A Week of Gilliam: Time Bandits

Welcome back for more of the Week of Gilliam and we continue down the filmography of an insane madman/genius as we move into a cult classic beloved by many as a brilliant yet abtruse as pint-sized plunders and pillagers of the space-time continum. The first of the Trilogy of Imagination followed by Brazil and ending with The Adventures of Baron Manchausen. That being said we delve into our main movie. This is Time Bandits.

The Minotaur farted!!

Our story revolves around Kevin (Craig Warnock of Time Bandits and To the Lighthouse) a young boy with an resplendent imagination and an obsession with ancient Greece. His parents are completely unaware of his interests and they attend activities including acquiring nifty gadgets to keep up with the Joneses. One night Kevin is asleep when an armored clad knight on horseback crashes out his wardrobe so one can only assume Narnia has begun its invasion. The knight bolts deep into the forest where his bedroom wall was. After coming out of hiding he sees the wall has returned and his bedroom is perfectly fine except there is a photo on the wall depicting an identical forest.

Well beats ending up with Ian Holm.

Kevin fears not this strange and off the wall antics as he preps a knapsack of food, water and of course his Polaroid camera. Cause a compass, decent combat knife and a couple of canteens is just crazy talk. Just then six dwarves fall out of the wardrobe carrying an ancient and worn map as they are off to find an exit out of there. They invite Kevin to join them and he is reluctant until a giant disembodied head called the Supreme Being chases after them demanding the map back. Kevin and the dwarves leap to a void of space-time and into Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. Hey, don't give me that expression. Still more coherent than most latter Doctor Who episodes.

Kevin takes a breath from all the crazy and finds out his traveling companions' names. Randall the leader (David Rappaport of Mysteries, Time Bandits, The Bride, The Wizard, Peter Gunn, L.A. Law, and Captain Planet and the Planeteers) followed by Fidgit (Kenny Baker of Circus of Horrors, Star Wars, The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Empire Strikes Back, Flash Gordon, Return of the Jedi, Ivanhoe, Amadeus, Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith), Strutter (Malcolm Dixon of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Black Jack, Flash Gordon, Time Bandits, The Goodies, The Dark Crystal, Return of the Jedi, Arena and Willow), Og (Mike Edmonds of Black Jack, The Empire Strikes Back, Clash of the Titans, The Goodies, The Dark Crystal, Men Without Hats: Safety Dance and Maid Marian and Her Merry Men) Wally (Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, The Dark Crystal, Return of the Jedi, Brazil, Labyrinth, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Oingo Boingo: Skeletons in the Closet and The Silver Chair) and Vermin (Tiny Ross of Black Jack, Flash Gordon and Time Bandits).

You are here and your travelers cheques are in Alpha Centauri.

Randall explains to Kevin that long ago the Supreme Being contracted out to they six for making repairs to the space-time fabric buUuUuUuuut Randall decided that the map would lead them to the greatest riches in the known world in all of time. Our hexad of hustlers lead Kevin throughout the halls of time including meeting Napoleon Bonaparte (Ian Holm of Alien, The Borrowers, The Return of the Borrowers, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, The Madness of King George, The Fifth Element, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings, Ratatouille and Alien: Isolation) Robin Hood ( John Cleese of Life of Brian, Fawlty Towers, Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl, The Meaning of Life, A Fish Called Wanda, Erik the Viking, Fierce Creatures, The World Is Not Enough, Mini Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Trolls) and King Agamemnon (Sean Connery of An Age of Kings, Marnie, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Shalako, The Anderson Tapes and Highlander) as Kevin documents their trips with his Polaroid camera. Too bad he didn't have a digital cam, he could have gotten footage too.

Unbeknownst to our adventurers, Evil (David Warner of The Wars of the Roses, Straw Dogs, The Omen, Time Bandits, Tron, The Company of Wolves, Waxwork, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and In the Mouth of Madness) lurks from his dark domain, interested in the map of all space-time and will get it by any means necessary, using it to manipulate reality itself and shape it to his own idea and design. Apparently 40 species of parrots is most upsetting. Can Kevin and the bandits avoid Evil??? Will the Supreme Being dish out a wide sequence of slaps for the bandits???

Have I gone completely around the bend???

This being a “Cult Classic” that on a 5 million dollar budget that Time Bandits brought home $40 million in spite of being a fall movie and not a summer blockbuster nor a Christmas seasoned film. Co-written with fellow Python (allumnus...Allumni...Damn Latin co-respondence course) performer and writer Michael Palin. The film was backed by none other than the late Beatle George Harrison placing his song in the closing credits “Dream Away” along with American lawyer and business manager of George Harrison, Denis O' Brien. Both men founded HandMade Films production and backed this project as well as Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Yikes, the Wizard of Oz is pissed.

