Raiders of the Lost Ark
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| Raiders of the Lost Ark | |
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| Directed by | Steven Spielberg |
| Written by | George Lucas, Philip Kaufman, Lawrence Kasdan |
| Starring | Harrison Ford Karen Allen |
| Produced by | Howard Kazanjian, George Lucas, Frank Marshall |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date | 12 June 1981 |
| Runtime | 115 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $20,000,000 |
| IMDb page | |
Raiders of the Lost Ark, also known as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, is a film released by Paramount Pictures in 1981. Directed by Steven Spielberg, it is a fantasy adventure and the first released, though the twenty-fourth, chronologically, in a series of film and TV productions about the adventures of the heroic fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones.
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Plot summary
The story introduces us to archeologist, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). Jones is a professor of archeology and also acquires artifacts for Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott), who works for a museum. On his adventure in the film, he is accompanied by Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies). His adversary is Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman).
Set in 1936, the story begins with Jones's journey into the South American jungle with a few local guides to find a hidden temple that houses a golden idol head. Jones avoids various traps, his betrayal by both his guides, and, in one memorable and much-parodied scene, a giant rolling boulder that chases him out of the temple. Waiting for him outside is his old enemy, French archeologist Rene Belloq, and a small army of natives. Belloq steals the idol from Jones, who barely escapes in his nearby float plane.
Back at the American university where he teaches, two US Army intelligence men summon Jones into the auditorium along with Marcus, head of the department and a good friend of Jones. The men explain that the US has intercepted a cryptic Nazi message that mentions a Prof. Ravenwood being under the scrutiny of German intelligence. Jones, a former student of Ravenwood, helps interpret the message as an indication that the Nazis are close to finding the Ark of the Covenant — a golden and jeweled chest constructed under the guidance of God and Moses that housed the remnants of the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Legends imply that Hitler could use the Ark to render his rising army invincible.
The Germans believe that Ravenwood has the headpiece of the Staff of Ra needed to pinpoint the Ark's resting place. The headpiece is a golden disk that, when affixed to the top of a staff of a specific height, focuses a beam of sunlight on to a model of Tanis (an ancient Egyptian city) and thus reveals the Ark's location. According to Ravenwood, the Pharaoh Shishaq stole the Ark from Jerusalem but then buried it in the desert sands of his capital city, Tanis, in the Well of Souls.
Jones flies to snowy, mountainous Nepal to speak with Marion Ravenwood, the professor's tough-minded and independent 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 by threatening her with a hot iron. Marion teams up with Jones, following a shootout between him and Toht's hired thugs in Marion's tavern. The pair drive off the assailants, although Toht inadvertantly brands the markings of one side of the headpiece on his palm when he tries to grab it when it is red hot. Jones and Marion fly to Cairo and meet Jones's friend Sallah, a skilled Egyptian digger and archeologist, to find help in decoding the markings in the headpiece that specify the height of the staff needed to hold the headpiece.
While touring about Cairo's markets, Marion and Jones are chased by hired swordsmen. Nazi operatives grab Marion and throw her in a truck, but the vehicle crashes and explodes when Jones shoots the driver with his pistol. Fearing that Marion was most likely killed in the blast, Jones in a rage encounters Belloq once more in a Cairo tavern and wishes to kill him despite Belloq's sermon about the Ark's wonders. Sallah and his children rescue Jones from Belloq's bodyguards.
That evening, Sallah takes Jones to an old wiseman who decodes the markings. He notes that one side of the headpiece says that the staff must be shortened out of respect for the Hebrew. It appears that the Nazis have misread the headpiece (since they only have a copy of one side's markings). Their staff is too long, and they are thus digging for the Ark in the wrong place.
Infiltrating the dig, Jones and Sallah use the headpiece in the map room to then find the Ark deep within the snake-infested Well of Souls. Belloq and the Germans, led by the sadistic Col. Dietrich and his assistant Gobler, surround the entrance, take the Ark, and leave Jones and Marion to die in the snake-infested pit. They escape though a weak stone wall and arrive in time to see a Luftwaffe plane being prepared to ship the Ark to Berlin.
After attempting to stop the pilot, Jones gets entangled in a fight with a muscular soldier (Pat Roach) around the spinning propellers of the plane. Marion knocks out the pilot and fends off some infantrymen with the plane's machine gun while Jones hides his face when his opponent is torn apart by a propeller. Gasoline leaking from a bowser ignites and destroys the plane, causing Belloq and Dietrich to put the Ark on a truck instead.
Stealing a horse, Jones chases the truck convoy, he manages to take the wheel of the truck, throw the passengers off the back, fend off the other support vehicles, and escape, all in a rather dramatic chase scene. Retaking the Ark, Jones and Marion depart from a happy Sallah and sail with it on a ship bound for England.
A Nazi U-boat with Belloq and Dietrich stops the ship and takes the Ark and Marion, but Jones covertly boards the U-boat. It docks at a submarine pen on an island in the Aegean Sea, where Jones steals a soldier's uniform. Threatening to destroy the Ark with a rocket launcher, Jones is soon convinced by Belloq to surrender, giving in to his own deep desires as an archeologist to see the Ark's contents.
