A Review of "Raiders of the Lost Ark"

"Alright Mr. Ford, smile! Now... hold still while we paint this out meticulously..."

In the words of the Terminator, in well... Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, unfortunately... I'm back. That's right, after just two days shy of two whole years of absence, I'm dusting off my blog and firing 'er back up again. For those of you who never left, kisses. For those of you who did leave... uh, I'm not sure what to say because you're not here anymore. BUT... I'll bet you're wondering where I've been this whole time? Dead? You wish! Just kidding... but in all honesty, I had a podcast I was focusing a lot of time and creativity on, which took time away from this blog of mine. For the past nearly two years it's been on... You can search "The Six Pack of Randomness" and listen to all 71 episodes, which are currently streaming... but it has since wrapped up... and I was wondering how to fill my time again.

I thought for a second. Didn't I have something that used to fill my time? Indeed I did... and you guessed it, I am here, back again for more shenanigans and movie-talk. I needed a truly immaculate post to kickstart the blog back up again and get rollin'. I was looking for something that could carry that sort of gravitas... and what better time and how topical it would  be to do Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not only my pick for top adventure film of all time, not only one of my favorite movies of all time (I named it my third all-time favorite movie years ago here), and not only a candidate for best action movie of all time... but with the recent drop of the trailer for Indiana Jones 5... now dubbed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny... I figured what better time than to go back to one of my childhood's favorite movies of all time. I'm serious, I did a search in my blog for the word "Raiders" and that alone netted eleven previous posts. "Indiana Jones" netted me six. I talk about this movie... all the damn time. Let's review and enjoy Raiders of the Lost Ark... later renamed Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark so it fits in with the rest of the series that came afterwards. It's a movie that teaches us Hitler enjoyed the occult and collecting magical religious artifacts from the Bible... even at the expense of incurring God's wrath... oh and Indiana Jones himself bounces around from time to time too.

Alright Indy, remember your training. "If you
see an Idol, pick it up, and all the day you'll
have good luck!"... No, that wasn't it.

The film takes place in 1936. In one of the most iconic, eerie, and action-packed opening sequences in motion-picture history, American archaeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) recovers a golden idol from a booby-trapped Peruvian temple. Rival archaeologist René Belloq (Paul Freeman) corners him and steals the idol; Jones escapes Belloq and the natives in a waiting seaplane bound for the States. Right away, you're on the edge of your seat, and every moment has since become iconic. The treacherous walk on a booby-trapped pathway, Indy studying the idol, the rolling ball that chases him down the cave... Hollywood royalty this opening sequence is. Not only that, but strangely enough the golden idol never comes up again. Much like James Bond films, which was director Steven Spielberg's and producer/story man George Lucas's inspiration for Indy... the opening adventure has little to no bearing on the ensuing plot. Instead, it was like an opening act at a rock concert... now we're onto the main course!

After returning to the United States, Jones is briefed by two Army Intelligence agents that Nazi German forces are excavating at Tanis, Egypt, and one of their telegrams mentions Jones' old mentor Abner Ravenwood. Jones deduces that the Nazis seek the Ark of the Covenant... the sacred Golden chest which the Hebrews carried the Ten Commands in after Moses brought them down from Mount Horeb... "Any'a you guys ever go to Sunday school?" quips Indy. Ha. With these tablets, Adolf Hitler believes will make the Nazi army invincible, something Indy's compatriot at his university Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot) echoes. The agents recruit Jones to recover the Ark before the Nazis to prevent Germany's global takeover. After an iconic Indiana Jones map travel scene... we find ourselves at a bar in Nepal, where Jones reunites with Ravenwood's daughter Marion (Karen Allen)—with whom Jones once had an illicit relationship—and learns Ravenwood is dead. The bar is set ablaze during a scuffle with Gestapo agent Arnold Toht (Ronald Lacey), who arrives to take a medallion from Marion. Toht attempts to recover the medallion from the flames, but only burns its image into his hand. Jones and Marion take the medallion and escape to Egypt, with Marion declaring she is now Jones' partner on the adventure.

Alright Indy, remember your training. "The bigger
they hit, the harder I fall?" Doesn't sound right,
but it sure is true. Ouch...

Traveling to Cairo, the pair meet Jones's friend Sallah (John Rhys-Davies). Sallah reveals Belloq is assisting the Nazis, who have fashioned an incomplete replica medallion from the burns on Toht's hand. Nazi soldiers and mercenaries attack Jones in town... right away resulting in another iconic sequence, and Marion is seemingly killed, leaving Jones despondent. An imam for Jones and Sallah deciphers the medallion for Jones, revealing that one side bears a warning against disturbing the Ark, and the other bears the correct measurements for the "staff of Ra", an item used to locate the Ark. Jones and Sallah realize that the Nazis are digging in the wrong location dude to Toht's hand only having one side of the medallion. Together,  theyinfiltrate the Nazi dig site, and use the medallion and the correctly-sized staff of Ra to locate the Well of Souls, the Ark's resting place. Over the course of the night... they recover the Ark—a golden, intricately decorated chest—but Belloq and the Nazis discover them and seize it before they can escape with it. Jones and Marion—whom Belloq has held captive—are sealed inside the well, but the pair escape after finding a hole in a wall.

