INDIANA JONES (FILM COLLECTIONS) - DVD review

"You call this archeology?!"
--Sean Connery, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"

In the American Film Institute's 2003 poll of top movie heroes, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) placed second behind Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck), the noble lawyer from "To Kill a Mockingbird." Given that Finch is a decidedly nontraditional hero, we can safely assume the AFI think Indy is the best conventional, swashbuckling action hero of all time.

Not that we needed the AFI's word on the matter. That Indy is almost everybody's favorite hero has been accepted wisdom for some time now, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" regularly winning viewer-opinion polls as the best adventure film ever made. With all three of the first Indiana Jones movies finally arriving on DVD, it's time for all-around rejoicing.

The only drawback to the situation some buyers will find is not being able to purchase the movies separately, at least not yet. Like Paramount's previous decision to package all three "Godfather" films in one box, the studio is only releasing "The Adventures of Indiana Jones: The Complete DVD Movie Collection" as a set, with widescreen or fullscreen being one's only buying option. But not to worry. The sets are priced very reasonably, with substantial discounts available from many retail outlets, and the sets include a worthy fourth disc of bonus materials. It's a winning proposition all the way around.

By now, everyone knows the genesis of the series. Buddies George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had just come off the successes of "Star Wars" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" respectively, and they wanted to do something different, something old-fashioned, something that didn't rely on flashy, outer-space technology. Spielberg had been wanting to do a James Bond epic, and Lucas had just the right story idea. They settled on a homage to the movie serials of their youth, the cliff-hangers they remembered from Saturday afternoon chapters of children's adventures that featured heroes like Jack Armstrong, Spy Smasher, Flash Gordon, Commando Cody, Dick Tracy, Zorro, Ace Drummond, Captain America, Buck Rogers, and the Masked Marvel. They made their hero an archaeologist and named him after Lucas's dog. They borrowed Indy's hat from Humphrey Bogart in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," his leather jacket from Commando Cody, and the bullwhip from the likes of Lash La Rue and Whip Wilson. It's even said Lucas and Spielberg may have patterned their hero in part after the fictional character Allan Quatermain, H. Rider Haggard's adventurer in "King Solomon's Mines" (1885); and in an ironic twist of fate Sean Connery, who plays Indiana's father in "The Last Crusade," stars as Quartermain in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003). So we're back to square one.

All the while, Lucas and Spielberg had Tom Selleck in mind for the hero, but he was occupied with the "Magnum, P.I." television show at the time. Then, I've read (IMDb) that Nick Nolte turned down the part. Instead, the role of Indiana Jones went fortuitously to Harrison Ford, the haughty rogue of the initial "Star Wars" saga, and the rest is history, as they say. We'll never know how good Selleck or Nolte would have been, but there's no doubt about Ford. His modesty, his charm, and his self-effacing style combined with a virile strength and masculinity that appealed as much to men as to women, and as much to adults as to children. With Lucas co-writing and producing and Spielberg co-writing and directing, the series became the stuff of legend.

A cliff-hanger (or cliffhanger as it is sometimes spelled without the hyphen) for the young and uninformed was a precarious ending to old-time movie serials that left the audience in suspense and wanting to come back for the next installment; things like the hero hanging off a cliff, falling from an airplane, or apparently being blasted to smithereens by a bomb exploding under his seat. Today, the word "cliff-hanger" refers to any suspenseful predicament of which the outcome is uncertain until the very last moment. The "Indiana Jones" movies are a succession of cliff-hangers, and what fun Lucas and Spielberg must have had (and must still be having) concocting them. Poor Indy is subjected to everything from tarantula spiders to deadly snakes, giant rolling balls to medieval snares, near-fatal pitfalls to the fires of hell. And the Nazis. Set in the mid to late 1930's, there are almost always the Nazis. "I hate these guys," says Indy in a moment of supreme understatement.

