Year Released: 1981
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies
(PG, 115 min.)
Genre: Action and Adventure

“Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?” — Indiana Jones

Probably the most perfect popcorn movie ever made, and it has the best opening of all time. This collaboration of the two greats, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, takes us on a thrilling sprint complete with a shy professor who leads a double life, nefarious Nazis, scintillating romance, a mysterious medallion, spiders, melting, rotting, and burning corpses. And did I say snakes?

No CGI in this 1981 classic, and a young Harrison Ford does most of his own stunts. He is complemented by a gutsy female lead way before a politically correct Hollywood mandated them. But these current programed butt-kicking clones are hollow compared to Marion (Karen Allen). She is a real woman and the only one in the early trilogy really worthy of Indiana.

You can say feminist with a capital F and not garner anything like the greeting she gives Indiana, who had broken her heart 10 years earlier. It makes Casablanca’s meeting between Bogart and Bergman seem pale by comparison:

Marion reminds me of a more physical *Portia from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In that play Portia refuses to be shielded from what is tormenting her husband, Brutus.

I remember reading that play in high school, identifying with Portia, and admiring how she used pure logic to counter each of Brutus’s argument to keep her uninformed. Their dialogue is still very powerful, and Marion in her own way is a modern Portia. Sure, Portia doesn’t punch out her husband, but good Stoic that she is, Portia does stab herself in her leg to prove her loyalty.

I grant I am a woman; but withal
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife:
I grant I am a woman; but withal
A woman well-reputed, Cato's daughter.
Think you I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so father'd and so husbanded?
Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em:
I have made strong proof of my constancy,
Giving myself a voluntary wound
Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience.
And not my husband's secrets?

Harrison Ford’s Indiana is a study in contrasts. A by-the-book and even diffident academic archeologist, but a globe-trotting, bullwhip toting adventurer in between semesters. He is brave but vulnerable and has his own fears, as we find out in the opening when he finds a snake in his rescue plane. Of course, we all know that is the setup for the later scene where he and Marion are trapped in a pit of vipers.

In fact, it is Indiana’s character that wooed Spielberg away from producing a James Bond film instead of Raiders, which Lucas was pitching to him:

While building a sand castle on a Hawaiian beach, Spielberg expressed an interest in directing a James Bond film. Lucas convinced his friend Spielberg that he had conceived a character "better than James Bond" and explained the concept of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg loved it, calling it "a James Bond film without the hardware. Empire Film Magazine

That final sentiment is best epitomized in the famous scene where Indiana meets up with a sword-wielding adversary in the marketplace. Who can forget him watching the swordsman put on his impressive display, looking disgusted, and then taking out his pistol to end things. Apparently the original fight was to be much longer, but Ford was not feeling too well the day of the filming:

The gag came about because Harrison Ford was suffering from dysentery and did not want to spend three days filming a "conventional" fight. On the first take, the stuntman Richards "took a minute-and-a-half to die", so on the next take, Ford shot him so quickly that Richards fell over in surprise. Ford would later say he felt sorry for Richards because "he worked so hard on that swordplay.” Red Carpet News

You only have to watch the many inferior imitators it spawned –not to mention the more and more mediocre sequels that continue to diminish the franchise –to realize what a classic Raiders of the Lost Ark is.

Probably because of all the mostly mediocre new films available, Different Drummer has been revisiting some classics from the 80s. Some fail to pass the test of time; recent viewing of Play Misty for Me, and The Big Easy showed them both dated and a bit cheesy,

Not so with Raiders. And this PG rated epic has enough slithering monsters as well as over 7,000 snakes to entertain the whole family.

See it again and mourn what Hollywood used to be.

–Kathy Borich
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Trailer

Film-Loving Foodie

One of the many great scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark is with the little monkey that is a pet of his archeologist friend, Sallah. However, the monkey himself seems to side with the Nazi bad guys, as he lets them know where Marion is hiding inside a barrel in the market place. Well, he gets his just deserts for choosing the bad guys when he eats a bad date.

The audience has watched the houseboy surreptitiously pour some suspect liquid over the dates in the kitchen. And we watch Indie as a he playfully throws a date up into the air before eating it. But before he can catch it, like a gifted outfielder, Sallah intercepts it with the concise explanation, “Bad dates,” pointing to the dead monkey.

Let’s have a less lethal date snack inspired by that scene, and one you might make for a healthy treat.