What I'm about to describe next are, once again back-to-back action sequences that have since their debut in this film have become legendary scenes in Hollywood history. The first is when Indy and Marion discover the Ark is being loaded onto a Nazi "Flying Wing" plane... and try to hijack it. An oversized brute mechanic finds Indy fascinating and becomes obsessed with fist-fighting him. While Indy gets his ass handed to him by the giant mechanic, Marion takes control of the grounded plane... now spinning in circles on one landing gear, and guns down a truck full of Nazis. As the truck explodes, its fire lights a trail of spilt gasoline that runs along the ground towards the plane. Jones tricks the mechanic into getting shredded in the plane's propeller and he and Marion escape the Flying Wing before it explodes. Now... *whew*... that was a lot, right? Well we're not done yet. Now Sallah has found Indy and Marion, and tells them the Ark, instead, is being loaded onto a truck for Cairo. Indy mounts a horse and leaps onto the truck mid-transit, fighting every Nazi that opposes him, running over one, and running Belloq, Dietrich (Wolf Kahler), and Toht off the road in the road in the process. Back to back stellar action sequences. Harrison Ford also did all of his own stunts for the movie as well, including the fist fights, truck leaping, and climbing under the truck and getting dragged behind it. Total. Badass.

"Boy, this guy looks tough. Better enter a cheat
code... NRA4Evr *pistol spawned*... ah, there
we go! God I love video games!"

Alongside Marion, Jones arranges to transport the Ark to London aboard a tramp steamer. A German U-boat intercepts the steamer and seizes the Ark and Marion; Jones covertly boards the U-boat. Again, in yet another triumphant scene, Indy swims to it with the crew saluting him in the background. The vessel travels to an island in the Aegean Sea, where Belloq intends to test the power of the Ark before presenting it to Hitler. On the island, Jones ambushes the Nazi group and threatens to destroy the Ark, but surrenders after Belloq deduces that Jones would never destroy something so historically significant, also surmising that Jones wants to know if the Ark's power is real. Later that evening on the island, the Nazis restrain Jones and Marion at the testing site as Belloq embellishes in a Jewish ceremony as he opens the Ark but finds only sand inside. At Jones' instruction, he and Marion close their eyes to avoid looking at the opened Ark, as it releases spirits, flames, and bolts of energy that kill Belloq, Toht, and the assembled Nazis before sealing itself shut. The power of God that is used to kill the Nazis is one wild scene and yet another glorious exercise in practical special effects. Toht's head melts (the best example...), Dietrich's head shrinks, and Belloq's head blows up. If you want to see a cool behind the scenes video bit on how the effect for Toht's head melting was done, I have one here. After the Ark's (and quite frankly God's) power destroys the Nazis... Jones and Marion open their eyes to find the area cleared of bodies and their bindings removed. At the conclusion of the film, back in Washington, D.C., the United States government rewards Jones for securing the Ark. Despite Jones' insistence, the agents state only that the Ark has been moved to an undisclosed location for "top men" to study. Ah yes, very "United States of America" of them. Elsewhere... inside of a large secret government warehouse, the Ark is crated up and stored among countless other crates containing what I can only imagine to be thousands of other Indiana Jones adventures that we'll never see, while the jubilant music plays us out to the end credits.

Crap... that "boy who lived" nerd would really
come in handy right now.

What can I say about Raiders of the Lost Ark that hasn't been said over the last forty years? First of all, Harrison Ford absolutely nailed this role, and the stunts that had to go with it. After playing Bob Falfa in American Graffiti... George Lucas didn't want Harrison for Star Wars and only wanted new faces, electing only to use Ford after he read lines with the other actors so well as Han Solo. After Star Wars, Lucas again didn't want to use Ford for Indiana Jones and wanted instead to use new faces... only for Spielberg and Lucas to pick Ford again after what I can only imagine was a no-brainer conclusion they reached. Secondly, the sets, themes, supporting characters, imagery, and settings have all become the paradigms for not only the future installments of the franchise, but also other adventure movies as well. Setting a common theme by including jungles, deserts, temples stocked to the brim with booby-traps that the adventurer character has to jump, tuck and roll, and dance around. I maintain Raiders of the Lost Ark while not the original to do all this, certainly became the grand-daddy archetype as it was a tribute film to action-adventure serials of the 1930s that Lucas and Spielberg loved so much as kids. Right down to Indiana Jones' whip, an uncommon and out-of-the-ordinary choice for the hero's main weapon... a bullwhip, but again, has since this film become a staple of the adventurer in a fedora template for a main hero. Again, it all comes back to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

This is what I imagine I'm doing when I used
to stand in a shopping mall and read the directory
for the store I wanted.

