Movies - Raiders of the Lost Ark

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	Movies - Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders of the Lost Ark, also known as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, is a film released by Paramount Pictures in 1981. Directed by Steven Spielberg, it is a fantasy adventure and the first released, though the twenty-fourth, chronologically, in a series of film and TV productions about the adventures of the heroic fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones.

The story introduces us to archaeologist, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). Jones is a professor of archaeology and also acquires artifacts for Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott), who works for a museum. On his adventure in the film, he is accompanied by Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies). His adversary is Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman).

Plot summary

Set in 1936, the story begins with Jones's journey into the South American jungle with a few local guides to find a hidden temple that houses a small golden idol. Jones avoids various traps, betrayal by both his guides (one played by a young Alfred Molina), and, in a memorable and much-parodied scene, a giant rolling boulder that chases him out of the temple. Waiting for him outside is his old enemy, French archaeologist Rene Belloq, and a small army of natives. Belloq steals the idol from Jones, who barely escapes to a float plane he had the foresight to have waiting nearby.

Back at the American university where he teaches, two US Army intelligence men explain to Jones and Brody that a secret, cryptic Nazi message mentions a Prof. Ravenwood being under the scrutiny of German intelligence. Jones, a former student of Ravenwood, interprets the message as an indication that the Nazis are close to finding the Ark of the Covenant — a golden chest that held the remnants of the original Ten Commandments. Legends imply that Hitler could use the Ark to render his army invincible.

The Germans believe that Ravenwood has the headpiece of the Staff of Ra needed to pinpoint the Ark's resting place. The headpiece is a bronze disk that, when affixed to the top of a staff of a specific height, focuses a beam of sunlight on to a model of the ancient Egyptian city Tanis and thus reveals the Ark's location. According to Ravenwood, the Pharaoh Shishaq stole the Ark from Jerusalem and hid it in the Well of Souls, in Tanis, before the city was consumed by a year-long sandstorm.

Jones flies to snowy, mountainous Nepal to speak with Marion Ravenwood, the professor's tough-minded and independent daughter, only to find that her father died and that she's reluctant to part with the headpiece. A Nazi agent named Toht, who has followed Jones to Marion, tries to take the piece from her by threatening her with a hot iron. Marion teams up with Jones, following a fiery shootout between him and Toht's hired thugs which results in Marion's tavern being burned to the ground. During the gunfight Toht briefly seizes the medallion which had been lying in a nearby nest of flame. The object burns its image into his hand.

Jones and Marion fly to Cairo and meet Jones's friend Sallah, a skilled Egyptian digger and archaeologist, to find help in decoding the markings on the headpiece that specify the height of the staff needed to hold the headpiece. While touring Cairo's markets, Marion and Jones are chased by hired swordsmen. Nazi operatives grab Marion and throw her in a truck, but the vehicle crashes and explodes when Jones shoots the driver with his pistol. Assuming that Marion was killed in the blast, an enraged (and heavily drinking) Jones encounters Belloq once more in a Cairo tavern and wishes to kill him despite Belloq's sermon about the Ark's wonders. Sallah and his children rescue Jones from Belloq's henchmen.

That evening, Sallah takes Jones to an old wiseman who decodes the markings on the headpiece. He notes that one side of the headpiece says that the staff must be shortened out of respect for the Hebrew God. It appears that the Nazis have misread the headpiece (since they only have a copy of one side's markings from the image on Toht's hand). Their staff is too long, and they are thus digging for the Ark in the wrong location.

Infiltrating the dig, Jones discovers that Marion is still alive, and being held prisoner. He and Sallah use the headpiece in the map room to then find the Ark deep within the snake-infested Well of Souls. Belloq and the Germans, led by the sadistic Col. Dietrich and his assistant Gobler, surround the entrance, take the Ark, and leave Jones and Marion to die in the snake-infested pit. The duo escapes by pushing an enormous statue through a weak stone wall and emerge back aboveground in time to see a Luftwaffe flying wing being prepared to ship the Ark to Berlin.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Raiders of the Lost Ark ]

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Movies - Raiders of the Lost Ark

Plot summary

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