The "Indy" films are among that rare breed that have their tongue planted firmly in their cheek but never ridicule the action-adventure style; they're entertaining with their high spirits and good humor, while being serious participants in the genre. "The Crimson Pirate" was able to poke good-natured fun at pirate movies while being a great swashbuckler in its own right; the early Bonds paid friendly homage to spy capers while being suspenseful and exciting spy capers themselves. Likewise, the "Indiana Jones" films take great joy in having fun with action-adventure flicks at the same time they establish themselves as the foremost champions of such thrillers. It's not an easy accomplishment.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark:
Anyway, it all started in 1981 with "Raiders of the Lost Ark," more recently relabeled "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" for those younger viewers who might not recognize it as a part of the early trilogy. Don't laugh. When my wife and I were leaving the theater after seeing "Raiders" for the first time, we overheard a teenage girl saying to her companion, "I liked the movie, but why did they call it 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'? I didn't see any football players in it." Honest. True story.

In "Raiders" the time is 1936, and Jones, a professor of archaeology, is hunting for the Ark of the Covenant, the chest containing the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, the most sacred object of the ancient Israelites and said to have been lost after the sacking of the Temple in Jerusalem, where it was kept in the Holy of Holies. In the movie it is supposed to have tremendous supernatural powers, carrying with it "the wrath of God," thus making it a subject of interest to Adolph Hitler, who in real life was said to be a believer in the occult and actually did try to collect various reputedly metaphysical items.

The U.S. Government wants the Ark before the Nazis can get it, and they send Jones, an expert on such matters, out to look for it. Along the way, Indy meets his old sweetheart, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), still the best of the "Indiana Jones" female leads for her intelligence and spunk. Then there are the good guys who help Indy: Dr. Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot) and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies); and the baddies, Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman), a rival archaeologist out for himself alone, and Toht (Ronald Lacey), a Gestapo agent who gets one of the best laughs in the film from a coat hanger. Everyone knows the rest, the giant rolling ball, the spiders, the snakes ("Why did it have to be snakes"), the shoot-outs, the adventures continuing from what appears to be Berkeley, California, to Nepal to Egypt to heaven knows where else. And all along the way, there's one hairbreadth escape after another. When Sallah asks Indy how he's going to rescue the Ark from the baddies, Indy replies, "I don't know. I'm making this up as I go." Yet despite the fast pace, the movie is never frenetic or tiring, just pure, unadulterated fun throughout. Classic stuff. Trust me.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom:
A few years after "Raiders," in 1984, Lucas and Spielberg tried to top themselves with the second Indiana Jones installment, "The Temple of Doom." Attempting to make the new film as different as possible from the first one yet retain the adventurous atmosphere, they set it in China and India, gave Indy a kid for a sidekick, and provided him with a stereotypical ditzy blonde girlfriend rather than the plucky and resourceful Marion of the earlier film. They also took out the Nazis, set it a year earlier in 1935, confined three-quarters of it to a single locale, the cavernous underground depths of a mountain temple, and designed the plot around a group of children in jeopardy. The result was a film that felt more claustrophobic than its predecessor and an adventure that was darker and more somber. In fact, several scenes in the film were considered so grisly, the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings board was inspired to come up with the now-familiar PG-13 classification to supplement their regular PG. Even the original title, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Death," was toned down.

"Temple of Doom" pays homage to any number of classic films along the course of its plot, beginning with "Casablanca," Ford in the Bogey role, continuing with "Gunga Din," and adding bits and pieces of things along the way like "Chandu the Magician" and "The Pied Piper," among others. Indy's job in this one is to retrieve a sacred stone stolen from an Indian village, a stone the villagers believe brings them good fortune. Without it, their land has gone to waste and their children are disappearing. Turns out, the children are being kidnapped by a nearby Thuggee cult to work in the mines beneath an abandoned Hindu temple, Pankot Palace.

The filmmakers strove mightily to outdo "Raiders," but rather than the adventure springing naturally from the story line, the excitement this time is generated mostly from a series of gross-out gags and several exhilarating stunts. There's a banquet scene, for instance, that features monkey brains, eels, eyeball soup, and various huge bugs to eat; there's a segment with a Thuggee priest reaching into a man's chest and pulling out his heart; and there's a passageway filled with creepy-crawly insects that is an obvious endeavor to one-up the snakes and tarantulas in "Raiders." The three best action sequences are a fight on a narrow rope bridge and two amusement park-type attractions, a bobsled ride down a Himalayan peak and a wild, heart-pounding roller-coaster ride inside the temple's subterranean tunnels. The latter is the highlight of the film.

