It doesn’t pay to review a movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark. Forty-two years after its premiere, everything that could be written about it has been covered in one way or another. Reviewing the more recent outing, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny would be better. But I’ll keep that simmering on the back burner until its home video release.
I watched this on 4k Dolbyision in my home theater just before heading out to see the Dial of Destiny. I have no idea how many times I have viewed it, but it’s been more times than I’d likely like to think about. Still, unlike most Jones fans, my heart mostly belongs to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, my favorite movie in the franchise. Don’t worry; the original is a close second because, after all, it was the first, and there would have been no second one without it. Which installment is third? We’ll save that assessment for some other time.
Raiders of the Lost Ark was one of the first movies I saw after moving to Dayton, Ohio. I went with my girlfriend’s oldest teenage son, whom I’ll call James because that was his name, and I thought it was one of the best times I’d ever had at the movies.
A short time later, I took my girlfriend, whom I’ll call Kay because that was her name, to see it at the North Star Drive-In on North Dixie Highway. We went to a later showing, probably sometime after eleven p.m., since she had to work. I was sure she would enjoy it as much as I had. She didn’t. And neither did I. It was my second worst trip to a drive-in theater and probably one of the worst trips for her.
Not too long after the movie began, it took a little while for me to see that vast scenes were missing, and the film was quickly skipping from one place to the next. It was pissing me off enough that I went to find the projectionist. That wasn’t too hard to do, considering he was standing outside the concession stand moaning and whining like a GOP snowflake being forced to drink Bud Light because he had to work late. It became apparent that he was purposely screwing things up. We sat through what was the rest of the movie and headed for home as I tried to explain to Kay that it was not the way Raiders of the Lost Ark was meant to be seen. Because of that experience, we never went to that drive-in again. It closed in 1985, and as often happens with those places, it is now a shopping center. Just what the world needed.
We frequented another drive-in theater just up the road from it called the Dixie Drive-In. And according to my information, it’s miraculously still in business. The 80’s were the best time to watch movies at the drive-in. But I digress.
In November of that same year, Paramount released Raiders on VHS for the astonishingly low price of $39.99. Until then, people rented their movies because they weren’t priced to sell. Most would retail for $79 or even more, but Paramount wanted to see if they could move more products with the lower price. They did.
In the early 1980s, the Videocassette recorder (VCR) home video market was rapidly gaining popularity. In previous years, VHS sales were not a revenue source for studios, but by 1983 they could generate up to 13% of a film’s total revenue; the U.S. and Canadian cassette rights could generate $500,000 alone. In November 1983, Paramount released a record 500,000 home video copies of Raiders, priced at $39.95. Paramount priced their home videos significantly lower than their competition, reasoning it would broaden the sales audience and promote home video watching. By September 1985, over one million copies of the film had sold, making it the best-selling VHS of its time.
It didn’t exactly open the floodgates of lower-priced video tapes. I remember paying an extravagant amount for the likes of Ghostbusters and Gremlins. I don’t remember exactly how much I paid, but I got them at cost because I was working in a mom-and-pop video store at the time and was able to get them at the wholesale price. But there were a few that trickled out priced to sell directly to consumers, and our little video store sold a bunch when they did.
Warner Home Video first released Purple Rain on video in 1984 while the film was still in theaters. At the time, it was one of the first major releases to be sold at the lower listed price of $29.95 in the United States. Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom was released at Christmas 1986 with a retail price of $29.95 and sold a record 1.4 million units. Soon, most major films released on home video with wide audiences, such as Dirty Dancing, took the bait and were sold at the $29.95 price point.
To finish the previous story about Kay, when we watched the VHS film, she apologized for having disparaged it at the drive-in.
As for the theory that I first ran across on an episode of The Big Bang Theory, that the movie would have ended the same even if Indiana Jones hadn’t been in the movie, I’m not about to get into that pointless observation except for passing along this article and saying that particular scenario espoused by Amy Farah Fowler was ca-ca.
Raiders will always remain a masterpiece when it comes to action and adventure. From beginning to end, the fun never stops. Harrison Ford was the perfect actor to play Indiana Jones, and I thank the gods of Hollywood Casting that Tom Selleck as Jones was done in by Magnum P.I.
Karen Allen as Marion Ravenswood is easily the best of the female leads in the Indiana Jones movie. That’s not meant to disparage Kate Capshaw, who played Willie Scott, a completely different kind of character, a hapless and sometimes clueless songstress, and did a slam-bang job of it along with Ke Huy Quan giving a big assist as Short-Round.
And again, for those who may have been lost in an Egyptian Tomb since 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark’s storyline goes something like this:
In 1936, American archaeologist Indiana Jones recovers a Golden Idol from a booby-trapped Peruvian temple. Rival archaeologist René Belloq corners him and steals the idol; Jones escapes in a waiting seaplane. After returning to the United States, Jones is briefed by two Army Intelligence agents that Nazi German forces are excavating at Tanis, Egypt, and one of their telegrams mentions Jones’ former mentor Abner Ravenwood. Jones deduces that the Nazis are seeking the Ark of the Covenant, which Adolf Hitler believes will make their army invincible. The agents recruit Jones to recover the Ark first.
At a bar in Nepal, Jones reunites with Ravenwood’s daughter Marion, with whom Jones once had an illicit relationship, and learns that Ravenwood is dead. The bar is set ablaze during a scuffle with Gestapo agent Arnold Toht, who arrives to take a medallion from Marion. Toht attempts to recover the medallion from the flames, but only burns its image into his hand. Jones and Marion take the medallion and escape.
And the chase is on to get to the Ark before the Nazis once again pit Jones against Belloq.
Since this movie is just over 40, many of today’s younger audiences may have yet to run across it. But it’s a film that is ageless. The film proved Ford was more versatile, and given the opportunity, it kept him from being pigeonholed as just Han Solo.
Ford has never won an Oscar but probably should have. Actors who don’t star in movies where the main character has the disease or affliction of the month or whose characters are not down and out don’t win awards, no matter how good they are at what they do. This movie and Ford will always be an A+ in my book.
Clyde's Alley 