Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark, also known as
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, is a
1981 adventure film directed by
Steven Spielberg. It was the first released in the Indiana Jones trilogy, but is chronologically the twenty-fourth in the timeline of the film's fictional
protagonist.
The story introduces us to archaeologist and adventurer
Indiana Jones (
Harrison Ford). Jones is a professor of archaeology who is contacted by the government to go on a quest for the
Ark of the Covenant. On his adventure in the film, he is accompanied by
Marion Ravenwood (
Karen Allen) and Sallah (
John Rhys-Davies), but he must also retrieve the ark before the
Nazis and his adversary,
French archaeologist Rene Belloq (
Paul Freeman) acquire it first. The original film sparked waves of interest in old
1930's style
cliffhanger serials, leading to two sequel films, talk of a third, and a
television series "
chronicle" of the lead character, Indiana Jones, as a young man prior to his feature film adventures. It has since become a
cult classic with a huge following.
George Lucas officially started the project in 1977. Like
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, he saw it as an opportunity to create a modern version of the serials of the 1930s and 1940s. The early 1970s had been dominated by action films either with a certain gritty realism, such as the
Dirty Harry series, or that were massive productions with huge casts and elaborate special effects such as
The Poseidon Adventure. By contrast
Raiders of the Lost Ark is
comic book-like in tone, with a glamorous heroine, over-the-top villains, and impressive stunt work combined with moments of comedy. It was also limited in its ambitions as it was shot in only 73 days, the plot is rather straightforward, and there are only a few principal characters.
Lucas had conceived of the idea in discussion with
Philip Kaufman who had worked on a treatment. In a "Making of..." TV special, Lucas said that the mental picture of Indy chasing the truck on horseback, in the style of a western hero chasing a runaway stagecoach, was his initial inspiration for the film. He told his colleague, "I want to see this movie!"
Steven Spielberg had expressed an interest in directing a
James Bond film, but to no avail from
EON Productions, the company that owned the rights to the character. Lucas convinced his friend Spielberg that he had conceived a character "better than James Bond": Indiana Jones. While on holiday in
Hawaii, the pair worked out the basis for the film. At the time, Spielberg's career was suffering due to the expensive bomb
1941 so it was agreed that Lucas would produce and Spielberg would direct. A new
screenplay was commissioned from
Lawrence Kasdan.
Spielberg suggested casting Harrison Ford as Jones, but Lucas objected, stating that he didn't want Ford to become his "
Bobby DeNiro" or "that guy I put in all my movies." Desiring a lesser known actor, Lucas convinced Spielberg to help him search for a new talent, and the actor they both became keen for was
Tom Selleck, who possessed features similar to Ford's and a much larger physical frame. However, Selleck was infamously unavailable for the part because of his commitment to the television series
Magnum, P.I..
Nick Nolte,
Gene Hackman, and
Tim Matheson were also considered for the role of Jones. But in the end, Spielberg convinced Lucas to offer the role to Ford, who accepted.
The scene where Indiana Jones shoots the sword-wielding assassin (played by
Terry Richards) in the market was improvised on the set. Harrison Ford had been suffering from
dysentery and exhaustion due to the extreme heat of
Tunisia during filming. As originally planned, the scene was elaborately choreographed, with Jones facing the expert swordsman and trying to defeat him with just his whip. Some footage of the planned fight was shot (and was seen in at least one of the movie's trailers) but the filming was proving to be very tedious, both for Ford and the crew, and at some point Ford had had enough. Reportedly, he said something to Spielberg along the lines of, "Why don't we just shoot the son of a bitch?" Spielberg liked the idea, scrapped the rest of the fight scene, and filmed the brief sequence of the shooting that appears in the movie. Richards was allegedly so disappointed with the cut that he tried for an extremely hammy death scene. This scene is regarded by many fans as their favorite moment in the film.
Set in
1936, the story begins in the
South American jungle.
Indiana Jones (
Ford) and two local guides are heading to an ancient temple to retrieve a golden
idol. After facing various traps and betrayal by both of his guides, he navigates through the temple and escapes with the idol. However, his rival,
French archaeologist
Rene Belloq (
Paul Freeman), and a small army of natives are waiting outside. Belloq steals the
artifact from Jones, but Jones escapes to a
seaplane waiting nearby.
The film then turns to the American university where Jones teaches. Jones meets with two
US Army intelligence men who explain to Jones and his colleague
Dr. Marcus Brody about an intercepted
Nazi communiqué. The message mentions Professor Ravenwood, Jones's former mentor, and the Staff of
Ra. Jones realizes that the Nazis have discovered the ancient
Egyptian city of
Tanis where the
Pharaoh Shishaq placed the
Ark of the Covenant after stealing it from
Jerusalem. Jones explains that the Ark was placed in the
Well of Souls, but was lost after a
sandstorm buried the city. According to Ravenwood, the Well of Souls can only be found by using the Staff of Ra to focus a beam of sunlight onto a model of Tanis, which is located in a map room. The Nazis are after Ravenwood because he has the headpiece of the staff, a small bronze medallion.
