Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) at the Pickwick Theatre

WHAT: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, DCP) 40th anniversary screening
WHEN: September 15, 2021    1 PM & 7:30 PM
WHERE: Pickwick Theatre (5 S. Prospect Ave. Park Ridge, IL)
WHAT ELSE: Pre-show music by organist Jay Warren at 7 PM!
HOW MUCH: $12/$10 advance/$10 for the 1 PM matinee                                                           CLICK HERE for advance tickets to the 7:30 PM screening!

“It’s true, you can do a lot of stuff yourself. And I’m glad to if the stunt is coordinated so that there is an advantage for the film in my doing it. I don’t want to do it for the glory. When I’m not too sore, I enjoy it, but sometimes I begin to feel more like a battered football player than a movie actor. You get a lot of bumps doing movie magic– even with stuntmen taking their share, a bump here and a bump there add up to a bruised and battered body.” ~Harrison Ford, The Complete Making of Indiana Jones

“Raiders works on many levels, not only thanks to Ford’s superb performance and Spielberg’s skill at piling on the action and excitement, but also because Lawrence Kasdan (working from an outline by Lucas) delivers a script that is more than just an old-fashioned adventure. His hero is a complicated, less-than-perfect guy who walks the fine line between being a thief of priceless artifacts and protector of them…” ~ 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

The first image I had of Indiana Jones was of him being thrown through the windshield of a moving truck. The reason this moment came to be my introduction was because my father and I had arrived early at the theatre and, as we were waiting for the next show, I peeked in at the one already in progress. Later, when I heard the truck’s hood ornament bend for the second time, I was on the edge of my seat. This may have been at the Golf Mill Theatre in Niles. I can’t say for certain as I was only 6 years old in the summer of 1981 when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, but it’s a film that has stayed with me ever since. It remains one of my Top Five favorite movies of all time. Forty years later, an anniversary screening will be held on September 15, 2021, at the Pickwick Theatre Classic Film Series.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first in a series of Indiana Jones adventure films– a series that continues to this day. But the first film is widely regarded as the best. It’s the only one to have been nominated for Best Picture. (How it lost to Chariots of Fire is beyond me.) But the film became a cultural touchstone and a high watermark in the adventure film genre. When audiences think of this film, they instantly recall Indy stealing the golden fertility idol and running from a giant boulder. Or they remember him pulling out a gun and shooting a Cairo swordsman. Or they remember the snakes– or the melting and exploding heads! And when we see a bullwhip, who else could we possibly think of? Part of Raiders‘ success rested in the fact that it tapped into a nostalgic past of traditional heroes and reconfigured successful elements from the old Saturday matinee movie serials.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was the brainchild of producer George Lucas. The idea had been percolating in his mind around the time he was developing his Flash Gordon-inspired space saga, which later became Star Wars. Shortly after the release of Star Wars, while Lucas was waiting for the grosses to come in, he met up with director Steven Spielberg in Hawaii. Spielberg confessed that he had always wanted to direct a James Bond picture, but Lucas told him he had something better than that. While on the beach, Lucas revealed his idea for “Indiana Smith.” It was intended to be a homage to the movie chapter-plays that both men knew and loved– serials like Zorro’s Fighting Legion and Spy Smasher. Spielberg loved everything about the concept except one thing– the name, which was amended to “Jones.” Spielberg was unofficially onboard and the ball– or boulder– was now rolling.

The shot that inspired Raiders of the Lost Ark…

Raiders of the Lost Ark‘s journey to movie screens began in earnest in the late 1970s. Spielberg suggested bringing in screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (Continental Divide). In January 1978, Lucas and Spielberg met with Kasdan to throw some ideas around. One of the more important elements– the search for the Ark itself– was actually a carryover from Lucas’s meeting with writer Philip Kaufman several years before. From these sessions came the genesis of Indiana Jones as the world would know him. Kasdan’s first draft contained many elements that would later be incorporated into Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, including the rolling gong and the mine car chase. Even before the script had been written, the filmmakers knew what Indiana Jones would look like; they had commissioned artist Jim Steranko to do four color paintings highlighting the hero. Out of this vivid realization of who the character was, a story took shape…

