RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

raiders of the lost ark (1981) movie

Genre              |   Action Adventure

Classification   |   PG

Running time   |   115 minutes

Released         |   12 June 1981

cast

Harrison Ford ... Indy
Karen Allen ... Marion
Paul Freeman ... Belloq
Ronald Lacey ... Toht
John Rhys-Davies ... Sallah
Denholm Elliott ... Brody
Alfred Molina ... Satipo
​Wolf Kahler ... Dietrich

director

Steven Spielberg

writer

​Lawrence Kasdan ... (screenplay by)
 
George Lucas ... (story by) and
Philip Kaufman ... (story by)

cinematographer

​Douglas Slocombe ... director of photography

music

​John Williams

film editor

​Michael Kahn
George Lucas ... (uncredited)

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​​​389,925,971 ​

Australia                 $​​​​​ not available

North America       $​248,159,971  

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movie minutiae

​Philip Kaufman shares story credit with George Lucas, because they originally dreamed up the film together in the 1970s. Reportedly, it was Kaufman's idea to pursue the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Originally, Kaufman was going to direct.

The script originally included a storyline that took place in Shanghai. Indiana's rival would be a Chinese archaeologist whom Steven Spielberg envisioned as a "villainous Charlie Chan." The Shanghai scenes were dropped because of budget limitations, and they were moved to the prequel, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984).

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas disagreed on the character of Indiana Jones. Although Lucas saw him as a 007-like playboy, Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan felt the character's academic and adventurer elements made him complex enough. Spielberg had a darker vision of Jones, interpreting him as an alcoholic, similar to Humphrey Bogart's character Fred C. Dobbs in THE TREASURE OD THE SIERRA MADRE (1948). This characterization fell away during the later drafts, though elements survive (especially Jones's response Marion's "death").

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related movies

INDIANA JONES
AND
THE TEMPLE OF DOOM
​(1984)

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) MOVIE IMAGES

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RAIDERS OF THE LOST (1981) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Epic tale in which an intrepid archaeologist tries to beat a band of Nazis to a unique religious relic which is central to their plans for world domination. Battling against a snake phobia and a vengeful ex-girlfriend, Indiana Jones is in constant peril, making hair's-breadth escapes at every turn in this celebration of the innocent adventure movies of an earlier era.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 12 June 2015

​​Pop Movee Rating

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was a watershed film that brought together, in a formal production sense, the talents of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. The addition of Harrison Ford in the lead role as Indiana Jones created one of the most potent filmmaking triumvirates ever assembled. The success of the film lies in its straight forward story that blends action, romance and religious mysticism that itself is a romanticised version of the cinema serials of the 1930s and 1940s. The film's genesis was a result of Lucas wanting to recreate for modern audiences the thrill he had experienced as a child when watching these serials and, in doing so, created a modern cinematic icon.

The movie opens in the year 1938 with an epic prologue set deep in the South American jungle. Indiana Jones and his somewhat suspicious sidekick Satipo (Alfred Molina) venture into an ancient Chachapoyan warrior temple only to encounter the remains of fellow archeologist Forrestal; killed by one of the many booby-traps set for looters and vandals. Avoiding these death-traps, Jones makes his way to the warrior’s altar and finds the golden head statue the has been the objective of his expedition. His attempt to remove the idol without triggering more of the temple’s defense mechanisms is successful … at least he thinks so for the first few moments. Jones becomes aware that an ancient self-destruct mechanism has been triggered because he hasn’t been fast enough to switch the statue over. The temple starts to shudder and Jones, starting a chain reaction of destruction, flees the temple - the statue still in his possession - as it collapses around him.

Barely escaping the inner-temple, Jones is forced to hand-over the Chachapoyan statue to Satipo, who has double-crossed him, but is again double-crossed, when the duplicitous sidekick leaves him stranded on the wrong side of a yawning chasm with a stone door slowly-but-surely closing in front of him. Indy jumps the chasm, but doesn’t quite make the other side and grabs on to a tree root to pull himself up. The root gives way and he starts to slide back down the chasm wall, however, it comes to a jolting stop and he manages to pull himself up on the second attempt. Just scraping in under the stone door, Jones comes face-to-face with Satipo, who has been skewered by one of the temple’s surprises. In one of the great movie set-piece action sequences, Jones realizes that there’s no time to waste as a huge boulder (big enough to block the exit of the temple) is thundering along just metres behind him. He only just makes it out of the temple and has to throw himself out of the temple entry and, literally, lands in front of a group of Hovito Indian tribesman who have the blow guns trained on him. From behind the Hovitos, emerges Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman), Jones’ arch-rival. Belloq taunts Jones be telling him, “there is nothing you can possess that I cannot take away from you”.

