Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Righteo people, hope you had a good bank holiday weekend. This week we’re kicking off with a bit of an Indiana Jones special, the last week (and the rest!) has been absolute Indy mania across the globe and what better way to start the week than pay homage to one of the greatest action heroes of our time.
The first of the now four Indiana Jones feature films was made before I was born but somehow I still managed to remember a lot about the film from when I was a child. I was brought up watching Indy, like many of us, on the ITV weekend repeats every so often back in the 80’s and 90’s. I loved the character and the adventure; I was always into puzzles and watching Indiana Jones try to manoeuvre through temples and ancient relics always made me smile. It opened up my mind to actually believe I too could be an archaeologist who could find long lost treasure that “needs to be in a museum”!
Indiana Jones when he attempts to replace the statue with a bag of sand!
Raiders kicks off with probably one of the most memorable scenes of all of the films put together, Indy a jungle with Alfred “Doc Ock” Molina searching for a golden statue. When they find it, we see the classic Harrison Ford victorious grin, until he realises he’s just set off a trap and now he needs to run! In the process of escaping this deadly tomb he gets betrayed by Satipo (Molina) and left for dead. Miraculously fighting his way out of the pickle in true Indiana Jones fashion he passes a now dead Satipo on his way out and encounters the evil Belloq (Paul Freeman), the foe that causes most of the problems for the duration of his journey in pursuit of the Ark of the Covenant.
The film is probably the most loved of the quadrilogy, with such memorable scenes underground when Indy finds the Ark only to lose his grip on it when Belloq finds him. This leads to both Indy and Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) getting trapped with hundreds, if not thousands of snakes. This scene itself pretty much sums up the classic mix of humour and action/adventure that we have all came to love about the Indiana Jones films.
In his pursuit of the Ark, Jones finds himself escaping the caves, blowing up aeroplanes and catching a ride on a submarine to an island where Belloq and the Nazis want to open the Ark in the hope of finding the tablets on which Moses made the covenant with God.
The final scenes lead to a crescendo of what can only be described as God’s wrath and in classic B-movie fashion Spielberg pulls off some old school (but no doubt breakthrough at the time) effects to create a truly nostalgic 1930’s feel.
On recent viewing (in readiness for the new instalment), the closing scene at the warehouse was reminiscent of a closing scene in an X-Files episode. Events in the fourth film made more sense when thinking back to this very scene in the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
And for your DVD needs…
 Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark - Special Edition DVD |