The Great Adventure: Remembering “Raiders of the Lost Ark” on its 35th Anniversary

Tuesday, 14 June 2016 16:00

The Great Adventure: Remembering “Raiders of the Lost Ark” on its 35th Anniversary

by Michael Coate

Coate: When did you first see Raiders and what did you think of it?

Awalt: I’m very embarrassed to say this, especially given my background writing professionally about Steven Spielberg’s work, but I claim the innocence of a kid who didn’t know better: I first saw the film in 1981 before our folks even took us to see it on the big screen. Most of the kids in our suburbs were exposed to Raiders through a bootleg copy on VHS that was being passed around by the fathers in the neighborhood (along with a copy of The Empire Strikes Back). I remember the picture and sound were pretty dire, most likely shot with a video camera of the era pointed at a theater screen, but despite how crappy it looked and sounded, all of us kids were just completely enraptured by the film. We all wanted to be Indiana Jones after that, we wanted to study archaeology and go on exotic adventures, find buried treasures, mummy’s tombs, and of course everyone wanted a bullwhip for our backyard horsing around. We wanted to kiss a girl as beautiful and as spunky as Marion Ravenwood. Kids of our generation were already in complete and total awe of Harrison Ford as Han Solo between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, so to see him in a brand-new, earthbound role just sent us all over the moon.

Bouzereau: I saw it in a packed theater in Paris on a warm weekend. I had already read the movie-tie-in novelization and knew the soundtrack by heart — as was always the case in my youth, films reached the European markets at least six months after the U.S. Even though I knew everything, I experienced the film as a revelation. It was amazing that aside from the brilliant directing and acting, the dialogue and writing stood out, even to someone like myself who was not fluent in English. I remember seeing it over and over, and quoting the dialogue.

Higgins: Sunday matinee, June 14th, 1981 — Showcase Cinemas near Pontiac, Michigan. It was an experience I immediately wanted to repeat. I spent many afternoons at the multiplex that summer, contemplating boulders, snakes, Karen Allen, and melting faces. The cut from the diving sub to the secret island always bugged me, and after the second or third viewing it became a subject of speculation and debate. The shot of Karen Allen dangling at the edge of the Well of Souls was another subject of intense rumination.

Lichtenfeld: As with Last Crusade, I have a clearer memory of my second time seeing Raiders. That’s because my dad, who had already taken me, insisted we go back and take my mom. I was young, but I knew that a movie like Raiders wasn’t her bag. So if we were taking her, then it had to mean that this was something special, something that crossed over.

Matessino: I saw Raiders at the first show on opening day. Curiously there were very few people there, but it was a Friday matinee and in those days you didn’t necessarily have the huge opening weekends for movies people knew little about. Reviews and word-of-mouth were still a factor. I had read the novelization before seeing the movie, so I already knew the story. But still it took me a few viewings to process what it had accomplished, how it was an homage to movies of the past while also being its own completely new thing. A big part of that for me was John Williams’ music. It’s not actually one of my top favorites of his works, but obviously the role it played is significant and is one of his most popular scores. There is, naturally, a focus on the famous Raiders March theme that is universally recognizable, but there are subtleties in the score that elevate it above the material’s B-movie and serial origins. The theme for the Ark is incredibly rich and intriguing, suggesting an ancient spiritual power the instant you hear it. And consider how Williams introduces Marion’s theme before we even meet the character. It is like an echo from a decade in the past… Williams musically reflects the characters and the backstory with incredible economy and hits a bull's-eye in doing so. The action music is great, of course, but what happens in the rest of the score, for me, helps turn a B-movie into a serious piece of art that absolutely deserved its Oscar nominations for Best Picture and all the other accolades it has received. It was very clear when I first saw Raiders that the combined talents of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had given birth to something very special.