Jones flies to snowy, mountainous
Nepal to speak with
Marion Ravenwood, the professor's daughter, only to find that her father died and that she's reluctant to part with the headpiece. A Nazi agent named
Toht, who has followed Jones to Marion, tries to take the piece from her, but Jones intervenes, and a shootout ensues which eventually burns down Marion's tavern. During the gunfight, Toht's hand is scarred with the face of the medallion after he tries to pick it up, not knowing that it was incredibly heated. Marion forces Jones to let her tag along.
The two fly to
Cairo and meet Jones's friend Sallah, a skilled Egyptian digger and archaeologist. They need help in decoding the markings on the headpiece that specify the height of the staff. While touring Cairo's marketplace, Marion and Jones are ambushed by hired swordsmen. Nazi operatives grab Marion and throw her in a truck, but Jones shoots the driver and the vehicle crashes and explodes. Assuming Marion is dead, Jones heads to a tavern, but instead encounters Belloq and realizes that he is working for the Nazis. Jones tries to shoot the Frenchman, but several
Arabs unveil their guns. Jones is saved by Sallah's children who lead him from the bar. That evening, Sallah takes Jones to an old wiseman who decodes the markings on the headpiece. He notes that one side of the headpiece says that the staff must be shortened. It appears that the Nazis have misread the headpiece (since they only have a copy of one side's markings from the image on Toht's hand). Their staff is too long, and they are digging for the Ark in the wrong location.
Infiltrating the dig, Jones and Sallah enter the map room and discover the location of the Well of Souls. They return to a soldier's camp, and Jones enters a tent to avoid some angry troops. There he finds Marion, alive and tied up. He begins to free her but realizes that her absence will prompt an extensive search of the area and that the Germans will inevitably discover his and the Ark's location. He leaves Marion, promising to return for her once the Ark is secured.
Indy and Sallah gather a small crew of men and begin to dig at the coordinates Indy has calculated. After several hours, they enter the Well of Souls (through the structure's roof). (The buried temple is also infested with deadly
asps and other venomous snakes , including an
egyptian cobra, much to Jones' dismay; he harbors a distinct phobia for snakes.) Sallah joins him, and after finding the Ark they hoist it out of the temple, Sallah close behind. As the Ark is being lifted out of the temple, Belloq and the Germans, led by the sadistic
Col. Dietrich, surround the entrance and seize the Ark. They also throw Marion into the opening, leaving her to die with Jones, and seal the tomb. As their torches burn out, the duo escape by pushing an enormous statue through a weak stone wall. They emerge back aboveground in time to see a
Luftwaffe flying wing being prepared to ship the Ark to
Berlin.
Jones attempts to knock out the pilot, but a burly mechanic (
Pat Roach) stops him. As Jones and the mechanic fight, Marion knocks out the pilot and inadvertently sets the plane rotating. She takes control of the plane's machine gun and fends off some infantrymen, while Indiana's opponent is hit by the propeller and killed. Leaking gasoline from a refuelling truck encircles the plane, and Jones manages to escape with Marion before the plane is ignited and destroyed. Belloq and Dietrich decide to put the Ark on a truck to Cairo, and ship it to Berlin from there. Stealing a horse, Jones pursues the convoy escorting the truck, and in an extended chase sequence seizes control of the vehicle after subduing several vehicles and German soldiers. That evening, Jones and Marion depart from Sallah and escort the Ark to
England onboard the
tramp steamer Bantu Wind.
The next morning, a Nazi
U-boat commandeered by Belloq and Dietrich boards the ship and takes the Ark and Marion. Jones, having hidden himself on the ship, covertly boards the U-boat, and rides it to a secret submarine pen in the
Aegean Sea. Jones steals a soldier's uniform and a rocket launcher, and follows Belloq and the Ark to an isolated canyon. Threatening to destroy the Ark with the rocket launcher, Jones is persuaded by Belloq to surrender, after his bluff is called.
Marion and Jones are tied up and forced to view a ceremony where Belloq and the Germans open the Ark. At first it seems to only contain sand, but a humming sound starts and strange glowing spirits emerge from within. They appear completely harmless, but then they suddenly transform into hideous
manifestations of death. Jones realizes that the spirits must not be viewed, and shuts his eyes after instructing Marion likewise. The Ark proceeds to kill the entire group of Germans and Belloq in especially gruesome ways. After clearing the area and freeing Jones and Marion of their bonds, the Ark closes itself once more with a crack of thunder.
