INTRO
I love movies. I always have.
They were my Saturday mornings when I was a kid. They were my moments of escape with 007 when my mother worked at the cinema and I used to get in for free. They were Pearl and Dean. They were adverts for local Indian restaurants and cycle shops. They were art deco lights upon the cinema wall among flip-down seats and velvet curtains. They were the tiny light of the half-time ice cream seller, the smell of popcorn and the taste of a tub of ice-cream. They were Chief, the senior projectionist at the Bracknell Regal, taking me up into the projection room and showing me the heavy reels of film as they tic-tacked through the projectors. I could not comprehend the translation from celluloid to screen, but loved the mystery. They were the slivers of smoky light that filtered though the tiny projection room window and twisted and turned in a magical tango (people were allowed to smoke in the cinema in those days), which in all their pastel shades promised the world until they exploded on the screen and took on a shape and life all of their own. I can remember standing outside the Regal Cinema in Bracknell and looking at the Live and Let Die poster and thinking that it was the greatest piece of art that I had ever seen (it still is).
Saturday afternoons were spent with BBC 2 in the land of black and white, where James Stewart, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart filled the screen until my peripheral vision was dead and all I could see was what was in front of me.
And now I do the same. I put on my wireless headphones, slide in the Blu-ray and become immersed in a director’s wet dream.
I don’t go to the cinema so much anymore because
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There are too many utter knobs that disrupt the film. At one showing, a woman with a baby, A BABY, sat at the back of the cinema and it (the baby) cried incessantly, and there is always some fool with a bag of crisps behind me drowning out the film as they fiddle to open the packet of salt and vinegar with all the grace of a chimp.
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The prices are too high
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At home I can watch and wallow in comfort
Plus, on Blu-ray, you get the extras, the glorious extras which, just once in a while, answer those burning questions that you have balled up inside you. They give you an insight into the film which was previously hidden outside those hallowed Hollywood doors. It doesn’t take away the magic; it simply adds to the wonder. As a kid, I would never have seen daylight if I’d had all this available to me then.
DVD and Blue-ray have been revolutionary in that sense. I love wide, wide sound. I love the pin-sharp picture. I love the ability to review the scenes at my pleasure. I love the independence. I have been to a cinema which projected the film at the wrong size for the first fifteen minutes (Die Another Day), when all you could see was Pierce Brosnan’s nose, to a cinema that has buggered up the sound and even one which has shown the wrong film.
I love the fact that, at home, it is always in my control and not at the whim of some gum-chewing moron who thinks that tying his shoelaces and pressing a button on a computer screen stretches his talents. There is more to cinema than popcorn and hotdogs and inane chatter and getting a mortgage to pay the price of admission. There is a film involved – a piece of art.
This why I don’t go to the cinema very often.
I know that this is controversial, but there is no one that this saddens more than me. My only rule is to see Bond with each new release and that is over now (see No Time To Die). The home market wins.
I’m gonna need a bigger tele.
These films are some of my favourite films. Tomorrow, there might be some added and some removed but, today, these are the ones I choose. They are an entirely personal choice. They are in no particular order of preference, title or length. You, I hope, will have different choices because favourite films are an entirely personal thing.
I hope that the very least I can do is get you to see films that you haven’t seen before, that you get into a discussion with workmates and family and friends about movies.
The movies we watch say so much about us as individuals and that is what is so great about them. Each one of us is programmed differently by our genes and by our upbringing. The purpose of films is to widen our view, to take us out of the confinements of our physical world and the limitations of our psychological world.
Share Spielberg’s magic. Be open-minded and give everything a try.
Then write a book about it.
NB Some of these films have language in them that we no longer tolerate in polite society. I have not shied away from using these words in the context in which they were intended, that is, in the screenplays or in interviews, but they in no way reflect my thoughts or views.