007 Week: Thunderball

Hello and welcome to the beginning of 007 Week and we clearly cannot start this off without a Connery Bond film.  Sadly, it will not be Dr. No as I already reviewed that for Sean Connery Week if you will recall.  Mind you, there were other things you could have been doing during that week such as: laundry, hemming a skirt or making a quiche.  Nevertheless, we shall have to carry on and move to a popular title to this very day.  From its disturbing content of nuclear arms easily lifted to Bond having to prevent the impending World War III, this film brings us excitement, memorable villains and of course, the fetching ladies of the film.  This is Thunderball.

So... what are you doing after the funeral?

Madame LaPorte: You sound disappointed you did not kill him yourself.
Bond: I am. Jacques Bouvar spoiled two of my colleagues.





As this is the fourth film in the Bond Series starring Sean Connery (An Age of Kings, Macbeth Dr. No, Marnie, Goldfinger, The Anderson Tapes, Meteor, Outland, Highlander and The Hunt for Red October) Bond has returned from avenging several friends from a risque mission when he learns from his superior "M" (Benard Lee of The Angry Silence, Partners in Crime, Whistle Down the Wind, The Brain and Goldfinger) that an organization calling itself SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) has captured two NATO atomic warheads demanding no less than $100 million in diamonds or an undisclosed major city in England or the States will be destroyed.  Hot on the case, Bond follows leads to the Bahamas where he meets Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi of Pleasant Nights, The Honey Pot, Danger: Diablolik,  Hitler: The Last Ten Days, Ten Little Indians and The Next Man) a eye-patch wearing, card playing gambler that Bond suspects that SPECTRE's man of operations for this caper.

Mr. Peepers reporting as ordered, sir.

Bond's CIA contact Felix Leiter (Rik Van Nutter of Assignment: Outer Space, The Passionate Thief and Romanoff and Juliet) along with Largo's "niece" Domino (Claudine Auger of The Reckless, The Devil in Love, The Killing Game, Anyone Can Play, A Bay of Blood, Equinox and Summertime Killer) both clue Bond into where the warheads are being kept and pointing out the sheer amount of manpower Largo has at his fingertips.  Not for calling in the cavalry, Bond proceeds with his mission at all costs for Queen and country.

Some interesting facts about this film now.  This is the first of the Bond Franchise to have multiple alternative titles due to the translation gap.  These are: Operation: Thunderball, Ian Fleming's Thunderball, Agente 007- Thunderball, James Bond 007- Feuerball, Atomic Ball, Agent 007 Into The Fire, Thunderball Fighting, Operation Thunder, James Bond, Secret Agent, Operation Thunder and Longitude 78 West.

The "Golden Grotto" in the Bahamas does in fact exist and is now to this day been rechristened as "Thunderball Reef".  Sadly, the villa was torn down in 1990 for a hotel resort.   This is the first time we see all the double o's in one room as "M" has called them all to the carpet for a debriefing.  This is also the first of the Bond films to be shot entirely in Panavision (Anamorphic lens for widescreen shooting).  I really wanted to nick the 1965 Thunderbird Largo was driving around in Paris at the start of the film but I seemed to have misplaced my blue police box.

I think a grip left a tack on my chair!

Sean Connery Week: The Name of the Rose

Howdy folks and welcome to Day 4 of Sean Connery Week.  Yesterday allergies were fun, fun fun and we got knocked back a day.  Today we will examine a cinematic masterpiece directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud (The Bear, The Lover, Seven Years in Tibet, Enemy at the Gates, Two Brother and Day of the Falcon) and based on Umberto Eco (Anthropologist, Medieval expert and writer of The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pedulum, The Island of the Day Before, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas and the Bomb and the General)  create the ideal scenery of a tranquil monastery besought by what is deemed evil and a honest to goodness murder.  This is The Name of the Rose.

Can't read my lines without my glasses.

William of Baskerville: Adso, if I knew the answers to spoilers, I would be teaching theology in Paris.





Friar William of Baskerville (Sean Connery of The Red Tent, The Molly Maguires, Diamonds are Forever, Zardoz, The Man Who Would Be King, Just Cause and DragonHeart) and his apprentice Adso of Melk (Christian Slater of Heathers, The Edge, Pump Up the Volume, Young Guns II, Mobsters, Broken Arrow, Alone in the Dark and Mind Games) have traveled to Northern Italy to abby.   A death of unnatural causes raises hackles and superstitions as an important theological conference was to occur prior.   Over the week, more bizarre deaths happen and our two travelers come to the conclusion that the abbey is not all what it appears to be.