Later, back in Washington D.C., the two Army intelligence representatives tell a suspicious Jones that they are carefully studying the Ark. However, the audience sees that the artifact is instead sealed in a wooden crate and stored in a giant
government warehouse, filled with countless other similar crates.
The $20-million film was a huge success, easily the highest grossing film (earning $210 million approx.) of 1981, and, at the time, one of the highest-grossing movies ever made. According to the 2005 edition of The
World Almanac (from
Variety data), the first two
Star Wars films are the only pictures released prior to 1981 that have out-earned
Raiders.
Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated for eight
Academy Awards in 1982 and won four (Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration). It won numerous other awards including seven
Saturn Awards.[
1]
Following the box office success of
Raiders, two more feature films were produced:
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which is a prequel, and
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which is a sequel. Another sequel, known only as
Indiana Jones 4, is also in pre-production. A TV series, entitled
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, also spun off from this film, and details the early years of the character leading up to this film. Numerous other books, comics and video games have also been produced.
In 1998, the
American Film Institute placed the film at number 60 on its top 100 films of the first century of cinema. In 1999 the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the
United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the
National Film Registry.
An amateur shot-for-shot remake was made by
Chris Strompolos,
Eric Zala and
Jayson Lamb[
2], then children in
Biloxi,
Mississippi. It took the boys seven years to finish, from 1982-1989. It was discovered by
Eli Roth, made famous by
Harry Knowles of
Ain't It Cool News[
3] and acclaimed by Spielberg himself.[
4] After production of the film, called
Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, wrapped in 1989, it was shelved and forgotten until 2003. Spielberg congratulated the boys on their hard work and said he looked forward to seeing their names on the big screen.[
5]
Scott Rudin and
Paramount Pictures have purchased the trio's life rights and will be producing a film based on their adventures making their remake, known as the
Untitled Daniel Clowes Project (2006).[
6]
*
Harrison Ford as
Indiana Jones. Indiana is an adventurous professor and archaeologist, who often embarks on perilous adventures to obtain rare artifacts. He has a romance with Marion Ravenwood, and his arch nemesis is fellow archaeologist Rene Belloq.
*
Karen Allen as
Marion Ravenwood. Marion Ravenwood is Abner Ravenwood's daughter. She is a tough-minded, independent bar owner, who had a past affair with Indiana Jones.
*
Paul Freeman as
Rene Belloq. Jones' arch nemesis, Belloq is also an archaeologist after the Ark, but he is working for the Nazis. He intends to harness the power of the Ark himself before
Hitler, but he is killed by the supernatural powers of the Ark after opening it.
*
John Rhys-Davies as
Sallah. Sallah is "the best digger in Egypt", and has been hired by the Nazis to help them excavate Tanis. He is an old friend of Indiana Jones, and helps him obtain the Ark.
*
Denholm Elliot as
Marcus Brody. Marcus is a museum curator, and buys whatever artifacts Indiana obtains for display in his museum.
*
Ronald Lacey as
Arnold Toht. Toht is an interrogator for the Nazis, who tries to torture Marion Ravenwood for the headpiece of the Staff of Ra. He only manages to obtain one side of it through a burn in his hand. He is killed by the supernatural powers of the Ark.
*
Wolf Kahler as
Colonel Dietrich. Dietrich is a ruthless Nazi officer leading the operation to secure the Ark. He is killed by the supernatural powers of the Ark.
*
Anthony Higgins as
Gobler. He is Colonel Dietrich's assistant, also killed by the Ark.
*
Alfred Molina as
Satipo. Satipo is one of Jones's guides through the South American jungle. He betrays Jones and steals the golden idol, but subsequently killed by one of the traps in the temple.
*
Vic Tablian as
Barranca and
Monkey Man. Barranca is one of Jones's guides through the South American jungle, but early on he tries to shoot Jones. Jones stops him and he runs away, but soon after he's killed by natives. The Monkey Man is a one-eyed spy for the Nazis, who employs an intelligent
monkey to keep track of Jones. He tries to kill Jones by poisoning a bowl of dates, but instead kills his monkey.
*
William Hootkins as
Major Eaton. Eaton is one of the Army Intelligence operatives who enlists Jones to find and capture the Ark.
*
Don Fellows as
Colonel Musgrove. Musgrove is one of the Army Intelligence operatives who enlists Jones to find and capture the Ark.