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989)
CAST
Indiana Jones (aged 13) - River Phoenix
Professor Henry Jones - Sean Connery
Dr. Marcus Brody - Denholm Elliott
Dr. Elsa Schneider - Alison Doody
Sallah - John Rhys-Davies
Walter Donovan - Julian Glover
Vogel - Michael Byrne
Kazim - Kevork Malikyan
Grail Knight - Robert Eddison
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Produced by: Robert Watts
Production Company: Lucasfilm Ltd
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Screenplay by: Jeffrey Boam from a story by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes
Music by: John Williams
Cinematography by: Douglas Slocombe
Edited by: Michael Kahn
Running Time: 2hrs 8m
IMDB Score: 8.2/10
IMDB Metascore: 65
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%
PLOT
The film starts in 1912 as a thirteen-year-old Indiana Jones is out on a trek with the boy scouts. The pack stops for a rest and to examine a series of caves. Indy and his friend Herman separate from the rest of the scouts and end up in a cave system where they observe the theft of Coronado’s crucifix by a team of diggers. Indy is outraged and says that the crucifix belongs in a museum and steals it. By now Herman has scarpered and Indy comes out of the cave system, pursued by the team of diggers, while the entire scout troop has moved on. He looks around and comes out with a typical Indy comment, ‘Everybody’s lost but me!’
He rides away at speed on his horse, pursued by the robbers, and jumps onto a passing circus train.
The robbers follow him onto the train and in the pursuit he falls into a tank of snakes, which starts his fear of snakes, and learns to use a whip as he defends himself against a lion. As he cracks the whip, he slashes his chin, leaving the famous Indiana Jones scar.
He manages to fight the gang off and runs from the train, eventually arriving at home, where his father, engrossed in his studies of the Holy Grail, does not want to listen to Indy’s tale.
The sheriff arrives and tells Indy to return the cross the robbers, who are the rightful owners. Indy gives up the cross reluctantly. The head of the team of robbers admires Indy for his courage and gives him his fedora, which Indy keeps forever.
The cross is handed to a man in a white suit with a Panama hat.
The next time we see Indy is aboard the vessel Coronado as it battles through heavy seas in the grip of a storm. Even after all these years, Indy has pursued the man in the Panama hat and has tracked him down to this vessel. Once again he steals the cross and, as he fights his way to survival, jumps from the ship just before it explodes, taking the man in the Panama hat with it.
He returns home to his teaching job and donates the cross to Marcus Brody’s museum. As he escapes from his adoring students into his office, he finds a package upon his desk from Venice. He is ambivalent towards it and puts it in his pocket, then escapes his crowded office through a window.
Outside he is greeted by three men, who invite him to step into their vehicle. They take him to a luxurious home where he meets the owner, Walter Donovan. Donovan explains that Indy’s father, Henry, was helping them find the Holy Grail, but has suddenly disappeared.
DONOVAN: We’ve hit a snag. Our project leader has vanished. Along with all his research. Uh, we received a cable from his colleague, Doctor Schneider, who has no idea of his whereabouts or what’s become of him. I want you to pick up the trail where he left off. Find the man and you will find the Grail.
INDY: You’ve got the wrong Jones, Mister Donovan. Why don’t you try my father?
DONOVAN: We already have. Your father is the man who’s disappeared.
He asks for Indy’s assistance to find the grail and Henry. He shows Indy a stone tablet which, tantalisingly, is broken in half and has an inscription which gives Indy a clue where to look.
Donovan goes to a table where an object is wrapped in cloth. He throws back the cloth revealing a flat STONE TABLET -- about two feet square, inscribed with letters and symbols. Indy looks impressed. He puts on his glasses to make a closer examination…
DONOVAN: My engineers unearthed it in the mountain region north of Ankara while excavating for copper. (beat) Can you translate the inscription?
INDY: (stumbling through it)...who drinks the water I shall give him, says the Lord, will have a spring inside him welling up for eternal life. Let them bring me to your holy mountain in the place where you dwell…Across the desert and through the mountain to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, to the Temple where the cup that – Where the cup that holds the blood of Jesus Christ resides forever.
