The Adventures of Indiana Jones [VHS] Review
If you're looking to own the complete Indiana Jones saga, this is a good place to start: not only does it include all three of the original '80's movies (1981, 1984, and 1989), but a fourth disc packed with over three hours of bonus material. The first, defining film, originally titled "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (more recent rereleases add Indy's name to the title) is set in 1936 and finds archaeologist, adventurer, and "obtainer of rare antiquities" Dr. Indiana Jones approached by two government agents searching for information on the "headpiece of the Staff of Ra," an artifact currently being sought by the Nazis. Hitler is "a nut" on the occult and has agents running all over Europe (and other places) trying to gather up artifacts that may possess unusual powers; they've found the lost city of Tanis, Egypt, where the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant is hidden, but without the headpiece they can't find out exactly where. So Indy sets out to recover it first, helped by Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), his former girlfriend, whose father originally collected it, and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), the British-educated "best digger in Cairo." Opposing them are Indy's long-time rival Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman), a Nazi spy named Toht (Ronald Lacey), and Col. Dietrich (Wolf Kahler). But the Ark may not need human help to defend it--and it doesn't like Nazis at all.
"Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom" is a much darker movie (much as Star Wars, Episode V- The Empire Strikes Back (Widescreen Edition), the middle episode of George Lucas's other famous trilogy, was much darker than either of the other two), set about a year before "Raiders." We find Indy in Shanghai, where an attempt to collect pay due him from local gangster Lao Che (Roy Chiao) throws him and his 10-year-old sidekick Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) together with cabaret singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw). When their plane is forced down over northern India, Indy is asked by the inhabitants of a native village to recover a sacred stone that has been stolen from them by the maharajah of Pankot Palace. This stone may well be even more powerful than the villagers believe: the theft, it turns out, was engineered by a resurgent cell of Thuggee led by Mola Ram (Amrish Puri), who knows exactly what they're really capable of and plans to use them to rule all India. When Indy discovers a maze of catacombs deep beneath the palace, a wild adventure ensues full of human sacrifice, enslaved children, and narrow escapes. In this adventure Indy's character is more mercenary than he seems in the others; the prospect of "fortune and glory" excites him even more than finding antiquities (or "the search for fact," as he defines archaeology in "Last Crusade"). And many viewers dislike Willie, who spends a lot of time screaming or grousing about the hardships she's subjected to--but it's worth keeping in mind that, unlike Marion, she hasn't spent her life tramping all over the world learning to be tough and self-sufficient.
The third episode, "Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade," jumps forward to 1938; Indy receives a strange package in the mail which proves to be the "Grail diary" kept for some 35 years by his father, Medieval-history professor Henry Jones (Sean Connery), who has been trying for most of his life to find the Holy Grail. Soon afterward he's approached by millionaire Walter Donovan (Julian Glover), who has discovered clues to the Grail's location and had Prof. Jones working on the search until he "disappeared." As Indy travels from Venice to Vienna to a hidden temple deep in the Mideastern desert, he not only finds his missing father but discovers plots and betrayals coming thick and fast. (This may be my favorite of the trilogy: not only is Indy reunited with his friends Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) and Sallah, but the quirky relationship between him and his father is wonderfully portrayed.)
The bonus material includes trailers for all three movies, featurettes on the stunts, music, sound, and "light and magic" (optical and mechanical SFX), and a set of shorts on how the movies were made, with interview appearances by Lucas, Spielberg, John Williams, Connery, Rhys-Davies, Allen, Ke, Ben Burtt, and various other persons important to the realization of the Jones legend. And although the movies were quite unashamedly made in imitation of the classic 1930's Saturday-afternoon adventure serials, they're no less exciting--and believable--for all that: so well do cast and crew do their work that suspension of disbelief is very easy. Anyone who loves good old-fashioned adventure should have them on the shelf.
The Adventures of Indiana Jones [VHS] Overview
Set Includes:
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock's Eye
The Adventures of Indiana Jones [VHS] Specifications
As with Star Wars, the George Lucas-produced Indiana Jones trilogy was not just a plaything for kids but an act of nostalgic affection toward a lost phenomenon: the cliffhanging movie serials of the past. Episodic in structure and with fate hanging in the balance about every 10 minutes, the Jones features tapped into Lucas's extremely profitable Star Wars formula of modernizing the look and feel of an old, but popular, story model. Steven Spielberg directed all three films, which are set in the late 1930s and early '40s: the comic book-like Raiders of the Lost Ark, the spooky, Gunga Din-inspired Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and the cautious but entertaining Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Fans and critics disagree over the order of preference, some even finding the middle movie nearly repugnant in its violence. (Pro-Temple of Doom people, on the other hand, believe that film to be the most disarmingly creative and emotionally effective of the trio.) One thing's for sure: Harrison Ford's swaggering, two-fisted, self-effacing performance worked like a charm, and the art of cracking bullwhips was probably never quite the iconic activity it soon became after Raiders. Supporting players and costars were very much a part of the series, too--Karen Allen, Sean Connery (as Indy's dad), Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan, Amrish Puri, Denholm Elliot, River Phoenix, and John Rhys-Davies among them. Years have passed since the last film (another is supposedly in the works), but emerging film buffs can have the same fun their predecessors did picking out numerous references to Hollywood classics and B-movies of the past. --Tom Keogh
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