McBride: I saw it when it came out — the early scene with the giant boulder was a terrific way to get into it. But I became increasingly dismayed by the film’s mindlessness and racism. The direction of action is expert, there is a fair amount of goofy humor, akin to MAD magazine’s Scenes We’d Like to See, but the storyline is preposterous, childish, and uninvolving, and the Third World characters are stereotyped. I found the scene in which Indiana Jones casually shoots a sword-wielding Arab offensive, although the audience seemed to love it, which made me even more depressed. When I interviewed the film’s screenwriter, Lawrence Kasdan, for Steven Spielberg: A Biography, he told me he also found that improvised scene offensive. He said it “was very popular, but it disturbed me. I thought that was brutal in a way the rest of the movie wasn’t. I’m never happy about making jokes out of killing people. Steven is more in touch with popular taste than I am.” The fact that Indy loots Third World treasures harks back to the worst, most discredited B-movie, colonialist tropes of 1930s cinema, and the homages to serials are hardly worth making at such length (even if the truck sequence, directed by second-unit director Michael D. Moore, is nifty). With its reactionary politics, callousness, anti-intellectualism, and overall mindlessness, Raiders is the perfect film for the Reagan era, though I don’t consider it responsible for all the crimes of the Reagan administration, as one hysterical anti-Spielberg critic seems to think it is.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Coate: How is Raiders significant within the action-adventure genre?

Awalt: Raiders is the perfect model adventure film of the so-called “blockbuster era,” a huge influence on so much that came afterwards. It’s unique, even considering the film itself was a pastiche of old serial films. Like he did with Star Wars, George Lucas’s appropriation of these dusty cultural relics (the adventure serials) and audiences’ general, maybe even vague notion of them combined to make something that felt entirely new and yet completely familiar. Once Raiders proved to be such a popular film with audiences and the box-office, other filmmakers, lesser filmmakers as it goes, rushed to try and copy the formula that George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Larry Kasdan had so winningly concocted…. Despite the weak imitations both Spielberg and Lucas’s work unintentionally wrought, Raiders will always stand apart from the copies, because Spielberg and Lucas understood the many ingredients and moving parts you need to make films that capture audiences’ attention and imaginations. Raiders took those tropes of pulp and movie storytelling, in this case the cliffhanger adventure story, and it breathed new life into the genre by giving us what was then a contemporary hero (despite Indy’s world being set in the pre-WWII past, four decades before the 1980s)…. The character of Indiana Jones himself is a unique creation. We first see Indy from behind or in silhouette and shadow, until just as the nefarious porter with the pistol is about to get the jump on him, the trademark whip lashes out and Indy steps from the shade into a character entrance and close-up worthy of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Casting Harrison Ford was a boon, and for the very reason that Lucas resisted the idea following Ford’s portrayal of Han Solo. Audiences had come to know Ford through the Star Wars films, so we had expectations in place — the cocky, overly confident braggart who somehow gets out of terrible situations by the skin of his teeth. When we first see Ford step out of the shadows as Indiana Jones though, we see a grizzled, unshaven, and rightly pissed off character that seems like he’ll be worlds away from the character of Han Solo. Indiana Jones is introduced as this very imposing masculine figure, but then we see the filmmakers methodically chip away this man-of-action, soldier of fortune facade. Everything goes wrong for Indy inside the temple and we see him progressively revealed as a seat-of-his pants fella who clumsily improvises his way out of trap after trap just to stay alive — and it turns out he is somewhat of a close cousin to Han Solo in this regard. So casting Ford and playing against expectations while slowly unraveling and in turn revealing the nature of Indiana Jones’s suddenly relatable character is something of a master stroke on numerous levels…. It’s a brilliant deconstruction of the Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lester Dent, Ian Fleming man of brawn, cunning and skill, and I think that sly but loving humor toward and about Indy’s character is one of the most significant aspects of the film and the entire Indiana Jones series. Others sought to copy Raiders, but they either took themselves too seriously, not seriously enough, or they didn’t have the chops to walk the very fine line between two-fisted action film and endearing character work.

Bouzereau: The action sequences are so well choreographed but the magic of it is that we are so engaged with the characters. That was really what stood out for me — I identified with Indiana Jones, there was something relatable that made you want to be part of the action. And that was something I had so far only experienced in James Bond films.