Yes, I too, loathe the barber here but he is learning.

William and Adso meet Salvatore (Ron Perlman of Blind Man's Bluff, Beauty and the Beast, Cronos, Hellboy and Sons of Anarchy), a jibbering and seemingly demented hunchback that knows many spoken languages and his protector Remigio da Varagine (Helmut Qualtinger of The Business of Plueckhahn, Ice Age, Tales from the Vienna Woods and Die Hinrichtung).  William deduces from Salvatore's speech pattern that he may have been one of the Dulcinian (deemed by the Franciscan sect as those that stray from the traditional teachings as heretics by the Catholic church and yet this movement was inspired by the Franciscan sect in the eyes of the Dulcinian) heretical sects and both men are possibly involved with the murders.

Meanwhile young Adso meets a semi-feral girl who has snuck in the Abby for food via sexual favors and he starts to fall in love with the girl.   Quick to bypass any and all accusations of the Devil's work, William and Adso uncover a massive labyrinth in the abbey's forbidden tower (Yes, a forbidden zone and there lies cranky irradiated apes) a discover a variable maze of books and scripture the likes William has never seen,  to even come across works of Aristotle in a time where most of his works were burned by the Roman Empire.  This is one of many philosophers that was seen as pagan in the eyes of the Church and must be slowly introduced back into the realms of man and it is this book, Aristotles's Second Book of Poetics that seems to be the center of all the deaths.

His investigations are put on hold thanks to the arrival of Gui (F. Murray Abraham of Serpico, The Sunshine Boys, The Ritz, Slipstream, Mobsters, Nostradamus and Star Trek: Insurrection) of the Inquisition,( a superstitious sect of the Church hellbent on ferreting out blasphemers and burning them at the stake or torturing people until they confess sins).  He has little time to hear anything William has to say and will find the sinner that would take these precious lives.   Yeah this is the same type of Catholic that shames a woman at an abortion clinic and not even bothering to find out the reason for her decision or nuttier idea mind his or her own business.   * Sorry, I will come down from my soap box now*  

Gui and William have butted heads more than a few times.  Gui finds William to be frivolous and taunts God with his forbidden views of Sciences while William views Gui as a myopic, narrow-minded savage that inflicts pain and death in the sake of his God.  Who is the true murder?  What is the reasons behind it?  Who stands to gain anything from these deaths.

Just a few tidbits on the film at this time.  The monastery was actually a set replica built on a hilltop outside of Rome, making it one of the biggest exterior sets built in Europe since Cleopatra or Conan the Barbarian.
Credited as "The Girl" Valentina Vargas was the only female role in the movie.    Robert De Niro auditioned for the part of William but Jean- Jacques Annaud didn't envision De Niro for the part when he announced there should be a sword duel between William and Gui.
Most of the dialogue had to be synced up in post production thanks to all the airplanes coming and over the hill.

You'll have to sell your landspeeder..

Sean Connery Week: Meteor

Howdy all and welcome to Day 3 of Sean Connery Week.  Clearly we have not had any Sci-fi and that needs to be corrected.  It would have been at this time I would have introduced you to Outland and how it follows the book rather well but...  I have already reviewed it so egg is all over my face figuratively.  So how about a nice Sci-fi themed disaster film instead?  It will be in Technicolor so a hint of nostagia for those of us that grew up on such.  With a cast consisting of Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Brian Keith as a Russian and Henry Fonda as the President of the United States, how can we lose?   This is Meteor.

Sail Awaaaaay...!

Dr. Paul Bradley: Why don't you stick a broom up my spoiler?  I can sweep the carpet on the way out.





A comet of unknown origin has passed through Orion's belt and impacted Orpheus, the largest of asteroids in the belt causing a five-mile chunk of it to a collision course hurdling towards our humble planet.  Make no mistake, people this one is a planet cooker and Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck are not available to assist in its destruction.  With the U.S. government playing Operation: Cover Thine Ass as smaller fragments have hit the planet,  NASA contacts Dr. Paul Bradley (Sean Connery of You Only Live Twice, The Name of the Rose, Memories of Me, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Rock and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) a former NASA engineer and weapons platform designer to deal with the problem.  Director of NASA Harry Sherwood (Karl Malden of A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, Patton and The Streets of San Francisco) yanks Bradley from an ongoing yacht race and to Washington toot sweet to apprise him of the threat looming over the world.

Jeez, pretty boy at the controls again.  I WANT A TURN TOO!

