Theatrical run
The film premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on 10 December 1962 and was released in the United States on 16 December 1962.
Jordan banned the film for what was felt to be a disrespectful portrayal of Arab culture.[10] Egypt, Omar Sharif's home country, was the only Arab nation to give the film a wide release, where it became a success through the endorsement of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who appreciated the film's depiction of Arab nationalism.
Theatrical poster from 1962 during its releaseThe original release ran for about 222 minutes (plus overture, intermission, and exit music). A post-premiere memo (13 December 1962) noted that the film was 24,987.5 feet (7,616.2 m) of 70 mm film, or 19,990 feet (6,090 m) of 35 mm film. With 90 feet (27 m) of 35 mm film projected every minute, this corresponds to exactly 222.11 minutes. Richard May, vice-president of Film Preservation at Warner Bros., sent an email to Robert Morris, co-author of a book on Lawrence of Arabia, in which he noted that Gone with the Wind (1939) was never edited after its premiere and is 19,884 feet (6,061 m) of 35 mm film (without leaders, overture, intermission, entr'acte, or walkout music), corresponding to 220.93 min. Thus, Lawrence of Arabia is slightly more than one minute longer than Gone With the Wind and is, therefore, the longest movie ever to win a Best Picture Oscar.
In January 1963, Lawrence of Arabia was released in a version edited by 20 minutes.[60] In the United States, the film was released in five key cities—New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, and Miami Beach. By February 1963, the film expanded into six more reserved-seating engagements.[61] From 9 October 1963 it started to open at 1,000 theatres in the United States on a non-reserved seat basis.[62]
When it was re-released in 1971, an even shorter cut of 187 minutes was presented.[60] The first round of cuts was made at the direction and even insistence of David Lean, to assuage criticisms of the film's length and increase the number of showings per day; however, during the 1989 restoration, he passed blame for the cuts onto deceased producer Sam Spiegel.[63][64] In addition, a 1966 print was used for initial television and video releases which accidentally altered a few scenes by reversing the image.[65]
The film was screened out of competition at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival[66] and at the 2012 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.[67]
Lawrence of Arabia was re-released theatrically in 2002 to celebrate the film's fortieth anniversary.[68]
Restored director's cut
A restored version was undertaken by Robert A. Harris and Jim Painten under the supervision of David Lean. It was released in 1989 with a 216-minute length (plus overture, intermission and exit music). Most of the cut scenes were dialogue sequences, particularly those involving General Allenby and his staff. Two scenes were excised—Brighton's briefing of Allenby in Jerusalem before the Deraa scene and the British staff meeting in the field tent—and the Allenby-briefing scene has still not been entirely restored. Much of the missing dialogue involves Lawrence's writing of poetry and verse, alluded to by Allenby in particular, saying "the last poetry general we had was Wellington". The opening of Act II existed in only fragmented form, where Faisal is interviewed by Bentley, as well as the later scene in Jerusalem where Allenby convinces Lawrence not to resign. Both scenes were restored to the 1989 re-release. Some of the more graphic shots of the Tafas massacre scene were also restored, such as the lengthy panning shot of the corpses in Tafas and Lawrence shooting a surrendering Turkish soldier.
Most of the missing footage is of minimal import, supplementing existing scenes. One scene is an extended version of the Deraa torture sequence, which makes Lawrence's punishment more overt. Other scripted scenes exist, including a conversation between Auda and Lawrence immediately after the fall of Aqaba, a brief scene of Turkish officers noting the extent of Lawrence's campaign and the battle of Petra (later reworked into the first train attack) but these scenes were probably not filmed. Living actors dubbed their dialogue and Jack Hawkins's dialogue was dubbed by Charles Gray, who had provided Hawkins' voice for several films after Hawkins developed throat cancer in the late 1960s.[69] A full list of cuts can be found at the IMDb.[70] Reasons for the cuts of various scenes can be found in Lean's notes to Sam Spiegel, Robert Bolt and Anne V. Coates.[71] The film runs 227 minutes (216 minutes of proper film plus 11 minutes of overture, intermission, and exit music) in the most recent director's cut available on Blu-ray Disc and DVD.[2]
Home media
Lawrence of Arabia has been released in five different DVD editions, including an initial release as a two-disc set (2001),[72] followed by a shorter single disc edition (2002),[73] a high resolution version of the director's cut with restored scenes (2003) issued as part of the Superbit series, as part of the Columbia Best Pictures collection (2008), and in a fully restored special edition of the director's cut (2008).[74]
Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg helped restore a version of the film for a DVD release in 2000.[75]
New restoration, Blu-ray, and theatrical re-release
An 8K scan/4K intermediate digital restoration was made for Blu-ray and theatrical re-release[76] during 2012 by Sony Pictures to celebrate the film's 50th anniversary.[77] The Blu-ray edition of the film was released in the United Kingdom on 10 September 2012 and in the United States on 13 November 2012.[78] The film received a one-day theatrical release on 4 October 2012 and a two-day release in Canada on 11 and 15 November 2012, and it was re-released in the United Kingdom on 23 November 2012.
According to Grover Crisp, executive VP of restoration at Sony Pictures, the new 8K scan has such high resolution that it showed a series of fine concentric lines in a pattern "reminiscent of a fingerprint" near the top of the frame. This was caused by the film emulsion melting and cracking in the desert heat during production. Sony had to hire a third party to minimise or eliminate the rippling artefacts in the new restored version.[76] The digital restoration was done by Sony Colorworks DI, Prasad Studios, and MTI Film.[79]
A 4K digitally restored version of the film was screened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival,[80][81] at the 2012 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival,[67] at the V Janela Internacional de Cinema[82] in Recife, Brazil, and at the 2013 Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival in San Jose, California.[83]
In 2020, Sony Pictures reissued the film on a multi-film 4K UHD Blu-Ray release called the Columbia Classics 4K UltraHD Collection, which included other historically significant films from their library such as Dr. Strangelove (1964) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).[84] In honour of the film's 60th anniversary, the film was re-released in an individual two-disc steelbook set by Kino Lorber, with both including a substantial, mostly overlapping collection of special features.[85]