Higgins: Pitfall! Tales of the Gold Monkey! Need I say more?.... It returned a vocabulary to the media that had been out of circulation since the 1950s…. Actually, I see it as a link between two eras of popular adventure cinema. Spielberg and Lucas were repurposing (and improving) their memories of Saturday afternoon serial matinees (which they probably saw on TV and in repertory theaters because they missed that era by a few years), and handing a storytelling formula to the next generation. Serials left the story unfinished and turned the audience into virtual filmmakers for a week as they figured out cliffhangers on the playground. Lucas and Spielberg became real filmmakers, and returned the favor to generations of viewers who haunted the multiplexes and took that world out of the cinema with them. Raiders is a first-rate film school (and not just for 13 year-olds). One of the reasons I wrote the book on serials was that it finally gave me a chance to look seriously at Raiders — and I was happy to find that the film still has much to teach. So, read my book! (Or, err, just watch Raiders again).

Lichtenfeld: This may sound nuts to some (and like heresy to others), but I don’t usually think of Raiders in the context of the genre. And I say that as someone who wrote a pretty definitive book on how the genre evolved! If anything, I tend to think of Raiders, along with some of Steven Spielberg’s other movies, in the context of great silent film comedy — with its sight gags and sequences built out of elaborate causal chains…. But as for the action film, I’m biased toward the period starting with the 1970s, since that’s when I think the genre formally came to be, and since that was the focus of my book. With Raiders, maybe it’s the period setting in conjunction with Spielberg’s distinctive style, but I just don’t experience it the way I experience a lot of those other movies, even great ones like First Blood or The Terminator. To me, those are all great action movies, and some of them are great movies period…but Raiders is Raiders.

Matessino: Just as the original Star Wars began with an action sequence, Raiders continued what George Lucas did in that movie by starting the film with the story basically already in progress. In this case it was the end of an adventure, so in that sense it had a James Bond-like structure, but what it really did was uphold the idea that “action is character.” It’s been pointed out the Indiana Jones doesn’t really influence the plot in any way, and while that might be an arguable point, what it leaves us with is a realization that it’s all about the journey and about the watching the character’s reactions to all the situations in which he finds himself. We subconsciously know it’s all going to turn out all right in the end, so the experience is all about the obstacles and the character’s responses to them, emotionally as well as physically. The problem is that when one tries to replicate this formula, it can feel forced. With Raiders the screenplay perfectly balanced story, action and character and there is not a single spare moment in it. It was lightning in a bottle.

McBride: It helped set a new standard for flashy, sophisticated, fast-paced visuals with cartoonish content. In so doing it followed the model established by George Lucas in Star Wars, which, when I first saw it, profoundly depressed me, because I realized I was witnessing the beginning of the end of cinema, or at least American cinema. Time has borne that out. Just about every Hollywood movie now resembles either Star Wars or Raiders, and that is not a compliment.

A scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark

Coate: Where do you think Raiders ranks among director Steven Spielberg’s body of work?

Awalt: Raiders and the Indiana Jones films in general have always felt to me somewhat odd outliers contradictorily pushing in near the center of Steven Spielberg’s work. When Raiders was released in 1981, it was following the unprecedented successes of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Spielberg’s reputation as a filmmaker in the popular American imagination and zeitgeist was just starting to set because of these cultural milestones…. Even the original marketing for Raiders hinged on both Spielberg and Lucas’s outsized successes and growing cultural cachet from Jaws, Close Encounters, and Star Wars, so these two men’s moments had arrived in the popular consciousness. And with Poltergeist and then the unimaginable heights that E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial took Spielberg and his work a mere 12 months later, his place in film history and our world culture was fully concretized. Not bad at all for a young man in his early 30s…. Despite all this, Raiders felt as something of an anomaly to Spielberg’s already established voice and style when it came out in 1981. With Duel, The Sugarland Express, Jaws, and especially Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg showed the world he was both an expert director and highly technical filmmaker, but he’d also revealed a clear sense of personality, voice and even heart. The New Yorker critic Pauline Kael bemoaned Raiders as a large and damnable sidestep for Spielberg, being of an impersonal filmmaking nature she blamed on Lucas*. In some ways, she’s right, Spielberg didn’t agree to work on Raiders as a chance to put pieces of himself in his film as he demonstrably did in The Sugarland Express and Close Encounters. But Duel and Jaws were arguably and at Spielberg’s own admission more mechanical exercises in manipulating the form and also his audiences. I think Raiders is an extension of those films’ aims. They were all works for hire on which Spielberg still did a consummate expert’s job where he could have done a journeyman’s work. And he made it all look so easy. (*Kael clearly didn’t grasp the voice and biography Lucas brought to American Graffiti and Star Wars, two very popular films imbued with their creator’s personal concerns and feelings.)

