Indiana Jones Week: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Howdy all and greetings to Day 3 of Indiana Jones Week.  Today we tackle what has been exclaimed as the best of the series and so on.  With Spielberg at the director's chair again we will see what this archaeologist got mixed up in this time.  You can bet it involves Nazis, a femme fatale and maybe a holy relic.  He's got a thing for history as you may have noticed.  This is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

When I grow up I am gonna pummel guys in a fedora hat.

Elsa: What's this?
Indiana Jones: Spoiler of the Covenant.
Elsa: Are you sure?
Indiana Jones: Pretty sure.



Our story opens with a flashback in 1912 of 13 to maybe 14 year old Indiana Jones (River Phoenix of Explorers, Stand by Me, The Mosquito Coast and Sneakers) out in Utah on a boy scout outing.  He finds a few men digging in a cave that found the gold cross of Coronado (the Spanish Conquistador that was reputed to found the mythic Seven Cities of Gold), Indy steals it from the tomb raiders in order to donate it to a museum.   The men give chase, Indy gets punched and gives punches, meets up with the Sheriff who demands that Indy turns the cross over to rightful owner.  One of the men tells Indy he doesn't have to lump it and maybe there will be a next time then he plops a fedora on Indy's head.

Cut to 1938 as Indy is getting punched for stealing the same cross again, the owner is most annoyed and tries to have him pitched overboard in the sea but the waves cause some serious chop, giving Indy a fighting chance.  Pummeling the bad guys, stealing the cross back and the boat blew up, Jones makes his way back to Marshall College, to tell and show off the cross to Marcus Brody.  

So you drag all men down to see coffins or am I the first?

Later that day getting mail from Venice, Indy attends an prestigious party with a wealthy collector Walter Donovan (Julian Glover of The Fourth Protocol, Cry Freedom, Hearts of Fire, The House of Angelo and Game of Thrones) who asks Jones to assist them in a new expedition to finding the Holy Grail.  The Cup of Christ that caused the Crusades.  Jones tells Donovan that his father Professor Henry Jones (Sean Connery of Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Thunderball, The Anderson Tapes, Highlander, The Rock and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) is the foremost expert on Christian theology and he is Donovan's man.  Donovan states they did contract Professor Jones and have not heard from him for some time.
 Brody and Indy check Henry's home to find the place torn apart looking at mail.  Indy looks at the small parcel in his pocket to discover it is his father's Grail diary.  40 years of research has lead this man to uncovering the location of the Grail.   As Brody and Jones head to Venice it is all too painfully obvious that the Nazis are searching for the Grail on behalf of Hitler.  Can Indy find his father and the Grail before the Nazis plunge the known world into darkness?

And now some fun facts and trivia about the flick.  This is Spielberg's favorite of the three Indy movies.  Writer Tom Stoppard (Brazil, Empire in the Sun, Shakespeare in Love and Anna Karenina) was paid $120,000 for the dialogue between Henry and Indy on the Zeppelin, in the castle and on the road.  His job was to make it emotional but no sentiment, a disconnection between father and son but at the same time the conversation should have a humorous attachment to it.  Based on its success, Stoppard was paid an additional $1 million.
After working with him on The Mosquito Coast, Ford nominated River Phoenix for the role of Young Indy based on his professionalism, preparation and honing of the craft.
Character actor/stuntman Pat Roach has been in three Indy movies as the German Mechanic Indy fights in Raiders of the Lost Ark, The behemoth Thuggee in the Temple of Doom and finally a member of the Gestapo in the Last Crusade.  At 6'5", shoulders as wide as a doorway and barrel chested, he is quite difficult to miss.   Also tangled with Connery in Never Say Never Again.

Rameirez??!!  But you died in 1541!