Assisting Indy this time out are Kate Capshaw as Willie Scott, an American nightclub singer who gets shanghaied into the adventure, and eleven-year-old Jonathan Ke Quan as Short Round, a young friend who is willingly pressed into duty. Ms. Capshaw was one of a multitude of women who auditioned for the part, by the way, and the film is where she first meet Spielberg; they married several years later. The villains, Mola Ram, leader of the Thuggee cult, and Chattar Lal, the shifty prime minister, are played by Indian actor Amrish Puri and TV and film actor Roshan Seth respectively. Also look for a bit part by Dan Aykroyd.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:
"The Temple of Doom" had been another smash success with the public, but so many critics assailed it for its dark tone that Lucas and Spielberg went back to their roots, so to speak, with the third installment, "The Last Crusade" (1989). In fact, almost everything about "The Last Crusade" harks back to "Raiders," from plot to characters. The result is more satisfying than "Temple of Doom," although throughout the film it seems as though we've been there before.

In this third episode, set in 1938, two years later than "Raiders," Indy is trying to find the legendary Holy Grail, the cup from which it is said Christ drank at the Last Supper and into which his blood poured on the cross. The Grail was the object of quests in the Arthur myths, and in the film it possesses the power of healing and rejuvenation. Naturally, Hitler and the Nazis are after it, too.

The film's structure is much the same as "Raiders," starting with a mini adventure about Indy as a Boy Scout (River Phoenix); it has little to do with the rest of the story except to set the pace and provide some historical data on how Indy became afraid of snakes, learned to use a bullwhip, received the scar on his chin, and got his famous hat. As usual, though, this prologue is one of the best parts of the picture.

The filmmakers opened up the movie to more exotic locales, this time Italy, Austria, Germany, and the Middle East (Petra, in Jordan). They also brought back a couple of old faces in expanded parts, John Rhys-Davies and the late Denholm Elliot, and introduced several new characters, Julian Glover as Walter Donovan, a wealthy industrialist, and Alison Doody as Dr. Elsa Schneider, a love interest in the form of a femme fatale. Most important, however, they brought in Sean Connery as Indy's dad, Professor Henry Jones, Sr., a high-minded father whose expectations his son was never able to meet. But as a twist, they made the usually intrepid Connery an ultraconservative academician, shocked by his son's constant adventures and wild heroics. Only once, when Connery clamps his hand on a Nazi thug, do we see the old, indomitable Bond showing through the professor's befuddled, mild-mannered exterior. Connery and Ford establish a remarkably likable on-screen relationship that helps sell the film.

As with the "Indy" films before it, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" relies on a succession of rousing escapades and hairbreadth escapes. Many younger people of my acquaintance who came to the Indiana Jones series late, with "The Last Crusade" as their first encounter, have commented that they like it better than "Raiders," which to them seems too derivative of the series' later work. Sorry, folks, other way around. Nevertheless, although I personally find "The Last Crusade" a little less energetic and inspired than "Raiders," there is much to enjoy in both pictures.

Video:
As I said earlier, you can purchase "Indy" sets in either wide or fullscreen. The widescreen presentations all measure an approximately 2.20:1 anamorphic ratio.

The movies have been digitally cleaned and restored frame-by-frame by the same outfit, Lowry Digital Images, that refurbished such classics as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "North By Northwest," and "Sunset Boulevard." The results are, needless to say, superb, especially as they are mastered to THX standards. The remastering company did not tamper with the color temperatures, but they did bring out all the luster of the original prints in transfers that probably surpass what many folks saw in theaters at the time of their release. The picture quality in all three films is remarkably similar: colors that are never too bright but remain quite natural, textures that are rich if sometimes slightly soft, and an image that displays virtually no grain.