Indiana Jones, a tomb-raiding archaeologist, is enlisted by the United States government in an effort to locate the long lost Ark of the Covenant. Professor Jones is informed by government men that Hitler is obsessed with the Ark’s occult power; the Fuhrer believes his Nazi army would be invincible with it in his possession. The hiding place of the Ark, however, can only be found through the headpiece of the staff of Ra– a medallion which, when positioned at a certain spot in an Egyptian map room, will reveal the exact location of the Ark. Jones’ journey takes him first to Nepal, where he retrieves the headpiece from Marion Ravenwood, a former lover who now runs a bar. On Indy’s trail are a group of Nazi agents headed by Toht. A rival French archaeologist, Belloq, is also helping the Nazis in their own quest to retrieve the holy relic. With the aid of an Egyptian digger named Sallah, Indy is able to find the Ark before anyone else. He loses it in due course but, after a series of adventures, is able to recapture it while discovering first-hand its awesome power.

Karen Allen and Harrison Ford

One of the most famous stories of Indy lore involves the casting: Many up-and-coming actors were tested for the role of Indiana Jones. Lucas and Spielberg finally settled on Tom Selleck, but due to a television conflict with CBS– Selleck was slated to star in “Magnum, P.I.”– the filmmakers were forced to look elsewhere. It was only after Spielberg saw a rough cut of The Empire Strikes Back that he pushed for Harrison Ford. Though Ford had always been on the radar, Lucas had been resistant to the idea because he didn’t want Ford in every one of his movies. Fortunately, common sense prevailed and the Chicago-native was ultimately cast.

Karen Allen was the clear standout choice to play the fiercely independent Marion Ravenwood. Prior to Raiders, her best known role was in Animal House. The rest of the exceptional cast included Denholm Elliott as Marcus Brody (playing Indy’s paternal voice of reason), Paul Freeman as Belloq (an English actor who had to do a French accent); John Rhys-Davies as Sallah (who created a hybrid of Falstaff and his character from the miniseries Shogun); and Ronald Lacey (a former actors’ agent who reminded Lucas of Peter Lorre).

Paramount, the only studio in town that agreed to the filmmakers’ contractual terms, signed off on a $20 million dollar budget. The shooting schedule was slated for the summer of 1980. Spielberg, who had recently developed a reputation for going over schedule, was determined to shoot the film fast– like a B movie– under 80 days. Raiders of the Lost Ark, like Star Wars before it, would be made using the nine stages at the famed Elstree Studios near London, England. Many of the interior set-pieces, such as the South American temple and its 22-ft wide boulder, would be shot here. But due to a recent fire and a stage burning (during the making of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining), the production began on location instead.

Location work commenced in late June in La Rochelle, France. It was here where they filmed the submarine scenes using a U-Boat borrowed from the German production, Das Boot. La Rochelle already had an actual German submarine pen that had been built during World War II. One of the more memorable sequences from these scenes was improvised on the set: the crew of the Bantu Wind steamer saluting Indy as he climbs aboard the top of the submarine. During the course of production, many scenes would be rewritten beyond the fifth draft of the script.

At Elstree Studios, one of the major challenges became the snake pit in the “Well of Souls” scene. Part of the lore of this film, vividly detailed in behind-the-scenes footage, involves the number of snakes used. Initially, the crew had only three thousand snakes to work with, which barely covered the floor and prevented Spielberg from doing wide shots on the set. He felt he needed at least 7,000 more snakes. Producer Frank Marshall was assigned the task and managed to ship them in from every snake breeder he could find. The cobras, however, were handled with special care and were positioned behind plexiglas. The crew had to make sure to have enough anti-venom serum available in the event of an accident.

The most difficult part of the shooting schedule were the long days spent in Tunisia in North Africa. The script called for the action to be set in Egypt. Since there was no need to show the Pyramids or the Great Sphinx or things typically associated with Egypt, production manager Robert Watts found a spot that could easily substitute for Cairo. The ideal location was Kairouan, which literally translates to “Little Cairo.” Unfortunately, many of the cast and crew became ill with dysentery because of the food. Spielberg was one of the few who did not get sick because he subsisted on canned food he had brought with him from England. In addition to the physical ailments, temperatures typically reached 130 degrees in the sun.

It was during the Tunisian shoot that the crew filmed the famous “Flying Wing” airplane sequence. The plane had been constructed in England and then disassembled and shipped to Africa. The Flying Wing was not flight-worthy, but certainly appears as though it could have been in the film. The staging and choreography of the fight between Indiana Jones and a German mechanic (Pat Roach) became another on-set improvisation where one idea flowed into another. Harrison Ford and stuntman Vic Armstrong also contributed ideas for this fight sequence.

