LAWRENCE, ANYONE?

Last night, Judy and I watched an excellent documentary about the making of GONE WITH THE WIND (1939). The film, originally produced in 1988, ran on TCM the other day when their star of the day was Vivien Leigh. We learned quite a bit about the film and a lot of the material that was used was from the Harry Ransom Center here in Austin, where the David O. Selznick collection resides. In fact, there was a terrific GWTW exhibit at the Ransom last year which we saw and loved.

While watching the doc, I couldn't help but think that if some industrious producer, say, David O. Selznick, or some major studio like MGM, had wanted to mount a film in 1939 based on the life of T. E. Lawrence, this guy would have been a perfect choice for the lead:

British actor Leslie Howard, who played Ashley Wilkes in GWTW, looks more like Lawrence than Peter O'Toole did, in my opinion. Who knows, maybe somebody had the same idea way back when and the project just never got off the ground. Personally, I'm glad it didn't because when the story of Lawrence of Arabia finally made it to the screen, it was perfect and ranks in my book as the greatest film ever made.