Bouzereau: It ranks very high. It introduced us to yet another side of Steven’s immense talent.

Higgins: Just behind Jaws.

Lichtenfeld: It’s certainly high up there. It’s such a clear and high-level illustration of his whole approach to filmmaking: from his visual style to the silent-film-like construction of his action sequences to the themes that preoccupied him for so long…. In retrospect, it seems like one of the movies Spielberg was just destined to make — but of course, that’s often how history looks, and not how it actually unfolds. In fact, before he made Raiders, he told Rolling Stone, “Hopefully, 1941 is the last movie I make that celebrates the boy in me.” If there’s an alternate universe where that’s what happened, I can’t imagine how modern film history turned out. Come to think of it, I can’t imagine how I turned out.

Matessino: Steven Spielberg has remarked that he didn’t feel Raiders was personal in any way. However, it is a vitally important movie in his career. Prior to that he made three pictures that all went over budget and over schedule: Jaws, Close Encounters and 1941. The first two were redeemed by grand successes at the box office and with the critics. But 1941, as much as I and many fans of Spielberg’s work love that movie, was a very sobering experience for him. Thank God Raiders came to him when it did, because he achieved a discipline on that project that enabled him to grow as an artist and become a successful producer in his own right. Raiders actually came in under budget and ahead of schedule, and this directly paved the way for the one-two punch of Poltergeist and E.T. the following year and the formation of his production company. Even if Raiders had not been a box office success, it would be impossible to assess Steven Spielberg’s career without examining what he was able to pull off with it.

McBride: Not very high. The Spielberg films I most esteem are Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler’s List, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Those films have hearts, souls, and poetry, all of which Raiders lacks.

Coate: Where do you think Raiders ranks among the Indiana Jones movies?

Awalt: Without a doubt, Raiders is the very top-shelf in the Indiana Jones adventures. I’m a huge fan of Temple of Doom since back to 1984, and I enjoy Last Crusade and yes, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but Raiders stands very tall within the series and also within all adventure films throughout all of Hollywood history. It’s where the world first met, fell in love with and thrilled to the adventures of Indiana Jones, Marion Ravenwood, Sallah and Marcus Brody. Everything that has followed builds on the rock-solid foundation that is Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Bouzereau: It is the best of all the four films. It sets the tone and has an innocence to it… But I have to say that each of the other films are also quite special and original. I have experienced them through the years and have enjoyed rediscovering them through my documentaries. And working on Skull was a highlight of my own modest career as documentarian of behind-the-scenes. That’s an experience I’ll never forget!

Higgins: Far, far, far out ahead. I’m happy to defend the other films, but no matter how much I love them, I always feel like I’m making a case for them (and allowances for them) in light of Raiders. The highest achievements of the other films (the tank vs horse fight/chase in Last Crusade) and their great weaknesses (the various ex machina) are never quite as good or are just a bit worse than Raiders.

Lichtenfeld: It’s first — in both senses of the word. But it’s so clearly the best that the question I always find more interesting is where do Temple of Doom and Last Crusade come out in the battle for second place?

Matessino: It’s clearly the tightest and most solidly successful of the series and is important because it’s the first one, but on a personal level I enjoy Last Crusade more. The themes of that picture, particularly the father/son aspect and the whole idea of a “leap of faith” resonate with me. When looking at all of the films I feel Last Crusade might be the only genuine Steven Spielberg movie of the series, at least thematically. Of course it never would have existed without Raiders, which, as I said, is a template for an entire genre.

