Cross Of Coronado

''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'' is a 1989 American action adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Jeffrey Boam, based on a story by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes. It is the third installment in the ''Indiana Jones'' film series and the sequel to ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (1981). Harrison Ford returned in the title role, while his father is portrayed by Sean Connery. Other cast members featured include Alison Doody, Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover, River Phoenix, and John Rhys-Davies. In the film, set in 1938, Indiana Jones searches for his father, a Holy Grail scholar, who has been kidnapped and held hostage by the Nazis while on a journey to find the Holy Grail.

After the criticism that ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'' (1984) received, Spielberg chose to make a more lighthearted film for the next installment, as well as bringing back several elements from ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''. During the five years between ''Temple of Doom'' and ''The Last Crusade'', he and executive producer Lucas reviewed several scripts before accepting Jeffrey Boam's. Filming locations included Spain, Italy, West Germany, Jordan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'' was released in the United States on May 24, 1989, by Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews and was a financial success, earning $474.2 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 1989. It also won the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing and was nominated for Best Original Score and Best Sound at the 62nd Academy Awards. Although Spielberg and Lucas originally intended for ''The Last Crusade'' to be the end of the series, a sequel, ''Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'', followed in May 2008, while a fifth and final film, ''Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny'', was released in June 2023.

Plot

In 1912, Boy Scout Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr. lives with his father Henry Jones Sr. in Moab, Utah. One day, while undergoing a cave exploration, Indiana takes a crucifix owned by Coronado from a group of graverobbers led by a man named Garth, and after a brief horse chase, flees to his home, where Garth and his men find him and retrieve the crucifix. Garth admits his respect towards Indiana and gives him his fedora before leaving.

In 1938, Indiana successfully takes back the crucifix from the graverobbers' employer off the Portuguese coast. After returning to the United States, Indiana learns Henry has disappeared while searching for the Holy Grail. Walter Donovan, his father's financial backer, tasks Indiana with finding both Henry and the Grail. Indiana receives a package containing Henry's diary, which includes his research on the Grail, and travels to Venice alongside Marcus Brody to meet Henry's associate Elsa Schneider. Beneath the library where Henry was last seen, Indiana and Elsa discover a catacomb containing an inscribed shield which reveals that the path to the Grail begins in Alexandretta. The two are subsequently attacked by a mysterious group who reveal themselves to be the secret Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, dedicated to protecting the Grail. After sparing the life of the group's leader Kazim, Indiana learns that Henry is being held at a castle in Austria. Indiana entrusts Marcus with a map from the diary detailing a route to the Grail and sends him to Alexandretta to rendezvous with their friend Sallah. Discovering their rooms have been ransacked, Indiana reveals the diary's existence to Elsa before they sleep together.

In Austria, Indiana and Elsa infiltrate the castle, discovering it to be under Nazi control. Indiana finds Henry and tries to escape, but surrenders after Elsa is held captive by the Nazis. She reveals herself to be a Nazi collaborator and takes the diary, and Indiana and Henry are tied up and learn that Donovan is also working with the Nazis. After arriving in Alexandretta, Marcus is captured by the Nazis as well. Elsa returns to Germany, while the Joneses escape the castle before traveling to Berlin to retrieve the diary. After recovering it from Elsa, the Joneses flee on a Zeppelin before evading two Luftwaffe planes pursuing them.

Once the Joneses arrive in Hatay, Sallah informs them that the Nazis have also traveled there using the map. While they are following the trail, the Nazis are attacked by the Brotherhood but defeat them. Henry takes advantage of the distraction to try to rescue Marcus but is captured; Indiana attacks the Nazi convoy in response and is eventually able to destroy it with help from Henry and Marcus. The Joneses, Marcus and Sallah proceed to a temple containing the Grail, where they observe the Nazis attempting to overcome the temple's traps before being captured. Donovan forces Indiana to find safe passage for them by mortally wounding Henry; a drink from the Grail can heal him. With the help of the diary, Indiana overcomes the traps and finds a room with many cups and an ancient knight, who explains that only one cup is the true Grail. Donovan and Elsa enter the room, and Elsa deliberately gives him the wrong cup, killing Donovan after he drinks from it. Indiana identifies the true Grail and rescues Henry. Elsa falls to her death when her attempt to leave with the Grail causes the temple to collapse, and Indiana nearly suffers the same fate before Henry saves him. The Grail falls into an abyss as the Joneses, Marcus and Sallah escape and ride off into the sunset.

Cast

* Harrison Ford as Henry "Indiana" Jones Jr.: An archaeologist, professor and adventurer who seeks to rescue his father and find the Holy Grail. Ford said he loved the idea of introducing Indiana's father because it allowed him to explore another side to Indiana's personality: "These are men who have never made any accommodation to each other. Indy behaves differently in his father's presence. Who else would dare call Indy 'junior'?"
** River Phoenix as a younger Indiana Jones. Phoenix had portrayed the son of Ford's character in '' The Mosquito Coast'' (1986). Ford recommended Phoenix for the part; he said that of the young actors working at the time, Phoenix looked the most like him when he was around that age.
* Sean Connery as Henry Jones Sr.: Indiana's father, a professor of medieval literature who cared more about looking for the Grail than raising his son. Spielberg had Connery in mind when he suggested introducing Indiana's father, though he did not tell Lucas at first. Consequently, Lucas wrote the role as "a crazy, eccentric" professor resembling Laurence Olivier, whose relationship with Indiana is "strict schoolmaster and student rather than a father and son". Spielberg had been a fan of Connery's work as James Bond and felt that no one else could perform the role as well. Spielberg biographer Joseph McBride wrote, "Connery was already the father of Indiana Jones since the series had sprung from the desire of Lucas and Spielberg to rival (and outdo) Connery's ''James Bond'' films."McBride, "An Awfully Big Adventure", p. 379–413 Connery, who had eschewed major franchise films since his work on the James Bond series, as he found those roles dull and wanted to avoid paparazzi attention, initially turned the role down (as he was only twelve years older than Ford) but eventually relented. Connery—a student of history—began to reshape the character, and revisions were made to the script to address his concerns. "I wanted to play Henry Jones as a kind of Richard Francis Burton," Connery commented. "I was bound to have fun with the role of a gruff, Victorian Scottish father." Connery believed Henry should be a match for his son, telling Spielberg that "whatever Indy'd done my character has done and my character has done it better". Connery signed to the film on March 25, 1988. He improvised the line, "She talks in her sleep", which was left in because it made everyone laugh; in Boam's scripts, Henry telling Indiana that he slept with Elsa occurs later.
** Alex Hyde-White plays Henry in the film's prologue, though his face is never shown and his lines were dubbed by Connery.
* Denholm Elliott as Marcus Brody: Indiana's bumbling English colleague. Elliott returned after Spielberg sought to recapture the tone of ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (1981), following the actor's absence in the darker ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'' (1984).
* Alison Doody as Dr. Elsa Schneider: An Austrian art professor and Indy's love interest, who is in league with the Nazis. She seduces the Joneses to trick them, but appears to have genuine feelings for Indy. While the character of Elsa is in her 30s during the film, Doody was 21 when she auditioned and was one of the first actresses who met for the part. Amanda Redman was offered the role, but declined.
* John Rhys-Davies as Sallah: A friend of Indiana and a professional excavator living in Cairo. Like Elliott's, Rhys-Davies's return was also an attempt to recapture the spirit of ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''.
* Julian Glover as Walter Donovan: An American businessman who sends the Joneses on their quest for the Holy Grail out of a desire for immortality while secretly working with the Nazis for the same goal. Glover previously appeared as General Veers in Lucas's ''The Empire Strikes Back''. He originally auditioned for the role of Vogel. Glover, who is English, adopted an American accent for the film, but was dissatisfied with the result.
* Michael Byrne as Ernst Vogel: A brutal '' SS'' colonel. Byrne and Ford had previously starred in ''Force 10 from Navarone'' (1978), in which they also respectively played a German and an American.

Kevork Malikyan portrays Kazim, the leader of the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, an organization that protects the Holy Grail. Malikyan had impressed Spielberg with his performance in '' Midnight Express'' (1978) and would have auditioned for the role of Sallah in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' had a traffic jam not delayed his meeting with the director. Robert Eddison appears as the Grail Knight, the guardian of the Grail who drank from the cup of Christ during the Crusades. Eddison was a stage and television veteran only appearing in a few films since the 1930s (including a supporting role in Peter Ustinov's 1948 comedy '' Vice Versa''). Glover recalled Eddison was excited and nervous for his return to film, often asking if he had performed correctly. Laurence Olivier was originally considered to play the Grail Knight, but he was too ill and died the same year in which the film was released.

Michael Sheard appears as Adolf Hitler, whom Jones briefly encounters at the book-burning rally in Berlin. Although a non-speaking role, Sheard could speak German and had already portrayed Hitler three times during his career. He had also appeared as Admiral Ozzel in ''The Empire Strikes Back'' and as Oskar Schomburg in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''. In the same scene, Ronald Lacey, who played Toht in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'', cameos as Heinrich Himmler. Alexei Sayle played the fictional "sultan" of Hatay. (In fact, Hatay State was a republic.) Paul Maxwell portrayed "the man with the Panama Hat" who took possession of the Cross of Coronado. Wrestler and stuntman Pat Roach, who played three roles in the previous two films, made a short cameo as the Nazi who accompanies Vogel to the Zeppelin. Roach was set to film a fight with Ford, but it was cut. In a deleted scene, Roach's agent boards the second biplane on the Zeppelin with a World War I flying ace (played by Frederick Jaeger), only for the pair to fall to their deaths after the flying ace makes an error. Richard Young played Garth, the leader of the tomb robbers who chased young Indiana Jones and then gives him his hat. Eugene Lipinski portrayed the mysterious agent G-Man, while Vernon Dobtcheff appeared as the butler of Castle Brunwald.

Production

Development

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had intended to make a trilogy of ''Indiana Jones'' films since Lucas had first pitched ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' to Spielberg in 1977, though they signed for five films with Paramount Pictures by 1979. After the mixed critical and public reaction to ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'', Spielberg decided to complete the trilogy to fulfill his promise to Lucas, with the intent to invoke the film with the spirit and tone of ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''. ''Temple of Doom'' writers Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz chose not to return due to both having other commitments and feeling satisfied with their work in the second film. Throughout the film's development and pre-production, Spielberg admitted he was "consciously regressing" in making the film. Due to his commitment to the film, the director had to drop out of directing ''Big'' and ''Rain Man''.

Lucas initially suggested making the film "a haunted mansion movie", for which ''Romancing the Stone'' writer Diane Thomas wrote a script. Spielberg rejected the idea because of the similarity to ''Poltergeist'', which he had co-written and produced. Lucas first introduced the Holy Grail in an idea for the film's prologue, which was to be set in Scotland. He intended the Grail to have a pagan basis, with the rest of the film revolving around a separate Christian artifact in Africa. Spielberg did not care for the Grail idea, which he found too esoteric, even after Lucas suggested giving it healing powers and the ability to grant immortality (much like the fictional magical power given to the Ark in the first film of the trilogy). In September 1984, Lucas completed an eight-page treatment titled ''Indiana Jones and the Monkey King'', which he soon followed with an 11-page outline. The story saw Indiana battling a ghost in Scotland before finding the Fountain of Youth in Africa.Rinzler, Bouzereau, "The Monkey King: July 1984 to May 1988", p. 184–203.

Chris Columbus—who had written the Spielberg-produced ''Gremlins'', ''The Goonies'', and ''Young Sherlock Holmes''—was hired to write the script. His first draft, dated May 3, 1985, changed the main plot device to a Garden of Immortal Peaches. It begins in 1937, with Indiana battling the murderous ghost of Baron Seamus Seagrove III in Scotland. Indiana travels to Mozambique to aid Dr. Clare Clarke (a Katharine Hepburn-type according to Lucas), who has found a 200-year-old pygmy. The pygmy is kidnapped by the Nazis during a boat chase, and Indiana, Clare and Scraggy Brier—an old friend of Indiana—travel up the Zambezi river to rescue him. Indiana is killed in the climactic battle but is resurrected by the Monkey King. Other characters include a cannibalistic African tribe; Nazi Sergeant Gutterbuhg, who has a mechanical arm; Betsy, a stowaway student who is suicidally in love with Indiana; and a pirate leader named Kezure (described as a Toshiro Mifune-type), who dies eating a peach because he is not pure of heart.

Columbus's second draft, dated August 6, 1985, removed Betsy and featured Dash—an expatriate bar owner for whom the Nazis work—and the Monkey King as villains. The Monkey King forces Indiana and Dash to play chess with real people and disintegrates each person who is captured. Indiana subsequently battles the undead, destroys the Monkey King's rod, and marries Clare. Location scouting commenced in Africa but Spielberg and Lucas abandoned ''Monkey King'' because of its negative depiction of African natives, and because the script was too unrealistic. Spielberg acknowledged that it made him "... feel very old, too old to direct it." Columbus's script was leaked onto the Internet in 1997, and many believed it was an early draft for the fourth film because it was mistakenly dated to 1995.

Dissatisfied, Spielberg suggested introducing Indiana's father, Henry Jones, Sr. Lucas was dubious, believing the Grail should be the story's focus, but Spielberg convinced him that the father–son relationship would serve as a great metaphor in Indiana's search for the artifact. Spielberg hired Menno Meyjes, who had worked on Spielberg's ''The Color Purple

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases