Doctor Zhivago - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Doctor Zhivago or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Doctor Zhivago

[ella]

Pasha Antipov's armored train was an accurate replica of trains that were used during World War I and World War II to travel across areas with heavy snow that were inaccessible to trucks or tanks.

[gabriel]

David Lean cast Julie Christie as Lara after seeing her in Billy Liar (1963), and on the recommendation of John Ford, who had directed her in Young Cassidy (1965).

[oscar]

Critics tore the film apart upon release. Newsweek commented about "hack-job sets" and "pallid photography". Director David Lean was so deeply affected that he swore he would never make another movie. Thanks in part to MGM's marketing campaign and strong word of mouth, this became the second highest-grossing movie of 1965, behind The Sound of Music (1965). It received ten Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture and Director) and won 5 awards, giving Lean the confidence to continue making movies. His next movie, Ryan's Daughter (1970), received a poisonous reception from critics and bombed at the box office. Lean made his next film, A Passage to India (1984), over 14 years later.

[addison]

Omar Sharif directed his son Tarek Sharif as a way to get closer to his character.

[cameron]

Rita Tushingham filmed her part in two weeks.

[sara]

Several producers and studios bid for the rights to the novel, which producer Carlo Ponti won in 1963. He wanted this movie to be as grand as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), so he recruited the crew of that movie, including director David Lean, screenwriter Robert Bolt, cinematographer Freddie Young, production designer John Box, and composer Maurice Jarre.

[kristina]

According to Freddie Young, before he agreed to take the director of photography job following an exhausting collaboration on Lawrence of Arabia (1962), David Lean had a major falling-out with the previous director of photography, Nicolas Roeg, over creative differences. After Young took over, an additional two weeks of photography was required to re-shoot the scenes that Roeg had shot.

[darrell]

Over 4,000 daffodils were imported from The Netherlands and placed on the outskirts of Soria, where Dr. Yuri Zhivago's father-in-law's country estate was located.

[kristina]

Dr. Zhivago's physician side is rarely shown. He writes poems for Lara near the end of their relationship, but the audience never hears them. In the source novel, Zhivago's poetry is included in a supplement at the end. Critics lamented the missing poetry, and said that showing a writer at work is inherently boring.

[jamie]

Most of the exteriors were completely built inside, to serve as interiors.

[jessie]

This movie received an added publicity boost during post-production when Darling (1965) opened, making Julie Christie an international star.

[nicholas]

This movie was shot in Spain during the regime of General Francisco Franco. One day, while filming the scene with the crowd chanting the Marxist theme (at 3:00 a.m.), police showed up on set thinking a real revolution was taking place, and insisted on staying until the scene was finished. Apparently, people who lived nearby had awoken to the sound of revolutionary singing, and mistakenly believed that Franco had been overthrown. The secret police surveyed the crowd as the extras sang the Internationale for a protest scene, so many extras pretended they didn't know the words.

[miriam]

Tarek Sharif: Omar Sharif's son plays young Yuri Zhivago at his mother's funeral.

[jim]

The film was produced in 22 different languages.

[leo]

Geraldine Chaplin's first filmed scene was when her character Tonya reads out a letter to Alexander. Although she pulled off the scene, the camera didn't pick up the fact that she was shaking throughout.

[phyllis]

After a month went by with Marlon Brando failing to respond to David Lean's written inquiry into whether he wanted to play Viktor Komarovsky, he offered the part to James Mason, who accepted. Lean, who had wanted to cast Brando as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and offered him roles in Ryan's Daughter (1970) and his unmade "Nostromo", decided on Mason, as he did not want an actor to overpower the character of Dr. Yuri Zhivago. Mason eventually dropped out, and Rod Steiger accepted the role. Steiger eventually was involved in the filming of this movie for the better part of a year, which may have been a reason that Brando and Mason shunned the role.

[wesley]

Dirk Bogarde, Sean Connery, Burt Lancaster, and Max von Sydow were considered for the title role, but they were never actually offered the part before David Lean offered the role to Omar Sharif.

[cassandra]

David Lean discovered Geraldine Chaplin when he spotted her on the cover of a magazine. She was modeling at the time.