McBride: I prefer Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, because it has Nazis as villains rather than Third World ethnic caricatures. We all despise Nazis. The filmmakers had trouble eventually finding acceptable villains for these films because they became more aware of the problems stereotyping ethnic groups and with the crassness and casual brutality of the central character; eventually, in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indy winds up on the side of the “natives” and returns treasures rather than looting them. Last Crusade also has a more relaxed, expansive visual feel and a more interesting storyline than the others, with its religious overtones. (Spielberg’s films are full of Christian iconography and themes.) The most loathsome of the four films, by far, is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which is the most flagrantly racist, as well as filled with ghastly hyper-violence throughout, aside from a few comic set pieces such as Kate Capshaw’s charming song number in Chinese. Spielberg was in a dark state of mind when he made that ugly film. Unlike many Indiana Jones fans, I sort of like Crystal Skull — or as someone called it, Indiana Jones and the Terrible Title. What I like about it is the generally unnoticed fact that Spielberg is amusing himself by parodying his work in various genres. The destruction of the fake suburban town — “Doom Town,” or Spielbergland, in effect — is the best part of the film. Spielberg’s gift for parody is rarely appreciated, but it’s an integral part of his work. It is responsible for some of the better aspects of Raiders, (for example, the boulder).

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Coate: Would you like to see more Indiana Jones movies?

Awalt: I have been hoping beyond hope that Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy, and the entire Raiders team would get back together for more Indy adventures. I love the whole Indiana Jones series dearly. Crystal Skull disappointed what seems to be a large set of very vocal fans, but it did receive a majority of positive professional notices, and it was undeniably a box-office smash in 2008. For that reason alone one would think there would be at least a studio imperative for carrying the beloved series forward…. I also see admirers like myself, who consider Crystal Skull an important progression in the adventures of these beloved characters. It has its flaws, especially compared to Raiders or Temple of Doom, but where everything clicks, I still maintain it’s a damned good expansion of the Indiana Jones mythos. I loved the Chariots of the Gods angle, the Soviet interest in the paranormal and especially seeing an aged Indy in a whole new era. I hope we can see more films set in that time period and with similar themes — Cold War, paranormal, supernatural and super-ordinary themes that were a part of the American imagination from the 1950s to the 1970s. I also hope that critical notices about the outre “alien” theme in Crystal Skull don’t send the filmmakers back to safer ground like we saw with Last Crusade after outcry toward Temple of Doom in 1984. Keep pushing Indy into new realms, and make another film or two to be of a piece with Crystal Skull and this time in Indy’s storied life.

Bouzereau: Absolutely!!

Higgins: I think the franchise has legs and unexplored potential. No question it needs a reboot, and not just another installment, but it is full of creative possibilities. The trick would be to pull this off without aping recent trends — that is without Indy becoming the morally ambiguous dark avenger, or another Marvelous hero. Probably would be safer to reboot Romancing the Stone; that way if it failed no one would care.

Lichtenfeld: Of course I would like to see more Indiana Jones movies. But that doesn’t mean I think more Indiana Jones movies should be made.

Matessino: I’d be all for one more Indiana Jones movie with Harrison Ford that wraps up the series in an appropriate and satisfying way, validates all four of the films (as well the Young Indiana Jones series), and which perhaps sets things up for a reboot in a way that audiences will accept and get excited about. I fully believe that something like that is achievable.

McBride: If Spielberg enjoys them, why not? They’re divertissements in the midst of his more substantial work. I think it’s good that he doesn’t spend all his time making heavyweight films but also indulges his gift for escapism. He is an artist with many facets and that rare thing, a great popular artist.

Coate: What is the legacy of Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Awalt: The true legacy of Raiders of the Lost Ark is why I think pictures of its ilk are chiefly made: Films like Raiders forever place audiences under a completely enchanting, exciting and emotional spell as it sweeps viewers up. Few films have ever done that as brilliantly as Raiders of the Lost Ark, and its reputation with audiences over the last 35 years certainly bears this out. For me, Raiders is an oversized barrel of fresh, hot movie theater popcorn and a tall ice cold Coke on a summer’s day in a dark and cavernous theater looking up toward a bright, massive movie screen. It’s a dream of a movie, and movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark are made to help us all dream.

Bouzereau: It checks all of the boxes of what a great film should be.

Higgins: Pitfall! Tales of the Gold Monkey! And every summer action film. That legacy can go terribly, terribly, wrong — but it still pays off in movies that take pride in their craft, and have the courage to “rollick.”

Lichtenfeld: Raiders gave us a pop-culture icon. It gave us The Raiders March. It cemented the movie-star status of one of the great movie stars of his time, if not of all time. And it helped ensure that the 1980s would be the decade of the blockbuster. It also took an entire tradition of mostly forgettable filmmaking and gave legitimacy to its underlying spirit. That’s a lot for one movie to do…. But I hope that as people visit and revisit Raiders, they’ll see it not just as the beginning of something even bigger, but also as something all its own, and on its own merits. Because it’s one of those movies where everything matters: every sound, every cut, every movement, every composition. And if by some freak occurrence, none of the rest had happened — no sequels, no theme park attractions, no iconic status for Harrison Ford or for John Williams’ music, no influence on the film business or the cultural zeitgeist — that would still be more of a legacy than most movies leave behind.

Matessino: Raiders is the movie against which all others in its genre are measured. One comes away from watching it feeling completely satisfied with the action, with the story, and with the inner journey of the characters and repeated viewings don’t diminish its impact. How many movies have truly done that to the degree Raiders does?

McBride: I think I have said all I have to say about it here and in my biography of Spielberg!

Coate: Thank you, Steven, Laurent, Scott, Eric, Mike, and Joseph, for participating and sharing your thoughts on Raiders of the Lost Ark on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of its release.

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Raiders of the Lost Ark on home video

SPECIAL THANKS

Jerry Alexander, Al Alvarez, Steven Awalt, Laura Baas, Jim Barg, Kirk Besse, Larry Blake, Herbert Born, Laurent Bouzereau, Raymond Caple, Miguel Carrara, Bob Collins, John Cork, Jonathan Crist, Gerald DeLuca, Nick DiMaggio, Mike Durrett, Monte Fullmer, Steve Guttag, Thomas Hauerslev, John Hawkinson, John Hazelton, Mike Heenan, Bobby Henderson, Scott Higgins, Sarah Kenyon, Bill Kretzel, Roberto Landazuri, Mark Lensenmayer, Eric Lichtenfeld, Stan Malone, Mike Matessino, Joseph McBride, Gabriel Neeb, Tim O’Neill, Jim Perry, Grant Smith, Cliff Stephenson, John Stewart, Bob Throop, Joel Weide, Brian Whitish, Blaine Young, Vince Young, and to all of the librarians who helped with the research for this project.

SOURCES/REFERENCES

Primary references for this project were promotional material published in hundreds of daily newspapers archived digitally and/or on microfilm plus numerous articles published in film industry trade publications Boxoffice, The Hollywood Reporter, Mad, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Time, and Variety. Film industry documents referenced included Dolby Stereo installation records. Books referenced included The Complete Making of Indiana Jones: The Definitive Story Behind All Four Films by Laurent Bouzereau & Jonathan Rinzler (2008, Ballantine/Del Rey), The Films of Steven Spielberg by Douglas Brode (1995, Citadel), George Lucas: The Creative Impulse by Charles Champlin (1992, Abrams), George Lucas’s Blockbusting: A Decade-By-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of their Financial and Cultural Success edited by Alex Ben Block and Lucy Autrey Wilson (2010, George Lucas Books/HarperCollins), The Hollywood Reporter Book of Box Office Hits by Susan Sackett (1996, Billboard), The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark by Derek Taylor (1981, Ballantine), The Movie Brats: How the Film Generation Took Over Hollywood by Michael Pye and Lynda Myles (1979, Holt, Rinehart and Winston), The Movie Business Book edited by Jason E. Squire (1983, Fireside), Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Illustrated Screenplay (1981, Ballantine), Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas by Dale Pollack (1983, Harmony), Spielberg: The Man, the Movies, the Mythology by Frank Sanello (1996, Taylor), Steven Spielberg: A Biography by Joseph McBride (1997, Simon & Schuster), Steven Spielberg: The Man, his Movies and their Meaning by Philip M. Taylor (1992, Continuum). The following films were referenced: Great Movie Stunts: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Lucasfilm Ltd./Paramount Pictures), The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Lucasfilm Ltd./Paramount Pictures), and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, Lucasfilm Ltd./Paramount Pictures). Websites referenced include BoxOfficeMojo, CinemaTour, CinemaTreasures, FromScriptToDVD, The Numbers, and In70mm. This is a revised and updated version of a previously-published article.