Raiders Of The Lost Ark's soundtrack is most notable for featuring the rousing and iconic song "The Raiders March" that came to symbolize Indiana Jones. The tune was composed by
John Williams. The score also featured three other prominent themes: the grand yet mysterious "Ark Theme", a theme associated with Marion, and the loud, pompous Nazi March. The score would receive an Oscar nomination for best original score, but would lose to
Vangelis' electro-synth based score for "
Chariots of Fire".
The only
video game based exclusively on this movie is
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Atari 2600), released in 1982 by
Atari for their
Atari 2600 console.
The first third of the video game
Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures , released in 1994 by JVC for
Nintendo's
Super Nintendo Entertainment System is based entirely on the film. Several sequences from the film are reproduced (the boulder run and the showdown with the Cairo Swordsman among them); however, several odd anachronisms make their way into the game as well, such as Nazi soldiers and bats being present in the Well of Souls sequence, for example. The game was developed by LucasArts and Factor 5.
|
DVD box cover of renamed Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. |
For its 1999
VHS re-issue, and the subsequent
DVD release four years later, the outer package has been retitled
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, the title in the film itself remains unchanged, even in the restored DVD print. The newer video boxes of the movie on
VHS and
DVD are titled in order to correlate with the film's prequel and sequel.
* In the opening scene, the rolling boulder booby trap was inspired by the 1954
Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge adventure "The Seven Cities of Cibola" (Uncle Scrooge #7). The movie plot is also similar (and probably inspired as well) to many Carl Barks "Uncle Scrooge" comic books, which were often center around journey for a famous (historical/legendary) treasure. In fact one episode of "
Duck Tales" (a series based on the Uncle Scrooge comic books) is title "The Riders of the Lost Harp".
*
Comic book artist
Jim Steranko was commissioned to produce original illustrations for pre-production, which heavily influenced Spielberg's decisions in both the look of the film and the character of Indiana Jones himself.
*In the scene where Jones threatens to destroy the ark, he's holding a Soviet RPG, which didn't appear until well after the war. He should be using either an anti-tank rifle or a rifle-fired grenade, since the film takes place years before the outbreak of the Second World War.
*The scene in which Jones threatens Belloq with a rocket propelled grenade was shot in the exact same Tunisian canyon where George Lucas shot a scene involving
Tusken Raiders attacking
Luke Skywalker in his film
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977).
*Later in the scene, when Belloq is negotiating with the Panzerschreck-toting Jones, it appears that a fly crawls into actor Paul Freeman's mouth. In the DVD version, however, you can see it fly off at the moment it "enters" his mouth.
*
Pat Roach, the actor who played the large mechanic with whom Jones brawls in the famous plane sequence was seen as such a formidable physical opponent for Jones that he returned in both
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in similar roles as huge, burly fistfighters.
*In the airplane scene, a drivechain can be seen turning the plane's undercarriage.
*In the scene where Indiana Jones is lifting the Ark of the Covenant out of its holding place in the Well of Souls, one of the
hieroglyphs is meant to resemble
Star Wars characters
C-3PO and
R2-D2.
*When Indiana Jones is breaking out of the Well of Souls, he shoves a heavy stone block out of the wall. The sound effects and shadow indicate the block bounced - on desert sand.
*The U-boat scenes were shot at
La Rochelle, both outside the harbour and inside the U-boat bunkers there, built by the Germans in 1942. Filming was done here due to the need to obtain a U-boat to film with — the film "borrowed" the U-boat that was being prepared for filming
Das Boot.
*The film was originally set to be rated R by the
MPAA because, during the climax where the Nazis who look at the Ark die, there is a visual of an exploding head. After it was partially obscured behind a column of fire, the rating was lowered to PG (there was no PG-13
at the time).
*During the Well of Souls scene, when Indiana stares down the cobra, the snake's reflection is visible in the glass separating the two to prevent the cobra from actually harming any of the actors (the reflection was digitally removed for the 2003 DVD release).
*There were three stunt doubles for Harrison Ford, the primary one being British born stunt man
Vic Armstrong, who reportedly resembled Ford to the degree that people off camera often mistook him for the real Ford. But Ford fought to do much of the fights and stunts himself, arguing there wouldn't have been much else for him to do if he wasn't in the thick of it.
*
IndianaJones.com, the official site
*
IndyGear.com, Information and discussion on the official costume
*
The Indiana Jones Wiki*
TheIndyExperience.com,
*
IndyFan.com*
Indy-Net.co.uk*
Keith Short - Film Sculptor Sculpted the Ark for this film
*
The Raider.net - Making of the film*
Karen Allen: An ACME Page - includes a Raiders page*
Roger Ebert's
review*
An interview with Richard Anderson about the Sound Design and Sound Editing of the film "Raiders of the Lost Ark"*
The Spoilers Alternate DVD Commentary of Raiders of the Lost Ark with
Jonathan Coulton
