Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

#60 on Original, #66 on Anniversary, and #10 on Thrills

I’m having a Harrison Ford movie week.  It started when I made the discovery about myself that if I find “Air Force One” on the TV, I can not turn it off.  Apparently for me, it is just one of those movies.   I continued with the original Star Wars trilogy, and then ventured off to a newer Ford film, “Morning Glory”.  From there, I’ve gotten to the film that this entry is about, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. 

I forgot how creepy parts of this film can be, when snakes are coming out of corpses in particular.   Also, a revelation from writing this blog, I guess I have kind of always thought of this as a semi-creepy film.  I think this is a hazard of first seeing the film when I was VERY little, and then not seeing it again until I was much older.  What can I say, first impressions die hard. 

And this was a great film to give a viewer a first impression of Indiana Jones: daring, intelligent, and adventurous.  I find it funny how almost timid he comes across when he is teaching a class, and how much of a badass he is when he is looking for an archeological treasure.   Sometimes environment really does affect your personality.   One of the things I like about Jones, and a lot of the characters Harrison Ford seems to play, they are flawed heroes.  Indiana does gets shot and screws up sometimes.  Han Solo does have issues with his ship and ends up trapped by Jabba the Hut.  These characters are not perfect, and that is what makes them the every-person kind of hero.

The score for this film is awesome, as it usually is with pretty much anything John Williams works on.  Just hearing the classic music piece, “Raiders March” or as we all probably call it, Indiana Jones’ Theme, invokes thoughts of daring and adventure.  

The character of Marion Ravenwood is something of a conundrum for me.  Sometimes she is totally self sufficient and fighting and protecting herself, and other times, she is screaming her head off as a damsel in distress.  I guess if you put it in the context of when the story is set, 1936, then it kind of makes sense.  But I want her to be so much cooler than she actually comes across.  Also, she had to run around for a good chunk of this film with no shoes on. What is up with that?

I’ve always said that the easiest way to get a villain into your film without having to give any explanation for why they are evil is to have the bad guys be Nazis. The writers actually noticed this very late into filming, and there ends up being only one reference to the Jewish people and the Nazi’s hatred for them in the whole film, and it doesn’t come until the film is near the end.

Favorite Quote

Marion: You're not the man I knew ten years ago.
Indiana: It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage.