Why Raiders Of The Lost Ark Is The Best Indy Film
By Dan Jolin, Features Editor
To argue that Raiders Of The Lost Ark is the greatest of the Indiana Jones series is a tough task precisely because it's such an easy one. It's like being asked to argue that the sun is hot, or that The Wire is the greatest ever TV show; any reasonable, sane person would simply yell "it just IS!" and reasonably expect that to be enough. So, first of all, I'll have to step down from repeating my own heartfelt assertion - no doubt shared by many - that Raiders' superiority in the Indy canon is a self-evident truth. No, the concise, broad-sweep argument just won't do: we need details. And we need those woven around the seven core elements of any Indiana Jones adventure…
1. It has the best girl.
One of the chief crimes perpetrated by the Temple Of Doom was to suggest that Indy is a girl-per-adventure kinda guy - like Bond, Batman or Austen Powers. One of that movie's other misdemeanours was to make that girl a screechy, whiney fingernail-breaker. Unlike Marion: the Lois to Indy's Clark, a wisecracking heroine with history, with balls, who came served with a side order of grit and several bottles of unspecified hard liquor.
2. It has the best deathtrap.
Forget that overwrought "penitent man" nonsense in Crusade, or the hoary lowering ceiling gambit of Doom - Raiders' prelude gave us the most iconic action-adventure assault course in movie history: tarantulas, bottomless pits, poison darts, spring-loaded portcullises and, of course, that boulder, rumbling its way into the cultural consciousness via countless spoofs and pastiches (Terry's chocolate orange, anyone?).
3. It has the best villain.
And I mean both of 'em. First, there's Paul Freeman's rival crypt-cracker Belloq, a man you suspect is, or was once, a mere twirled-moustache whisker away from being Dr Jones' buddy, in whom Freeman even invests a little sympathy (especially when he tries to resist Marion being thrown into the Well Of Souls) - no other Indy villain, with the possible exception of Crusade's Elsa, has been allowed so many shades of grey. Then, of course, there's Ronald Lacey's proper boo-hiss SS wonk Toht, his sweaty face, twitching wet lips and lispy quavering voice exuding pure malevolence.
4. It has the best action sequence.
"Truck? What truck?" And with those words begin Indy's finest vehicle-scrabbling, Nazi-decking moments, including the Stagecoach-referencing under-lorry clamber and the gloriously silly sudden appearance of a gorge, down which one unfortunate Teuton is sent flailing, Wilhelm Screaming all the way…
5. It has the best MacGuffin.
The Ark Of The Covenant strikes just the right balance of mystique and familiarity, and should be applauded for presenting a proper angry Yahweh kickin' it Old Testament, more menacing and malicious than any of the Nazis in the movie. That bit where it burns the Swastika and makes the rat go mental still gives me the willies…
6. It has best joke.
Toht oozes into the tent where Marion is held captive. He produces a horrifying looking weapon/torture device - some kind of nunchuck, perhaps? - which, with an audible sigh of relief from Marion and Belloq, is revealed to merely be a collapsible coat-hanger. A perfect example of Steven Spielberg playing mischievously on audience perception with zinging comedy effect.
7. It has the best Indy.
Quite simply, this movie gives us Harrison Ford at the pinnacle of his talents, when the rogueish charm, brash physicality, smirky comic timing and everyman believability all gestalted with the finest possible results. Also, this movie best highlights Dr Jones' most perversely endearing trait: that, at the end of the day, he's just a bit rubbish. After all, as William Goldman once so rightly pointed out, if he'd done nothing, the outcome would have been exactly the same: smote Nazis. In this sense, at least, he broke the American hero mould.
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