Suddenly Indy stops and looks up at Donovan with a startled expression.
DONOVAN: (reverently) The Holy Grail, Doctor Jones. The chalice used by Christ during the Last Supper. The cup that caught His blood at the Crucifixion and was entrusted to Joseph of Arimathaea.
He cannot say no to Donovan’s offer. He has to find his father.
He and Marcus go to his father’s house and find it ransacked. Indy suddenly remembers the package from Venice and opens it. It is his father’s diary, which is what the people who ransacked Henry’s home must have been looking for.
He and Marcus head to Venice to meet up with Henry’s colleague, Dr Elsa Schneider, where they go to the library, the last place that Henry was seen. They look for clues and eventually find a way into the catacombs beneath the library.
The place reeks of petrol, but they come across the tomb of a knight, who has the entire transcription on a stone shield on the tomb. Indy traces the tablet onto wax paper and as they do, flame, fed by the petrol, storms through the catacombs, ignited by a mysterious sect of men who have been following Indy and Elsa.
Indy and Elsa escape from the catacombs, but are chased through Venice by the Brotherhood. They leap onto a boat and are then pursued on water. Finally it is down to the leader of the pursuing men and Indy to confront each other. The man explains to Indy that he would rather die than reveal anything to him.
KAZIM: My name is Kazim.
INDY: And why were you trying to kill me?
KAZIM: The secret of the Grail has been safe for a thousand years. And for all that time the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword has been prepared to do anything to keep it safe. Ask yourself, why do you seek the Cup of Christ? Is it for His glory, or for yours?
INDY: I didn’t come for the Cup of Christ. I came to find my father.
KAZIM: In that case, God be with you in your quest. Your father is being held in the Castle of Brunwald on the Austrian-German border.
Indy and Elsa let Kazim go.
Back together, Indy and Marcus examine Henry’s diary again and Marcus finds a map which Henry has drawn which shows the city of Alexandretta. Indy gives the map to Marcus and keeps the diary himself. He then asks Marcus to meet his old friend Sallah in Iskenderun, the city which has been built on the ruins of Alexandretta.
At this point, Indy and Elsa’s relationship becomes sexual. They then go to the Castle of Brunwald that Kazim told them about.
In the castle, Indy finds his father being held prisoner by the Nazis. Indy manages to free Henry, but as they escape, they see that SS Colonel Vogel has seized Elsa and threatens to shoot her if he doesn’t surrender. Henry warns him not to surrender, that Elsa is a Nazi spy, but Indy ignores him and surrenders. It turns out that she is a Nazi and has betrayed Indy ever since meeting him. They have been using Henry as a lure to get Indy to help them find the grail. Donovan appears in the room and reveals himself to be working for the Nazis.
Indy and his father are tied up back to back until it is confirmed that the diary is useful and they have the map.
As Donovan and Elsa leave, Donovan hears that Marcus has been caught and that his abductors have the map. He therefore now has both the map and the diary. At that point, Donovan orders the death of Indy and Henry as they no longer have any use.
As they try to escape, Henry inadvertently sets the room in which they are captive on fire. This alerts the whole castle, including a secret communication base with the castle, but Henry and Indy manage to escape.
They steal a bike and sidecar to go to Germany to get the diary back. In Berlin, at a book-burning ceremony, Indy finds Elsa and recovers the diary.
Indy and his father then escape from Germany in a Zeppelin. However, after a short while, the Zeppelin turns back towards Germany. Indy and Henry must escape and use a biplane attached to the base of the Zeppelin to get away. Planes have been sent after them, but they manage to escape and are eventually forced to crash land.
Once they find Sallah, he tells them of Marcus’ abduction. The Nazis have been given help by a local sultan to help them with their onward journey in their search for the grail. Indy, Henry and Sallah catch up with the Nazis, who have Marcus prisoner in a tank.
The Nazis are suddenly attacked from either side of a rocky valley by the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword. The Brothers are all killed, but have stopped the Nazi convoy long enough for Indy to mount his horse and get in front of the convoy. Henry gets into the tank to help Marcus escape, but Vogel finds them together and makes Henry a prisoner too.
