Peter O'Toole: Along the Sky Road to Aqaba

Hugely enjoyable documentary looking at one of cinema's / theatre's favourite sons. There is a very strong line up celebs talking about O'Toole, his personality, acting style etc including Kenneth Branagh, Anthony Hopkins, Brian Cox, Derek Jacobi, Stephen Fry and particularly his ex wife, Sian Phillips. She really gets under the skin of the man who was clearly loved, but who was often irascible, angry and seemingly completely overwhelming in private and when working and clearly fond of booze and cocaine.

Whilst the film focusses on key theatrical roles - successes like Jeffrey Barnard is Unwell and disasters like Macbeth as well as many of his famous film roles, the running time is more devoted to getting to know the man, his acting style as well as some great anecdotes - Stephen Fry telling how he turned down Lord of the Rings is priceless. With the devotion more to the man than his output, the film, whilst covering the inevitable film successes like Lawrence of Arabia, Becket, The Ruling Class in some depth, others, possibly out of necessity are ignored. Hence there is no mention of My Favourite Year, The Stuntman, Venus, Night of the Generals, Dean Spanley etc which is sort of a shame. Definitely worth a watch - makes you realise what a great actor and larger than life personality he was.

How ironic. The directors decided that a bunch of talking heads, albeit famous ones, babbling about the subject is better than actually giving the audience illustrations of the man's work? Peter this, Peter that. Let's see him. Just a sprinkling of clips from a few films, a few audio and videos of O'toole being interviewed.

I don't think I can get through this, as much as I admire actors like Hopkins, Jacobi, Sian Philips etc. I recommend just watching Lawrence, Ruling Class, My Favorite Year etc. Do a YouTube search for interviews with the subject, Google articles. You'll learn more and be more entertained.