The pace of the opening sets the tone for the entire movie, as Jones returns to America, but is soon questioned by US government agents who are looking into the disappearance of Indy’s old teacher, Abner Ravenwood. The agents tell him that they believe his disappearance is connected with the Nazis, who have been using Ravenwood’s research on the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant, the chest alleged to contain the Ten Commandments that were handed to Moses by God. Jones tells the agents that the Bible states whoever possesses the Ark will have unlimited power and their armies will not be able to be defeated. This information alarms the agents given the Nazis’ interest in Ravenwood’s work and their understanding of Hitler’s interest in the occult. Even though Ravenwood’s location is unknown, Jones tells them that he knows where to start looking.

The introduction of Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Abner Ravenwood’s daughter, frees RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK to tell a much broader story, as screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (from the story by Lucas & Philip Kaufman) introduces a Bogart & Hepburn-like AFRICAN QUEEN (1951) dynamic between Harrison Ford and Karen Allen. The back-and-forth between their two characters helps to punctuate the relentless set-pieces that follow from the time the pair escape the burning bar in Nepal until the secrets of the Ark are revealed at the end of the movie. In between, there’s street fights, abductions, swordplay, fist fights, snakes, horse chases, truck chases, boat chases, gun-fights...

There's also snakes. Lots of snakes...

It’s very easy to see why RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK set a new benchmark in action adventure films. So much happens, but the characters remain at the forefront all the way throughout. The MacGuffin of the Ark never gets in the way of the characters and the result is a great work of entertainment.

Steven Spielberg was at his adventurous best with RAIDERS, having come off the disappointing 1941 (1979), he was keen to deliver a movie beyond audience expectations that reinforced the talents that he been recognized for with JAWS (1977) and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977).

RAIDERS was the first of a string of critical and commercial successes for Spielberg throughout the 1980s, as he went on to direct E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982), INDIANA JONES AND THE TMEPLE OF DOOM (1984), THE COLOUR PURPLE (1985), EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987) and INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989).

During this period, he also produced or executive produced POLTERGEIST (1982) (and many claim he also directed it), GREMLINS (1984), THE GOONIES (1985), BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985), INNERSPACE (1987), WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988) and BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (1989).

It’s a stunning resume of projects that, in some way shape or form, all benefited from the critical and commercial success that RAIDERS OF THE LOST AK enjoyed upon its release.

Technically, the film brought together many of the talents who had worked with both Spielberg and George Lucas from the mid-1970s; especially those who had worked on both STAR WARS (1977) and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980).

One person who had worked with Spielberg in a limited fashion was Director of Photography Douglas Slocombe. Slocombe was a veteran of the British film industry when he worked on Raiders, having photographed movies like THE BLUE MAX (1966), THE LION IN WINTER (1968), THE ITALIAN JOB (1969), THE GREAT GATSBY (1974) and ROLLERBAL (1975). Spielberg engaged Slocombe to handle the Indian crowd sequences in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977), making the (then) young Director aware of his work as a news cameraman during the Second World War.The combination of Slocombe’s experience coupled with the ambition of both Spielberg and Lucas to hark back to the adventure of the old cinematic serials helped to create some of the most memorable images from any mainstream action film released in the last part of the 20th Century. Despite being in his 70s, Slocombe would come back to help Spielberg lense both INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984)  and INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989).

Music also played a key role in the success of RAISDERS...

Spielberg and Lucas did not hesitate to bring John Williams on board the project to create the musical pieces required to accompany their film. It seemed at this point in his career producing film music, John Williams had no equal. The only other composer who came even close to him was Jerry Goldsmith. Williams had provided the scores for many action adventure films including THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972), THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974), JAWS (1975), STAR WARS (1977), CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) and SUPERMAN (1978). His signature piece for the film, ‘The Raider’s March’, became yet another instantly recognizable piece of music and became the standard for the INDIANA JONES movie franchise. The supernatural mysticism of the story also gave Williams the opportunity to create a number of more nuanced, harmonic pieces of music, especially the piece he wrote whenever the Ark was in proximity. Unlike many of his later movie works, Williams keeps everything front and centre in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, with his score providing one of the strongest musical accompaniments ever recorded for an action adventure film.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) USEFUL LINKS

Raiders of the Lost Ark - Wikipedia
​Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - IMDb​
​Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - Rotten Tomatoes

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