Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

 “All your life has been spent in pursuit of archaeological relics. Inside the Ark are treasures beyond your wildest aspirations. You want to see it opened as well as I. Indiana, we are simply passing through history. This, this *is* history.” – Belloq

Number of Times Seen – Way too many to count (cable, video, DVD, 3 Apr 2000 and 23 Apr 2014)

Brief Synopsis – Archaeologist Indiana Jones must find the Ark of the covenant before the Nazi’s get their hands on it.

My Take on it – This was the first collaboration between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and it resulted in creating a true match made in heaven.

Indiana Jones has become such an iconic character and so many film makers have tried to copy this formula and failed.

Tom Selleck was the first choice to play Indy, but when he couldn’t get out of his Magnum PI contract, Spielberg and Lucas reluctantly chose Harrison Ford to take the role ultimately making movie history by doing so.  As good of an actor as Selleck is, I don’t think he could have pulled this one off as well as Ford did.  We should all be very grateful for that. 🙂

I was only 6 when this came out in the theater, so I had to wait another 2 years until I was able to finally see it.  I recall that the local library showed movies once a week during the summer of ’83 and I was ecstatic to see this one eventhough I knew there were some scary scenes at the end.

Suffice it to say, I loved it and have seen it so many times since then.

This movie has so many quotable lines and constantly puts its characters in dire situations that keep us on the edge of our seats throughout.

Karen Allen is great as the tough female lead opposite Ford and John Rhys-Davies is great and funny at the same time as Indy’s friend Sallah.

This movie was so well received that it even garner 8 Oscar nominations including Director and Picture.  It ended up winning 4 Oscars and a Special Achievement award, but lost out on the big one to Chariots of Fire (1981) which is unfortunate because it isn’t hard to now see which movie is better and stands the test of time.

My favorite piece of trivia about this movie is that when they were filming the scene where Indy is confronted by a swordsman in teh marketplace, Ford had food poisoning and wanted to speed up the pace.  He suggested that he just shoot the guy and we now have a memorable movie moment that was caused by food poisoning.

The music by John Williams is stunning and he once again proved how great an artist he truly is.

Bottom Line – Amazing introduction to one of films most iconic heroes.  Very fun movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. Highly Recommended!

Rating – Oscar Worthy

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