Better without Sir Alec ...

From what I've heard, Alec was actually quite hesitant about taking the role, but Lean eventually convinced him. My guess is that they must have had a fairly strong friendship and that was why Lean wanted Alec in the role.

i thought he was great...i only found out it was alec guinness at the end. he reminded me of one of my uncles.

I have red that they didn't get along on the set and that a lot of Guinness's scenes were left out in the cutting room. When the actor saw the final result he was angry and never talk to Lean again.

Guinness and Lean actually had a very antagonistic relationship throughout their lives. They argued often, and quite vehemently, on how to play Guinness's characters in the various films (Bridge on the River Kwai being the most pointed example, but hardly the only one). They didn't have any great affection for one another, merely a great deal of respect for each other's abilities.

A big reason for their feud was because of Great Expectations. Guinness had written the stage adaptation of GE which Lean had seen, inspiring him to make the film. Lean invited Guinness - who had done very little film work up to that point - to appear in his film of GE, and shortly thereafter Guinness became a star due to Oliver Twist and the Ealing films. Thus, Lean always claimed credit for Guinness's film career - something Guinness resented immensely, and sometimes Guinness even claimed credit for LEAN'S career, since GE had been based on his stage play of the novel (this is inaccurate, since Lean had made quite a few films prior to GE - but that's irrelevant). Guinness also seemed to think Lean was an egomaniac, and to be fair, Lean, although charming and friendly on a social and private level, was by all accounts a conceited, obsessive bastard while actually in the process of making a film (although Guinness was hardly innocent of arrogance and self-importance himself). And yet, they seemed to respect each other a great deal - but there wasn't any real friendship there. They never saw each other when not working on films (Guinness, if not Lean, was quite a social butterfly and stayed in touch with every colleague he was even remotely friendly with) and often went years without speaking to or contacting one another.

In Piers Paul Read's biography of Guinness, he indicates that Guinness wanted the part of Godbole, but played a sort of hard-to-get with Lean about it. He had reluctance at playing an Indian, but Guinness indicated to Lean that he DID want to play it. However, he threw his weight around and started making certain demands - I don't remember most of them, but it seems Guinness pretty much forced Peggy Ashcroft (his close friend from their days in the Old Vic) on Lean for Mrs. Moore, when Lean had wanted Ceilia Johnson for the part. Lean got his revenge on Guinness by making Godbole (depicted by Forster as light-complected, almost Caucasian in appearance) a dark-faced caricature. He also cut out a lot of Guinness's scenes, including a lengthy Hindu dance which Guinness had spent months practicing (although Guinness himself said it was probably a good idea to cut him out of the film).

I agree with you, more or less. I don't care for Sir Alec's performance, he looks and sounds like a muppet and among all the real Indians just seems out of place and silly. I wouldn't say it's racist, just a bad casting job by Lean.

Stone, you can watch me or you can join me. One of them is more fun.

It's usually an insult to have a white actor playing blackface- "Indianface" in this case?- but Sir Guinness is absolutely UNRECOGNIZABLE here. It wasn't until the credits rolled that I discovered who he played in the movie. One of the few times a white actor playing a non-white actually pretty much worked.

However, I agree that it might have been better to cast an Indian. With so many fine Indian actors, there's no reason to hire an English one, even one as amazing as Alec Guinness.

Agree. Alec Guinness did the best he could but he was simply miscast.

Why not to rely on an Indian actor? Only David Lean knows why.

From what I've heard over the years, there was not much personal affection between Sir Alec and David Lean. In fact they often did not get along at all. Lean liked doing things his way and Guiness had his own ideas, so not a good mix. David Lean did call Guiness his "good luck charm". But that was because since their first collaboration in Lean's first success "Oliver Twist", Lean felt that Guiness casting Guiness was added good luck for him. Of course too, Guiness being a great actor did not hurt at all either and indeed played a role in his being cast by Lean in all of his remaining films.

I do think thought that Guiness did a poor job with the role. He looked like a British man in bad make-up. And he just never got under the skin of the character. I know that a number of his scenes were cut out by Lean, but still as much as I love Alec Guiness this is the one film where I think he missed the mark. He would have been much, much better as "Turton". And the role of the Professor would have been much better played by any one of the great old Indian character actors that would have brought far more depth and legitimacy to the role. I think in this case, one really needed to have a real feel for the philosopy and mysticism of this ancient culture in order to pull it off.

I could tell it was Obi Wan Kenobi by his voice. I was surprised because I thought he character was rather useless. If the entire movie was made without him in it, I wouldn't miss him. It's strange because Alec Guiness isn't one to play a minor role, but this is one of them. His role was completely unnecessary to me.