The convoy continues as it fires at Indy, who gallops alongside and disables one of the guns to the point where, when it is fired, it smokes out the people inside.
Indy transfers from the horse to the tank and rescues Marcus and his father. Vogel, trapped in the tank after a fight with Indy, falls to a grisly death as the tank goes over a cliff.
Donovan and Elsa with the surviving Nazis have deserted the others and spend on to The Canyon of the Crescent Moon, where the final resting place of the Grail lies.
Indy, Henry, Marcus and Sallah catch up with them as they enter the place where the cup resides, but are stopped by Donovan and the Nazis. There are three traps laid in order to get to the grail and everyone who has tried has so far failed. The first is to be a penitent man who kneels before God. If you kneel as you go into the entrance that leads to the Grail, you will not be decapitated by the circular saw that falls down from above. The second test is to pick out the word ‘Jehovah’ from the original spelling, in order to pass that particular spot or the floor gives way and you fall to your death. The third test is to take a leap of faith, which involves taking a step onto an invisible bridge; the bridge is no more than a tromp l’oeil, but it tests the faith of the individual wishing to cross the canyon over which it hangs and proceed to the chamber with the Grail. The Grail is the cup that holds the secret to everlasting life. If you drink from it, you will live forever. If the Nazis get it, it will make them an unbeatable force with the ability to raise its soldiers from the dead and make the Third Reich last forever. To make Indy take the challenge, Donovan shoots Henry. The only way to save Henry now is for Indy to bring back the cup so that Henry can drink from it and recover from an otherwise fatal wound.
Indy manages to overcome the three challenges and ends up in a cave where he meets the 700-year-old Grail Knight who has been the last order for the defence of the grail since the crusades.
When the Grail Knight sees Indy he gets wearily to his feet and, surprisingly, prepares to give combat... taking up his two-handed broadsword... he comes at Indy, attempting to swing the huge, heavy sword but finding the effort almost too much. Indy dodges two or three clumsy swings of the sword, making no attempt to fight back... until the Knight, exhausted, drops the sword and collapses. Indy approaches him and raises the visor and we see that the Knight is a very ancient man. He is so weak now though, that he cannot lift his sword against Indy to defend the Grail.
INDY: Who are you?
KNIGHT: The last of three brothers who swore an oath to find the Grail and to guard it.
INDY: That was seven hundred years ago.
KNIGHT: A long time to wait.
The Grail Knight reaches forward and fingers Indy’s clothing.
KNIGHT: You’re strangely dressed... for a knight.
INDY: I’m not exactly...a knight. What do you mean?
KNIGHT: I was chosen because I was the bravest and the most worthy. The honor was mine until another came to challenge me to single combat. I pass it to you who vanquished me.
Before Indy can talk further with the knight, Donavan and Elsa enter. Donovan commences a hasty search for the Grail, one of many that are lined up against the wall of the cave. Elsa chooses one, almost randomly, and Donovan picks it up and drinks from the Grail. He has picked the wrong cup. ‘You chose poorly,’ says the aged knight, at which points Donovan begins to decay then turns to dust.
Indy then has to choose a cup to save his father. He looks for the cup most likely used by a simple carpenter and risks everything by taking a drink from the cup. You chose…wisely,’ says the knight, clearly satisfied that Indy is the right person to have found the cup.
However, they cannot take the cup past the seal of the cave and the knight warns them of this. Any guardian of the cup must stay within the boundaries of the cave.
Indy fills the cup with water and rushes back to his wounded father. He gives Henry a drink and then pours water from the cup onto the wound. Henry is healed.
Elsa ignores the knight’s warning and tries to run. The whole place begins to shake and fall apart as she reaches the seal. The cup falls into a newly opened crevice and Elsa tries to get it. She slips, Indy tries to save her, but her greed means that she strives to reach the cup which is stuck on a ledge within the crevice. Her glove peels from her hand as Indy tries to hold her and she falls to her death.