Project: HERCULES is a nuclear missile platform in space poised specifically to contend with impeding asteroid strikes gets demoted from planet saver to hovering over the U.S.S.R. as a deterrent for nuclear war, one of the reasons Bradley left, may not be enough firepower to eliminate the asteroid.  Through the typical digging around Russian couriers, messages and codes the U.S. discovers that the Soviets also have a weapons satellite in orbit.

The President (Henry Fonda of The Tin Star, The Deputy, How the West Was Won, Once Upon a Time in the West and On Golden Pond) reveals to the world the existence of Hercules and how the collective eggheads at NASA says our armament may not be enough and pleads to Russia to offer whatever aid they can in this time of need.  Bradley suggests Dr. Dubov  (Brian Keith of The Yakuza, The Wild and the Lion, Centennial, Hooper and Sharky's Machine) a noted physicist in Russia to combat the problem at hand.  Dubov arrives with his interpreter Tatiana (Natalie Wood of Rebel Without a Cause, The Searchers, West Side Story and Splendor in the Grass) to offer aid and hypothesize about an existing platform Russia "may" have built.
With the collective efforts be enough?  Can Earth be saved?  Will humanity be spared The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?

Just a few interesting notes about the film at this time.  Both Brian Keith and Natalie Wood could speak fluent Russian in real life.  Wood's parents were Russian immigrants and Keith was stationed overseas.
Given the language and violence of the film it would now fall under R Rating, prior to MPAA's stringent restructuring it was still deemed PG and would remain so until Christian Moralition influenced the MPAA in 1985.
Brian Keith was cast in the role at the last minute when Donald Pleasence dropped out of the role.  The spaceship Traveler II was actually modeled after NASA's first manned space station "Skylab".

Say, you guys aren't whispering about me, are you?

Number #475: Sean Connery Week: The Anderson Tapes

Howdy folks and welcome back to Sean Connery Week Day 2.  This next movie may have slipped by some of the younger fans as the language is a bit racy, the action a bit rough and a product of the early seventies.  Connery rarely gets a meat and potatoes villain role that you cannot help but empathize with.   This is The Anderson Tapes.

Sean Connery for Hair Club for Men

The Kid: America, man!  You know, it's so beautiful I wanta spoil it.








20 years of his life, John "Duke" Anderson (Sean Connery of From Russia with Love, Diamonds Are Forever, The Terrorists, Murder on the Orient Express, A Bridge Too Far, The Untouchables and The Hunt for Red October) is finally being released after paying his dues for his safe cracking days.  He openly mocks the prison official/ councilor and points out the injustice of society on robber barons, marriage and advertisement found a grife in the system but the guy that steals the magazine honoring these schmucks is a criminal.  

Out and about in New York City connecting back with his estranged girlfriend Ingrid (Dyan Cannon of Shamus, Heaven Can Wait, Coast to Coast, Deathtrap, Author! Author! and Out to Sea) who lives in a posh high rise on 91st Street in Manhattan.  Duke goes to a Mafia don for financing with Angelo (Alan King of Hit the Deck, Miracle in the Rain, Bye Bye Braverman, Lovesick, Memories of Me and Casino) to prep his own four man team to pull a worthy heist and having enough funds to live on while they get their gear together.

Hello Dolly!

However Anderson gets another price tag attached to a fourth man into his crew the thuggish scumbag called Socks (Val Avery of Love and Bullets, The Amityville Horror, Quincy M.E., Sharky's Machine, The Sting II, Easy Money and Renegade) which Anderson is less than thrilled to add in his crew but deals with it.  Anderson takes in how much surveillance from the various alphabet federal agencies, from cameras, bugs and tracking devices seem to originate from private and public agencies viewing his entire plan of operation.

The plan is executed during Labor Day weekend disguised as Mayflower moving crew, severed the phone and alarm wires as they move up each floor, gathering all the residents as they went and moving them along as they rob each apartment.

Can the cops stop our second-story men in time?  What could possibly be the swag they are after that is worth this much effort?

Quick few observations and facts about this movie now.   This is the first movie Connery dropped the toupee since the last Bond film.  This was also Christopher Walken's debut film at the age of 28 when I thought he was ten years younger.  That man had a baby face.    Spot the commander of the S.W.A.T. team is as original SNL cast member Garrett Morris, and he took this so seriously that he spent a month learning muzzle discipline, team building and combat insertions.  Pretty cool.

Tell me he has stop farting in here.

Sean Connery Week: Dr. No

Welcome to the beginning of Machismo Week er... um I mean Sean Connery Week where we start at one of the most recognized by Connery fans alike.  The James Bond series.  Our first Bond to hit the big screen and there are more than a few mixed feelings on the fellow.  Some say Roger Moore captured the character better, others feel Connery was too brutish for the elegant part.  I say shush I wish to watch the movie.   With that in mind, we tackle the first iconic movie of the ongoing franchise.  This is Dr. No.

