Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with another Daffy Duck Looney Tunes cartoon, the 1947 The Birth of a Notion, planned by Bob Clampett and finished by Robert McKimson. This is one of four shorts that had been scheduled for direction by Bob Clampett before he left Warner Bros. The other three were Tweetie Pie (finished by Friz Freleng), Bacall to Arms (finished by Arthur Davis) and The Goofy Gophers (finished by Davis).
Robert McKimson used his Barnyard Dawg character design as Leopold, while the scientist is a caricature—both visually and vocally—of actor Peter Lorre.
Before the start of our feature presentation, the staff of ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour thought it would be fun to watch our favorite bon vivant, pencil mustachioed director choose his favorite Criterion Collection DVDs-
As they say, John Waters could just read the phone book and we'd be entertained. And his film choices aren't bad either.
We've picked another entry from the excellent reference book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Jay Schneider. Today's film is the 1962 epic bio pic, Lawrence of Arabia, directed by David Lean, and starring Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quayle, Claude Rains and Arthur Kennedy. The film was considered a masterpiece right out of the gate. After the global acclaim and grosses that were garnered by The Bridge On The River Kwai, producer Sam Spiegel wanted to collaborate once more with director David Lean on a project that might even exceed their prior effort on sheer grandeur and scope. After discarding the notion of depicting the life story of Mahatma Gandhi, Spiegel opted to indulge his lifelong fascination with Colonel T.E. Lawrence, the once-obscure British military cartographer who came to orchestrate the Arab rebellion on the Turkish front in World War I.
King Hussein of Jordan lent an entire brigade of his Arab Legion as extras for the movie, so most of the film's "soldiers" are played by real soldiers. Hussein frequently visited the sets and became enamored of a young British secretary, Antoinette Gardiner, who became his second wife in 1962. Their eldest son, Abdullah II King Of Jordan, ascended to the throne in 1999. As always, The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour would like you to join us in watching Lawrence of Arabia. So push away from the table, get comfortable and enjoy the film.
Producer Sam Spiegel wanted director David Lean to consider the cost-saving benefits of shooting in Southern California or the less volatile political climate of Israel. Lean, however, was determined to film the story where it had happened--in a Middle Eastern country. One obvious problem for Spiegel was his religion: given the political situation in the Middle East, a good chance existed that a Jewish producer wouldn't even be allowed into Jordan. The production's British Advisor--Anthony Nutting, who had been England's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs at the start of the Suez crisis - got around that problem by getting Spiegel a visa that listed his religion as Anglican. When the forthrightly Jewish producer protested, Nutting said, "Sam, just shut up! Here's your bloody visa."
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