Indy then tries to reach the cup, captivated by its beauty and all that it means.
His father saves him and pulls him from the crevice before he falls as Elsa did.
INDY: I can get it - I can almost reach it, Dad.
Indy looks down into the black bottomless pit beneath him from which nothing can ever be retrieved.
HENRY: Indiana. Indiana!!
Indy snaps his look up to his father. His father has never called him this before.
HENRY: (very calmly) ...let it go...
Indy abandons the Grail and grabs onto Henry with both hands. Henry pulls him up to safety.
With a final wave to the Grail Knight, Indy, Henry, Sallah and Marcus leave the cave, mount their horses and gallop away into the sunset.
THOUGHTS
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, as a team and individuals, have dominated the film industry since the mid-seventies. Lucas created the phenomenal Star Wars universe and did it so successfully that in ‘the 2011 census, 177,000 people declared themselves Jedi under the religion section, making it the seventh most popular religion’.[2] In 2001, it was 390,127 people; that’s quite a drop, but every religion has its up and downs.
As a director of many varied films, Spielberg has gone from Duel (1971) to Sugarland Express (1974) to Jaws (1975) to Schindler’s List (1993) and the wonderful remake of West Side Story (2021) and pretty much any genres in between. His output, both as producer and director, must be without equal.
Spielberg and Lucas first came together for Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 and have continued the series of films to the present day. There have only been four Indiana Jones films thus far (with one final one to come in 2023), but it seems as if they have made as many of them as the Broccolis have made Bond movies, such is the impact that they have had.
I chose Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to represent this stable of thoroughbreds for several reasons; I think it’s the most fun of the four so far. I think Connery lends it gravitas with his portrayal as Indy’s father, Henry Jones. I think that it has the best plot and some of the funniest and most poignant lines in the series. It was a deliberate ‘reboot’ of the series after the very dark Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and a reuniting of three favourite characters from Raiders of the Lost Ark – Indy, Marcus and Sallah. The contrast between Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade is day and night; that is not to detract from Temple of Doom, as it is a very good action adventure film in its own right, but The Last Crusade has charm, whereas Temple of Doom just batters you like a fish. ‘I really wanted to bring back the spirit of the original Raiders and have some fun with it,’ Spielberg says. ‘I wanted to bring the cast back, which I’d missed in Temple of Doom, so Denholm Elliott came back, and Rhys-Davies as Sallah’.
The film went through several stages before settling on the Holy Grail idea.
Lucas’ original concept had been to set the story in a haunted castle, but Spielberg has recently written and produced Poltergeist, directed by the late Tobe Hooper, and wanted to steer clear of the supernatural this time around.
One idea had been called Indiana Jones and the Monkey King, for which Lucas wrote an eight page treatment. Although the concept was never taken up, there were many ideas in The Monkey king which were retained for what would become The Last Crusade; the castle in Scotland, which was transferred to Castle of Brunwald in Austria, a female archaeologist (a zoologist in The Monkey King), a package in the mail at Indy’s college office, a boat chase, the return of Brody and the tank chase. Most significant of all was an idea which involved eternal life.
To help with the script, Lucas asked Menno Meyjes for some help. He had previously worked with Spielberg on The Colour Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987).
Spielberg wanted to flesh out the relationship between Indy and his father. This came about because Spielberg had some concerns about the Grail concept and wanted something else to draw the audience in. Later they brought in Jeff Boam, who had worked on the Lethal Weapon films.
A man named Barry Watson was also brought in to help with the writing. Barry Watson was a pseudonym for Tom Stoppard, the great playwright.
Harrison Ford said that he was ‘a strong proponent of bringing in Indiana Jones’s father and showing some new aspects of my character’, something further investigated in the next outing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
For Spielberg, there was really only ever one man to play Henry Jones - Sean Connery.
‘As soon as Steven put the father out there, he had this thing in the back of his mind that he didn’t tell any of us about at first - which was Sean Connery,’ Lucas says.
