n the 1930s, Prof. Henry "Indiana" Jones (Ford), procurer of ancient artifacts, invades a South American tomb in search of a valuable golden idol. Faced with ancient deathtraps, murderous companions and a giant rolling boulder, he just barely gets out alive—only to have the idol plucked from his hands by his rival, Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman), who has enjoyed a long history hijacking Indiana's finds. Escaping sans idol but with his skin intact, despite the pursuit of angry natives with blowdarts, Indiana shows his first signs of real fear when confronted with his pilot's pet snake, Reggie. "I hate snakes!" he screeches. The pilot, Jock, chides him to show a little backbone.
Returning to the university, where his lectures draw dozens of sighing female students, Indiana tells his colleague Marcus (Elliott) he wants to make another try for the idol. But then the United States government recruits him for a more urgent mission. It seems that Adolf Hitler, a nut for supernatural artifacts, has sent his forces after the fabled Ark of the Covenant. An army carrying the Ark is said to be invincible. Indiana must keep the Ark out of Nazi hands.
Finding one vital clue in the possession of his embittered old flame, Marion Ravenwood (Allen), Indiana takes her to Cairo. There they contact another old friend, Sallah (Rhys-Davies), who is aware of a large-scale Nazi dig. Sallah is contemptuous of the Nazis, whom he says have not one brain among them, but for one: Belloq, who has become their Ark expert and paid collaborator.
Even as Sallah joins Indiana, the Nazi forces become aware of his presence in Cairo and quickly send assassins, ranging from a treacherous monkey to a hulking Arab swordsman. Indiana's battles with the bad guys achieve a mixture of derring-do and outright slapstick, with his answer to the Arab swordsman a famous highlight. An explosion seems to claim Marion's life.
The discovery that the Nazis have made one crucial error leads Indiana to find the Ark before they do. But Belloq takes it from him again. Left for dead inside yet another ancient tomb, surrounded on all sides by thousands of venomous snakes, Indiana must find his way back to the surface, fight his way past an army of Nazi soldiers, take back the Ark and survive the wrath of God.
Not a typical life in academia
Released at a time when the prospect of a new Steven Spielberg film elicited unalloyed excitement, rather than today's wary interest, Raiders of the Lost Ark is that cinematic rarity: the thrilling, stupendous entertainment that nevertheless had a negative effect on the art form as a whole. Movies that aspire to be nothing but nonstop roller-coaster rides that owe nothing to story structure or character, screenplays based not on life but on recycled popcorn entertainments of the past, and action heroes who escape explosion after explosion with no reaction deeper than facile one-liners, all claim this film, more than any other, in their ancestry. Spielberg himself has joined the voices expressing dismay at this development, even as he's used sequels, spinoffs and other canny merchandising to maintain Indy as one of the major tentpoles in his still-growing empire.
As well he should. The fact remains that Raiders of the Lost Ark is a terrific movie, which escapes the empty bombast of so many later popcorn films by telling a story of substantial heart and wit. Viewing it today, it's hard not to be impressed by the solidity of the storyline. The mission briefing explains not only the objective but why we should care. The plot is filled with clever reversals, including the misunderstanding that gives the Nazis the wrong impression about the Ark's location. The supporting characters, including the charming Karen Allen as Marion and the wonderful Rhys-Davies as Sallah, are allowed some of the best lines. The pacing allows the storyline time to breathe and the personalities time to shine. The action sequences, though wild, seem to have at least some basis in real-world physics—an attribute that, when neglected by action films increasingly fueled by impossibilities, makes it difficult or even impossible to care.
Most important is Indy himself. Though far from original—he's an amalgam of countless heroes before him, from Allan Quatermain to the characters played by Lash Larue—he remains a terrific creation: not only as tough and resourceful as action heroes should be, but also cynical, weary and very much in over his head. He's not invulnerable. He makes mistakes, bad mistakes. His bone-rattling fight with a burly airplane mechanic remains one of the best slugfests in movie history, but few people remember the killer punchline: It was totally unnecessary, as he was wrong all along about the Lost Ark being on the plane. The famous line "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go" is, in short, an excellent summary of his appeal, and the chief distinction that separates him from so many other action heroes, who seem incapable of doing wrong. Another famous line, "It's not the years, it's the mileage," provides another: In this film, at least, the job costs him.
Harrison Ford was already well-known from the Star Wars movies, but despite an uneven resume that included genuinely chilling appearances in Apocalypse Now and The Conversation, had not been able to escape his reputation as a wooden actor of little promise. His much-underestimated turn as Indy made him a star, but not everybody sees that he gave the role much more than charm, humor and steely-eyed heroism. In this and later action films, he gave his performances an element of sweaty fear that accentuated the protagonist's vulnerability to the many dangers he's facing. Indeed, the film's most startling joke—his shockingly practical solution to the problem of the master swordsman—is his creation, not Spielberg's. The original script called for a spectacular fight between them (some of which was actually filmed). Ford was too feverish and diarrhetic from a local bug to complete a big action sequence that day, and came up with the gag as a brilliant excuse to get back to his hotel room so he could be miserable in peace.
There is one incredibly wrongheaded cut that removes any explanation of how Indy gets from the deck of a submerging submarine to deep inside that submarine's home base as it arrives back home. How did Indy avoid drowning? There is an explanation, but it's not in the film as it played in theaters. The intervening scenes were cut for time, regardless of the harm that did to the story: another unfortunate precedent in a film that should have provided any number of positive ones.
Close viewers should watch out for the scene, late in the film, where Paul Freeman completes a villainous speech even as the fly crawling on his face disappears inside his mouth. He was a trouper that day.