Audio:
Like the video, the audio on all the films has been slightly altered and remastered, this time in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround (English). Although the surround effects may not always be pinpoint discrete from the rear channels, they do produce a satisfyingly comfortable, enveloping dimension, evident right from the start of "Raiders" with jungle sounds, birds, and music. Typical of movie sound, however, there is a noticeable rise in the frequency response between the upper midrange and lower treble, resulting in a biting sharpness on the one hand and a good theatrical presence on the other. This frequency rise is compensated in part by a deep, robust bass and a solid transient response. No one will be disappointed by the sound or picture of these transfers.

Extras:
The first three discs in this four-disc set contain the films themselves; thirty-one to thirty-six scene selections; THX Optimizer sets of audiovisual tests; and spoken languages and subtitles in English, French, and Spanish. The fourth, bonus disc contains the extras. Sorry to say, there are no full-feature audio commentaries available, the set's only serious loss. It would have been nice to hear Spielberg and/or Lucas discussing the action for us, but we'll not quibble at this point.

The fourth disc is where the bonus stuff is found, and at least one of the items is extraordinary. The newly made, feature-length documentary "Indiana Jones: Making the Trilogy," which was created exclusively for the DVD set under the supervision of Spielberg and Lucas, is well worth the price of the whole box. It's two hours and six minutes long, covers the making of all three pictures, can be viewed in three parts or all together, and contains footage never before seen outside the Lucas archives. Practically everyone who was involved with any part of the filmmaking, from cast members to crew, are interviewed; plus there are outtakes, screen tests, production drawings and photographs, the whole shebang. We even get to see Tom Selleck doing a screen test for the Indy part. Everything you ever wanted to know about the genealogy of the films and their making is here, with Lucas and Spielberg leading the way.

In addition, there are four featurettes that take us even deeper into the making of the film. "The Stunts of Indiana Jones," ten minutes, explores the movies' daring feats as each Indy film tried to top the previous one in the extent of its action. "The Sound of Indiana Jones," thirteen minutes, looks at the sound effects and sound editing in the films, the tour led by sound designer Ben Burtt. "The Music of Indiana Jones," twelve minutes, is examined, of course, by its composer, John Williams. And "The Light and Magic of Indiana Jones," twelve minutes, shows us how Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic department brought the movie's special effects to life before the age of digital computer graphics. The disc concludes with six theatrical trailers covering the three "Indiana Jones" films and a preview for the game "The Emperor's Tomb."

All four discs are contained in individual keep-cases with chapter-selection inserts, the four keep-cases housed in a handsomely embossed box.

Parting Thoughts:
Whoopi Goldberg once remarked, "Movies are supposed to be big. Because if they're not, they're television." Well, the Indiana Jones movies are big, and it's a shame we can't enjoy them in our homes in the sheer size they were shown in motion picture theaters. But these new Paramount transfers are probably as close as we're going to get, for the time being at least. They're bold and beautiful, and, depending on your television screen, big enough.

If you took a gun to my head or a bullwhip to my body and forced me to rate the films individually, I'd give "Raiders" a 10, "Doom" an 8, and "Last Crusade" a 9. Nothing before or since has quite matched the overall ingenuity and sheer sense of fun generated by "Raiders of the Lost Ark." While "Doom" is a bit gloomy, puts children in danger, and confines its action largely to one spot, it's still quite entertaining. And "Last Crusade" is definitely a rehash of "Raiders," albeit a very good and entertaining rehash.

In any case, all three movies are finally here, and each viewer can argue the merits of his or her own favorites. What's more, at the time of this writing Harrison Ford had announced that he will be starting production on "Indiana 4" in the summer of 2004, so it still "ain't over till it's over" as the old Yankee catcher would say. When I mentioned to the students in one of my film classes that Ford would be back, they said, "What, in a wheelchair?" "Be nice," I said, "he's my age." "You mean he's going to need a cane?" they replied. Sometimes you can't win.

Be that as it may, insofar as watching the first three installments of the "Indy" series outside a movie house, it doesn't get any better than this DVD set.

Enjoy.