‘When it came down to casting, I said to George there’s only person who can play Indy’s father and that’s James Bond,’ Spielberg says. ‘The original and the greatest James Bond is Sean Connery.’
‘My reaction was no,’ Lucas says. ‘I said, ‘He’s James Bond. The audience is never going to think of him as anyone other than James Bond. He’s a big movie star, and we don’t need a big movie star.’ Steven said, ‘Yeah, but Indiana Jones is the spawn of James Bond.’ I said, ‘He’ll want to take over a little bit.’ But Steven said, ‘No, no, I’ll take care of it.’ And it did go that way, but Steven controlled it.’
Connery was only too happy to accept the role, the only reservation being that he was only twelve years older than Harrison Ford. Clearly this was overcome and Connery helped to pad out what he thought was too thin a character, contributing the idea of the competitive nature of the father/son relationship. Connery insisted that whatever Indy had done, so had Henry, and that included Elsa Schneider.
Their scene together on the Zeppelin has to rank among the best of the film and the most personal and revealing (during which neither of the actors wore pants because it was so hot on set).
INDY: Do you remember the last time we had a quiet drink? I had a milk shake.
HENRY: Hmmm... What did we talk about?
INDY: We didn’t talk. We never talked.
HENRY :And do I detect a rebuke?
INDY: A regret. It was just the two of us, Dad. It was a lonely way to grow up. For you, too. If you had been an ordinary, average father like the other guys’ dads, you’d have understood that.
HENRY: Actually, I was a wonderful father.
INDY: When?
Henry looks up from his Diary.
HENRY: Did I ever tell you to eat up? Go to bed? Wash your ears? Do your homework? No. I respected your privacy and I taught you self-reliance.
INDY: What you taught me was that I was less important to you than people who had been dead for five hundred years in another country. And I learned it so well that we’ve hardly spoken for twenty years.
HENRY: You left just when you were becoming interesting.
River Phoenix was suggested by Harrison Ford who had worked with him in The Mosquito Coast (1986). Phoenix, as the thirteen year old Indiana, provided yet more of Indy’s background to the film, showing how Indy developed his phobia of snakes, how he first used a whip and how he cut his chin and got the famous Indiana Jones scar, which was actually real on Ford after he had been involved in a car accident in his early twenties and lost out to a telegraph pole.
Alison Doody had to audition along with many others for the role of Elsa. She had been in A View to a Kill (1985), Roger Moore’s final outing as Bond, as one of the villain’s henchpeople. She was kept waiting for about four months before being told she had got the role.
Julian Glover, who played Donovan – and had also been the villain in a Roger Moore Bond, For Your Eyes Only (1981) and had also been in Lucas’ The Empire Strikes Back (1980) – originally went up for the part as the vicious Nazi, Vogel. He thought he was perfect for the role, but was instead offered the part of Donavan. His real-life wife, Isla Blair, also played his wife in the film. Incidentally, Glover hated the American accent he had adopted for the role.
Once again, to top it all, you have the glory of John Williams’ music. It’s difficult to overstate the impact of Williams’ music, not only on these films, but on the industry as a whole. His ability to bring pomp and pathos to a film is second to none and, without him, Spielberg and Lucas would have lost an essential element to their movies, to the point perhaps, where their popularity might have been less.
On a budget of $48,000,000, the film brought in $474,171,806 at the worldwide box office. I alone have owned the film on VHS, DVD and now Blu-ray, so heaven only knows how much it has made from the home sales market.
It was nigh on impossible to decide between Raiders… and The Last Crusade, for the reasons given at the beginning of these thoughts, but the relationship between Indy and Henry elevated the series, added depth, added humour and moments of tremendous love between father and son.
We come away with a more rounded Indiana Jones; we come away, in Spielberg’s words, with the spawn of James Bond
[1] Picture copyright Lucasfilm Ltd, Paramount Pictures, Robert Watts
[2] BBC News, December 2016.
