THERE aren’t many ways one can combine entertainment with a travelogue and history course all in one great package . . . unless, of course, they go to the right movie or rent a video or DVD.Choose a standout film production and it can be thought-provoking, educational and possibly inspire your next travel experience.

Obviously one has to search through lists of offerings to come up with just the right combination. But there are real gems waiting. Interestingly, some of the best will include those made in years past.

Perhaps that’s because costs have escalated to the extent that on location filming of such epics as Lawrence of Arabia, Becket nd The Lion In Winter are far too prohibitive today — which makes them all the more treasured by travel-minded movie fans.

Browsing through our voluminous movie files, the number of films we’ve written about and would like to see again could fill several books. But we’ll touch on just a few recently enjoyed again.

Some would question if there’s ever been a more dysfunctional family than that depicted in the award-winning Lion Innter<$>. With Peter O’Toole as King Henry II and Katharine Hepburn his Queen, Eleanor of Aquitane, to describe the action as lively is an understatement.

With his three sons, Richard, John and Geoffrey, deviously plotting and manoeuvring to succeed him, along with the machinations of young King Philip of France, it’s an intriguing glimpse of court life. This was the film debut for both Anthony Hopkins (Richard) and Timothy Dalton (King PhiliCameras<$> got around almost as much in the film as Henry did in his lifetime. Several weeks were spent at Ireland’s Ardmore Studios. Those beach scenes were surprisingly done in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It took three days, all in bitter cold.But major sequences were in France’s Camarague, around the mediaeval walls of Caracassone, Arles’ Abbaye de Montmajour and Chateau Tarascon.

Those dramatic closing sequences, showing Eleanor sailing off for another year of imprisonment in England, were done along the Rhone River near Bouches du Rhone.

And if you think castle interiors look gloomy and life among subjects surrounding the castle less than enchanting, that’s the point. It’s intended to show the ghastly conditions under which people lived in those days.

The film came away with a multitude of Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Hepburn.

Knowing about the often colourful history of the place you’re visiting adds immeasurably to a trip. Visiting Canterbury Cathedral, where Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket was murdered on December 29, 1170, takes on more significance after seeing>Becket<$>.

Again with O’Toole as Henry II, England’s first Plantagenet king, and Richard Burton his partying companion and bourgeois-born minister, who undergoes a transformation in character when appointed Archbishop. Once very worldly and a lavish spender, he changed to a life of piety and austerity.

His resistance to the king’s effort to seize church power led to his murder in Canterbury Cathedral, his canonisation to sainthood, the king’s public penance and mediaeval pilgrimages to his shrine.

All this happened in the 12th century, yet travellers in England today find themselves visiting sites actually familiar to these same historical figures more than 800 years ago. Some were used in the film, others duplicated through use of similar settings. Most are open to the pic.Best place to begin is Canterbury Cathedral itself. In fact, much of Canterbury’s fame — the city is in Kent — is due to its association with Becket. St. Augustine had started an abbey and cathedral there after arriving from Rome in the sixth century because Kent was the most powerful and civilised Anglo-Saxon kingdom. But it was Becket’s murder that caused an international sensation, attracting crowds of pilgrims from across Europe, including France’s Louis VII in 1179.

Those pilgrimages inspired Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales which many of us read in school. The shrine was demolished and Becket’s bones disposed of by Henry VIII in 1538. It stood in what is now Trinity Chapel.

A small slab of stone still marks the spot where Becket fell in the northwest transept, along with a simple plaque. The original blood-stained piece of pavement was cut out and sent to Rome.

Landmarks such as Westminster Abbey and White Tower existed during this time, as did the New Forest where Henry hunted. Some major sites are gone, like Northampton Castle where the trial convicting Becket was held.

But the Norman castle where Sir Ralph de Broc and three other knights met and stayed overnight to plot the crime en route to Canterbury, then returned after the murder, still stands. Saltwood Castle, one mile north of Hythe, later became home of L Clark of Civilisation<$>e.Lincoln’s<$> Castle and Cathedral were already old when Henry had his second coronation there. Three elaborate Norman portals with the sculptured frieze so admired by modern tourists were in place when his procession passed.On my visit two of that cathedral’s major treasures were foundation charter of William the Conqueror and an original of Henry’s son, John I’s Magna Carta. Other locations, such as Kenilworth Castle, are worth a detour, even in partial ruin. It was often visited by Henry.

He also built a castle in Orford, Suffolk to reinforce his power in East Anglia. Today only the large three-towered keep survives, but its size gives viewers some idea of the original’s massive proportions.

Both men also knew Windsor Castle well. While Henry lived there, he added stone walls, turrets and a stone keep still visible today.

In England there is such a feeling for history such events are discussed and preserved as though they happened not centuries ago, but a few yeas ago . . . one reason it has so much to offer history-minded travellers.

Some viewers will recognise Alnwick and Bamburg Castles as film locations, along with the dramatic stretch of Northumberland beach below Bamburg Castle. Staying in the nearby village is a pleasant memory.

When a talk-show host recently suggested listeners re-watch Lawrence of Arabia to better understand historic tribal conflicts in the Middle East, we immediately did just that — for the umpteenth time, I might add.

As someone long intrigued by Lawrence’s role trying to unite tribal factions in that area during World War One, I’d also r and re-read his Seven Pillars of Wisdom <$>covering those events and am doing so again.

There have also been trips to his isolated home at Clouds Hill and Bovington Camp, where he’d enlisted under an assumed name, his grave site, a museum in Dorset’s Wareham and on and on. There’s a haunting fascination about his role in history and efforts even once back in England working on behalf of the Arabs.

Obviously this journalist isn’t about to suggest retracing his fabled life through Jordan at this time, as I’ve had the good fortune to do. But you can visit the stand-in for Aquaba and some other surprisinocations.Those<$> scenes were actually filmed in Almeria, Andalusia, Spain which has miles of seascapes awaiting visitors along its southern coast. Where did producers find such remarkable Middle Eastern-style buildings to stand in for Jerusalem, Cairo and Damascus? The answer is Spain’s very historic, much acclaimed Seville with its dazzling Moorish architecture.The incomparable Alfonso XIII Hotel substituted for the Cairo Officers’ Club, and it definitely deserves a visit. From Allenby and Lawrence’s meeting to Damascus street scenes, you are actually viewing examples of Seville’s very impressively preserved buildings.

When we met in Cairo, Omar Sharif told me: “This film will never age.”

And he’s so right. It took two years and three months to complete and remains as remarkable today as when it won seven academy awards. Incidentally, three of O’Toole’s eight Academy Award nominations as Best Actor were for the movies covered here.

[obox] Next week: Rhodes, island of legends.

Vintage films offer history, scenery and entertainment