What I also love so much about this movie is again the action sequences and how well each moment plays out and feeds into the next. Take the Flying Wing fight sequence for example. Indy jumps on the plane gets the attention of a small mechanic. He starts fighting that small mechanic, which gets the attention of the big mechanic. Indy jumps off the plane to shall we say "appease" the big mechanic's demand for fisticuffs, allowing Marion to whack the distracted pilot over the head with the wheel blocks. The pilot, unconscious, falls onto the controls which sends the plane into a slow, steady roll in circles on the tarmac. The plane's wing hits one of the nearby fuel trucks and starts spilling gas on the ground. A truck full of soldiers shows up. Marion uses the tail gun to gun them all down and in her haste, blows up a collection of oil and gas drums. The fire hits the gasoline and starts running along the ground. Indy and the mechanic, meanwhile, end their fight as the distracted mechanic gets eviscerated by one of the plane's propellers as it spins into him. Indy shoots the canopy open, frees Marion, and the two escape as the fire hits the gas truck, blowing it and the Flying Wing plane to smithereens. Absolutely righteous scene, and a lot of times I'll just watch this scene alone on YouTube. This, the street fight, and the opening temple run are all so exemplary that Disney World's Hollywood Studios theme park created an attraction called Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular... a live stage show where they pseudo-showcase the filmmaking and stuntwork that goes into choregraphing and shooting scenes like those. I get giddy every time I get to check it out.

The story also contains some brands of humor. While not leaning on the comedic stylings as hard until Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (coming soon), there's a scene in the street fight early on after Indy and Marion meet Sallah and arrive in Cairo. Indy finds himself face to face with a scimitar-wielding sherpa. Instead of engaging in a big fight with him, Indy just takes his revolver and guns him down in the street, all exhausted. This actually is worth a mild chuckle in the film, but it has a behind-the-scenes story. Harrison Ford was supposed to use his whip to get the sword out of his attacker's hands and have a full-on brawl like a video game "final boss", but the food poisoning he and the rest of the crew had gotten made him too sick to perform the stunt. After several unsuccessful tries, Ford suggested "shooting the sucker". Steven Spielberg immediately took him up on the idea, and the scene was successfully filmed as it appears in the movie today. Another source of humor is a swashbuckling, adventuring archaeologist like Indiana Jones is deathly terrified of snakes. "Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes."

...and this is what I imagine I'm doing when I'm helping
friends move their furniture.

Lastly I want to point out two more things about this movie that I love; its custom sound effects and its score. The custom sound effects are unique a lot of times to this movie, and its follow-ups. When you hear Indiana Jones punch someone, or get punched, Ben Burtt created new punch sound effects by whacking a pile of leather jackets with a baseball bat. Indiana Jones' gun was a .30-.30 Winchester rifle firing. The Ark's lid moving was created by Burtt simply recording his his toilet tank lid sliding across the top of the tank. The sound of the boulder rolling towards Indy in the cave was obtained by Burtt recording the back tire of a Honda Civic rolling down a gravely hill. To achieve the sound of thousands of snakes slithering in the Well of Souls where the Ark resided... Burtt stuck his fingers into a cheese casserole, which was augmented by applying wet sponges to the grip tape on a skateboard and recording that as well. Burtt, who did the sound design for Star Wars, creating the sounds of the blasters, the lightsabers, the ships; basically everything... really did masterfully create a series of sounds and sound effects for this film as well. Including noises of synthesized and synchronized human and animal cries and shrieks when the Ark lid is opened to give it an otherworldly reminder to the viewers that opening the Ark was precisely not what you wanted to do.

Wrath of God got you down? Eat a Snickers!

--and of course, there's the score. Once again, the masterful John Williams had done it again. There's not really a great way of describing how great the music and score is over text in a blog, but I will tell you that the theme, as with everything else I've said, has since become a standard for action-adventure films. So much so that this film's sort-of loose parody by the Cannon Film Group, King Solomon's Mines, has an identical sounding theme by Jerry Goldsmith but it also is one I really like. Go listen to it here, on the soundtrack.

I absolutely love and will continue to love Raiders of the Lost Ark. So much so I wrote a long-winded blog post about it, and believe me I could have kept going. It's an action adventure masterpiece of a movie in my book. Ten out of ten. Eight whips out of eight. Eleven "sword-wielding sherpas that get shot down" out of five. There's a small list of movies I take it upon myself to show people if they've never seen them. Raiders of the Lost Ark is for sure one of them. Otherwise I don't like forcing movies on people if they're not interested... but Raiders I mean ya gotta be interested. It's a legendary film. It was even 1981's biggest grossing film by a wide margin, and also nominated for Best Picture at the 1982 Oscars. That doesn't happen to adventure movies nowadays. You think Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle or Jungle Cruise is getting nominated for awards? Well... maybe Razzies! Ha (I digress I actually liked both those movies).

Go check Raiders out now. Drop what you're doing and go now. Even if you're working. You shan't regret it. I'll see you guys again soon! BOY it feels good to be back.