THE INDISPENSIBLES - #5: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
You all know I worship the ground that Tom Selleck walks on. You all know that I will look for every excuse to work my love of Magnum P.I into every conversation right? You all even know that I use the ‘Selleck-adoration’ as my excuse as to why I have Three Men & A Baby and Three Men & A Little Lady in my DVD Collection. So believe that the following truly comes from the heart…
We all know that the role of Indiana Jones was written with him in mind, the role was his for the taking, but contractual commitments to the “greatest show of the 80s” meant he couldn’t take the part. However, as much as I adore the dude – in a total heterosexual manner I hasten to add – whilst watching his screen test included on the Bonus DVD within the Indiana Jones DVD Boxset, I came to realise something:
As much as I love Tom Selleck as an actor, I love Raiders of the Lost Ark even more. And this film would not be what it is today and as much loved as it is, if Selleck hadn’t stepped aside and let Harrison Ford take up the role.
There! I said it! Now I’ll step down as Chairman of The Tom Selleck Fan Club.
Director Steven Spielberg and producer, George Lucas, were hiding out on a beach in Hawaii (it was there they met Selleck whilst he filmed Magnum P.I and got along with him so well they built the role of Indiana Jones for him!) in the summer of 1977 as Star Wars was released and Lucas was so convinced it was going to flop that he felt he had to leave the country. There they conceived the idea of ‘throwaway’ spin on the Saturday matinee serials they both enjoyed as children; a whip-yielding, dashing, fist-throwing, lady-loving archaeologist. However, they were also somewhat responsible for the school bully feeling inspired to whip your bare backside whilst you tried to change after PE and he whistled John Williams’ now-legendary theme tune. So it’s not all good, as it’s kind of a “thank you but fuck you” sort of situation huh?
The film begins in the year 1936 and Adolf Hitler has hatched a plan to seize the fabled Lost Ark of the Covenant – an alleged resting place of the original Ten Commandments as well as a devastatingly powerful supernatural weapon – because he believes that “an army which carries the ark before it is invincible”. As he sends out his army to dig up the deserts of Cairo to find it, the US government call in Doctor ‘Indiana’ Jones (Harrison Ford), legendary “professor of archaeology, expert on the occult and obtainer of rare antiquities” to head off the Nazis and find the ark before they do. With the help of his ex-fling, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) an Egyptian digger, ‘Indiana’ Jones begins a globetrotting battle with the fate of the free world resting in his hands.
The final result is one of the most exhilarating examples of action/adventure cinema that an audience has ever seen. Its pre-credits sequence alone is a master class in sound, editing and establishing a breakneck sense of pace that we assume, incorrectly, cannot be sustained for the whole of the running time. Just look at the set piece involving a few Nazi trucks, Indiana Jones and a horse! It is quite possibly the greatest moment in action movie history!
However, just like with Jaws, if the production was anything to go by, the chances of this film actually getting completed let alone turning out any good, were not that great. Despite finishing production eleven days ahead of schedule, early on-set signals were ominous to say the least:
Everyone, bar Spielberg (who avoided sickness by eating only tinned spaghetti that he had packed into a spare suitcase), took ill on location in Tunisia. It was as a result of this, unfortunate disposition that, as we all know, the now legendary face-off between Indy and the Arab Guard (played by the late Auf Wiedersehen Pet actor/ex-wrestler Pat Roach, who appears again later in the film as the bald Nazi guard fist-fighting with Indy underneath the out of control plane) came to be. A complicated and thoroughly choreographed swordfight/fist-fight had been planned between the two but Ford, ravaged by diarrhoea, turned to Spielberg on set and said “How about I just shoot the fucker?” A classic scene was born… out of nothing more than a bout of the squits! How cool is that?
While Ford is perfect in the role, the locations are indeed sumptuous, the special effects breathtaking for the time and the cinematography equally as dazzling, the real success of Raiders of the Lost Ark really does lie in its conception and delivery at the hands of Spielberg directing as nigh-on perfectly in terms of tone and delivery as you can get, Lucas and his imagining of the majority of the film’s set pieces and sense of frantic pacing and Lawrence Kasdan for the final screenplay, culled from Lucas’ synopsis and Spielberg’s random demands to “have a submarine in it” and a “truck chase” and “snakes, lots of snakes”.
We may know all the silly little bits of trivia relating to the behind-the-scenes antics inside out. We may have seen it a ridiculous amount of times when it is thrown out annually by the BBC as scheduling-filler (in its much censored form please note! The remastered DVD release is now the only acceptable way you should view the film, in all its full, uncut glory!) and we may know every line of dialogue and every movement of plot and action like the back of our hands. But it doesn’t stop us adoring it, rewatching it and worshipping it as one of the true, timeless action movies of the genre.
With accompanying, and more than worthy, franchise entries (in the form of Temple of Doom and Last Crusade) rounding it into a franchise, the weight of Raiders of the Lost Ark‘s excellence can be evidenced by the fact that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull didn’t, and couldn’t, sully it in the same way that many believe Rocky and Rambo sequels have done to the majestic originals.
Oh Part 4, how you infuriate me so!
Related Posts:
- [Retro Review] RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
- THE INDISPENSIBLES - #23: PARADISE LOST / REVELATIONS: PARADISE LOST 2
- THE INDISPENSIBLES - #3: ROCKY
- THE INDISPENSIBLES - #2: JAWS
- THE INDISPENSIBLES - #17: SWINGERS
2 Responses to “THE INDISPENSIBLES - #5: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK”
I was skeptical of Selleck as Indy first but when I saw the screen test I thought he wasn’t half bad as Indy and probably would’ve done a good job as him. Maybe notas good as Ford, but good nonetheless.
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