The ensuing truck chase was based on Spielberg’s storyboards but shot by second unit director Mickey Moore. It became one of the great chase sequences and featured the iconic stunt of Indiana Jones being dragged underneath a moving truck as he makes his way to the back of the vehicle. This dangerous stunt had been inspired by the work of legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt in the film Stagecoach. For some of the less dangerous shots in this sequence incorporating close-ups, Harrison Ford was willing to be dragged along the road, albeit at a much slower pace than that suggested by the film.

Harrison Ford and Paul Freeman

Production wrapped up in Hawaii, during which many of the opening scenes, such as Indy looking at a map by a waterfall, were filmed. The classic opening shot, in which the Paramount logo dissolves into an actual mountain, was also filmed at this time and proved to be another last-minute inspiration from the director. (The mountain that is seen is actually the Kalalea Mountain on the island of Kaua’i.) After principal photography was completed, work turned to post-production, which included the numerous special effects (done by Lucas’s ILM company), sound and music.

Composer John Williams, who had already worked with Lucas and Spielberg several times previously, scored the film and brought excitement to every scene. “The Ark: This is religious,” Williams explained, “orchestra and chorus, but using the two-as-one sound; you won’t hear the chorus. Indiana Jones’s theme, this is heroics. Marion’s theme is a recurrent love theme. The baddies’ theme, the Nazis, et cetera, is dark music. Those are the four main themes, which recur.” His “Raiders March” remains one of the most recognizable themes in movie history. Williams would go on to score the remaining films in the franchise.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was released nationally on June 12, 1981. Its opening weekend only garnered $8 million, but the film grew through word-of-mouth. It was a critical and financial success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1981 with $212 million, surpassing the expected blockbusters Superman II and For Your Eyes Only. Raiders stayed in theatres across the country for months and first arrived at the Pickwick Theatre in early 1982; the theatre at that time was a second-run venue.

The inevitable sequels followed. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) was, to its credit, a darker film, but it was severely hampered by the grating presence of Kate Capshaw as showgirl Willie Scott. Nevertheless, Temple of Doom remains a fun film for a theatre full of people– with some of the best set-pieces in the series. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, featuring Sean Connery as Indy’s father, followed in 1989. The film captured some of the magic of Raiders and was a fitting conclusion to the original trilogy. However, the series had veered toward light comedic adventures, and by the time of the fourth film, 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the series had turned into an outright cartoon. Harrison Ford, at the age of 65, certainly looked good in the role, but Spielberg’s concept of the character had changed over the years and Indy was no longer capable of even firing a gun. The less said about Crystal Skull the better. A fifth film, directed by James Mangold (which could prove to be a good thing) is scheduled to be released in July 2022.

But as is so often the case, nothing quite compares with the original. Steven Spielberg was the right director at that time for this project. Raiders had a seriousness, occasionally punctuated with wry humor. There was a harder edge to the film and to the character. The cast was perfect, and they were beautifully photographed by cinematographer Douglas Slocombe. (His work was in fact nominated for an Academy Award.) As an action-adventure film, Raiders is itself a priceless treasure. It stands as a testament to how well films could be made with practical effects, human ingenuity and craftsmanship. (This is detailed in J.W. Rinzler’s definitive The Complete Making of Indiana Jones.) All these elements combined to create one of the truly great American films.

September 15 also marks the 40th anniversary of the Vlahakis family operating the Pickwick Theatre. Since this will be our first show in 19 months, we ask that fans come out and help support this particular screening. Box office receipts have dropped around the country because of “streaming” services. As a result, the Pickwick Theatre needs your support. And what better film to come out for than Raiders of the Lost Ark! Nothing can replace the thrill of seeing a movie like this in a theatre with a large audience. The Pickwick continues to be cautious during the current pandemic. In turn, we ask that our patrons be considerate towards others. Please take a moment to do a wellness check before arriving– and stay home if you are sick! Thank you.

~MCH

This split screen reveals what Raiders of the Lost Ark would have looked like in 1981 (or 1982, when it actually played at the Pickwick) versus what it will look like in 2021 in the Mega-Theatre!