Flawrence of Arabia

[my_daroga]

I've now seen Lawrence of Arabia as it was meant to be seen: in 70mm, on a HUGE screen, and with my glasses. It's both more beautiful and more flawed than ever. Flawed, in the sense that now I can see it should be subtitled: THE EYELINER EDITION. Seriously, boys, it's cute, but how much makeup did you take to the desert?

Anyway, I may have Important Things to say about it later, but it was an awesome birthday present--thanks, Cinerama!--and while I can't adequately explain why this movie kills me to you or to the people I dragged along, it left me with a thought, which I've now immortalized:



This leads neatly, via Omar Sharif, to:



This could go on all night, and I need to go to work tomorrow. So if this amuses you, I invite you to submit your own favorites to me here. Whose inappropriate racial casting makes you laugh most?

Comments

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

Can't find a pic - anywhere - but Ricardo Montalban had horrible fake Japanese makeup in the 1957 Sayonara (which was actually a pretty cutting-edge film treatment of interracial romance, for its day, considering that movie censorship usually vetoed any treatment of the subject.)

They used an Asian actress for the Asian woman/American G.I. romance, but for the Asian man/American woman romance, they had to use a non-Asian male actor. Was it just too gruesome in that era to have an Asian actor making cinema love to a white woman?

[my_daroga]

Yes, it was. Because Those People will steal our women!

There are some fantastic fake Japanese actors. My favorite is Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto--it's just ridiculous. And my library has all of them, for some reason.