolute key to the success of the picture.”

Despite the filmmakers’ distance from the Soviet Union--whose repressive early days provide “Zhivago’s” backdrop-- Realpolitik did intrude at times. The crew’s host nation of Spain was under the rigid rule of Gen. Francisco Franco, and as movie extras sang the revolutionary “Internationale” for a protest scene, panicked neighbors phoned the police.

“Doctor Zhivago” went on to gross a then-stunning $16 million (according to Turner, its total earnings adjusted for inflation now top $187 million), and its impact forever changed its cast of unknowns--some of whom still find themselves defined by its success.

“When I was little, I was always Charlie Chaplin’s daughter,” recalls Chaplin. “Then everyone who stopped me on the street would say, ‘Ohhhh, I did love you in “Doctor Zhivago.” ’

“Now the incredible thing is, I’ll go on sets, and the makeup man will say, ‘Oh, you were in ‘Doctor Zhivago.’ That’s my mother’s favorite film!’ ”

* The Orange County Film Office shows a newly restored version of David Lean’s “Doctor Zhivago” tonight at Edwards South Coast Plaza Village, 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana. 6 p.m. Sandra Lean, the director’s widow, will speak briefly before the screening. $50, includes a reception at the Red Lion Hotel/Orange County Airport, 3050 Bristol St., Costa Mesa. (714) 634-2900.