Marion and Jones are tied up and forced to view a ceremony where Belloq opens the Ark in front of a group of German soldiers. Strange and mysterious spirits emerge, killing Belloq (whose head explodes), Dietrich (who dries up like a raisin), Toht (who literally melts), the soldiers, and evaporating their souls into the afterlife. Jones and Marion are spared because Jones realizes that the spirits must not be viewed and shuts his eyes and instructs Marion likewise. The couple thus escape the wrath of the Ark.
Later, back in Washington D.C., the two Army intelligence representatives tell Jones that "top men" are studying the Ark, but in a dramatic irony the Ark is sealed in a wooden crate and stored in a giant government warehouse filled with countless other similar crates.
Cast listing
| Actor/Actress | Role(s) |
|---|---|
| Harrison Ford | Indiana Jones |
| Karen Allen | Marion Ravenwood |
| Paul Freeman | Dr. Rene Belloq |
| Ronald Lacey | Major Toht |
| John Rhys-Davies | Sallah |
| Denholm Elliott | Dr. Marcus Brody |
| Alfred Molina | Satipo |
| Wolf Kahler | Colonel Dietrich |
| Anthony Higgins | Gobler |
| Vic Tablian | Barranca/Monkey Man |
| Don Fellows | Col. Musgrove |
| William Hootkins | Major Eaton |
| Bill Reimbold | Bureaucrat |
| Fred Sorenson | Jock |
| Patrick Durkin | Australian Climber |
| Matthew Scurfield | 2nd Nazi |
| Malcolm Weaver | Ratty Nepalese (as Malcom Weaver) |
| Sonny Caldinez | Mean Mongolian |
| Anthony Chinn | Mohan |
| Pat Roach | Giant Sherpa/1st Mechanic |
| Christopher Frederick | Otto |
| Tutte Lemkow | Imam |
| Ishaq Bux | Omar |
| Kiran Shah | Abu |
| Souad Messaoudi | Fayah |
| Terry Richards | Arab Swordsman |
| Steve Hanson | German Agent |
| Frank Marshall | Pilot |
| Martin Kreidt | Young Soldier |
| George Harris | Katanga |
| Eddie Tagoe | Messenger Pirate |
| John Rees | Sergeant |
| Tony Vogel | Tall Captain |
| Ted Grossman | Peruvian Porter |
| Peter Diamond | German Soldier (uncredited) |
| Romo Gorrara | German Soldier (uncredited) |
| Barrie Holland | Archivist (uncredited) |
| Dennis Muren | Nazi Spy on the Airplane (uncredited) |
| Glenn Randall Jr. | Flying Wing Mechanic (uncredited) |
| Michael Sheard | U-Boat Captain (uncredited) |
Crew listing
- Direction: Steven Spielberg
- Cast: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey, John Rhys-Davies, Alfred Molina, and Denholm Elliott
- Writing credits: George Lucas (story), Philip Kaufman (story) and Lawrence Kasdan (screenplay)
- Composer: John Williams
- Editor: Michael Kahn
- Sound effects editor: Richard L. Anderson, who included the Wilhelm scream in the film
- Producers: Howard Kazanjian, George Lucas, Frank Marshall, Robert Watts
Production
George Lucas originally became involved in 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. Raiders was conceived by Paramount Pictures as a star vehicle for Tom Selleck but he was not available due to a commitment to star in the American television show Magnum, P.I., so Harrison Ford was cast instead.
Reaction
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.
The box office success of the film led to a prequel — Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and a sequel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).
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.
A fourth, as yet title-less, movie is apparently in pre-production for 2006. The Indiana Jones franchise eventually expanded to books, games, a television series, and even theme park attractions. (See Indiana Jones for more information.)
Awards
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.
Home video release issues
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 likely titled Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark in order to correlate with the film's prequels and sequels.
Trivia
- In the classroom scene near the beginning of the film, a male student leaves an apple for Professor Indiana Jones among the crowd of adoring female students.
- The gag where Indiana Jones shoots the sword-wielding assassin 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, and at some point Ford had had enough. It has been widely reported that he said to Spielberg, "Why don't we just shoot the fucker?" Spielberg liked the idea, scrapped the rest of the fight scene, and filmed the brief sequence of the shooting that appears in the movie.
- The scene in which Jones threatens Belloq with a Panzerfaust was shot in the exact same Tunisian canyon where George Lucas shot a scene involving Tusken Raiders attacking Luke Skywalker in his Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977).
- When Belloq is negotiating with the Panzerfaust-toting Jones, you can see a fly go into actor Paul Freeman's 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 plane scene, a drivechain can be seen turning the planes undercarriage.
- In the scene where Indiana Jones is lifting the Ark of the Covenent 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.
External links
- IndianaJones.com, the official site
- The Indiana Jones Wiki
- TheIndyExperience.com,
- Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Internet Movie Database
- Indy-Net.co.uk
- The Raider.net
- Roger Ebert's Great Movies review of Raiders of the Lost Ark [1]
| Indiana Jones TV series/films |