The Odd Couple have a falling out.

Dr. No: East, West, just points of the compass, each as stupid as the spoiler.






Stationed in Jamaica, John Strangways of British Intelligence keeps a watchful eye on the lands making mineral and geological surveys awaiting their results when he is mysteriously killed and his body removed as if he was never there.   Miles away in a casino a lengthy game of Baccarat is coming to a conclusion as James Bond (Sean Connery of An Age of Kings, Marnie, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Shalako, The Anderson Tapes and Highlander) wins the hand and Miss Sylvia Trench's (Eunice Gayson of Count of Twelve, The Last Man to Hang, The Ship Was Loaded, The Revenge of Frankenstein and From Russia with Love) affections.  He is called away from the table to answer a call from his employment Universal Exports (a cover for British Intelligence MI-6 division)  and is whisked away to headquarters to his superior M (Benard Lee of the River House Mystery, Rhodes, Murder in the Night, To Hell with Hitler, Fortune in Diamonds, Beat the Devil and Thunderball) who informs him the Americans are conducting rocket launches from Cape Canaveral but someone or some thing jamming radio transmissions causing disruptions and as always the Americans assume the Russians are at it but M wants Bond to find the culprit behind this and stop it.

10 to 1 no one was looking at their cards too well.

 












Bond is required to work with the CIA in a joint-effort to end this plot before it leads to a world-wide incident.  Bond flies out to Jamaica to follow up on Strangways' notes, discover if he is been removed from the picture and to complete the mission.  Finding the fisherman in Strangways' photos, Quarrel (John Kitzmiller of Variety Lights,  Valley of Peace, Night of the Vampires and  Uncle Tom's Cabin) Bond is snagged out of view where Quarrel and some of his buddies jumps him only to get their collective butts handed to them and he hears a gun cocked aimed at him by Felix Leiter (Jack Lord of Man of the West, Stoney Burke, 12 O' Clock High and Hawaii Five-O).  Once the dust settles and all parties relax, our spies confirm the information and speak of the bauxite mine on Crab Key Island owned exclusively by the reclusive Dr. Julius No.  

Bond and Quarrel head to Crab Key under the cover of day for night shot and where Bond meets a dish in a white bikini the name of Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress of Sins of Casanova, 4 for Texas, What's New Pussycat, The 10th Victim and Clash of the Titans) when Quarrel is discovered by a tracked vehicle designed to look like a dragon shoots flame at him burning him alive while Bond and Ryder are captured No's men and he tells Bond the details of his mastermind plan to show the sheer scale of difficulty his mission was from the start.  Also I think he is a poor host who likes to rub it in his enemies' noses.  Bond must escape, stop No and rescue Honey from the island compound before he commits his radio wave device on yet another rocket.

Some interesting facts about the film now.  Connery is said to have worn a toupee in all the Bond films due to premature balding.   Novelist and Bond creator Ian Fleming wanted his cousin Christopher Lee to portray Dr. No due to his representation of Fu Manchu.  Both Noel Coward and Max von Sydow turned down the roles as well and finally the role went to Joseph Wiseman who was voice dubbed.

Being terrified of spiders Connery attempted the tarantula scene with a sheet of glass and the sheets but it didn't look realistic so stuntman Bob Simmons laid in the bed for the re-shoot claiming it was the scariest stunt and didn't blame Connery for being creeped out.

Kinda says it all doesn't it?

Sean Connery Week

Thanks to a bum tooth being yanked, followed by errands and a migraine appointment I realize that Random Picks Week was cut very short and I do plead for forgiveness.  To make it up to my readers I present to you Sean Connery Week.  We will go over films we know by heart to the more obscure.  I will however NOT be review Zardoz so for those of you that were interested in my take on that, keep on wondering.
We will be looking at a career that spans more than 5 decades, the original Bond and ranging from Drama, Comedy, Science Fiction and Action.

Very few men could pull this look off you know.

So for the Scotish, 6'2" lefty managed his fair share of rough and tumble heroes throughout his career and probably the only man to turn down the role of Gandalf simply due to the 18 months furlough in New Zealand and didn't get the novels.

With 94 film credits to his name including lending his voice to the video game James Bond 007: From Russia with Love and voice over for Draco of Dragonheart, Sir Connery has been revered as the 24th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly and has been parodied in countless SNL skits, referenced via pop culture and TV series.   Hell I do an impression of him and frankly I would like his opinion on it.   Anybody have his number offhand?

No, I will not sing, "Underneath the Mango Tree."

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!