60 Fun Facts About Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

The Last Crusade was the first Indiana Jones film released under which rating, created after the outcry over Temple of Doom?

PG-13 grew out of complaints about Temple of Doom's violence, and Spielberg, unhappy with how dark that film had turned out, steered The Last Crusade back to the lighter spirit of Raiders.

Which spy series had Spielberg hoped to direct before Lucas offered him Indiana Jones instead?

James Bond: Spielberg wanted to make a 007 film when Lucas pitched him Indiana Jones, and years later he insisted that only Sean Connery, the former 007, could play Indy's father.

What does the Holy Grail turn out to look like when Indy finally finds it in The Last Crusade?

A plain, humble cup: Elsa remarks that it would never be made of gold, Indy calls it the cup of a carpenter, and he drinks from it himself before carrying water to his father.

Which young actor plays the 13-year-old Indiana Jones in the 1912 prologue?

River Phoenix had played Harrison Ford's son in The Mosquito Coast, and Ford recommended him as the young actor who most resembled him at that age.

The Last Crusade's prologue was shot among red-rock arches outside which Utah town?

Moab lies a few miles from Arches National Park, where the shoot moved after Native American representatives objected to filming among Colorado's Mesa Verde cliff dwellings.

What artifact does young Indy grab from graverobbers in The Last Crusade prologue and recover in 1938?

The Cross of Coronado: young Indy insists it belongs in a museum, and once he wins it back on a storm-lashed ship he hands it to Marcus Brody for exactly that.

How does The Last Crusade's prologue explain the scar on Indy's chin?

He whips himself fending off a lion: grabbing a bullwhip for the first time in a circus car, young Indy cracks it into his own chin, a gag written to match Harrison Ford's real scar.

In The Last Crusade, Henry Jones Sr. reveals that Indiana took his nickname from what?

The family dog was called Indiana, an in-joke: George Lucas named his hero after his own Alaskan Malamute, the same dog that inspired Chewbacca.

How does young Indy finally escape the graverobbers aboard the circus train in The Last Crusade?

He vanishes through a magic box in 'Doctor Fantasy's Magic Caboose', named for producer Frank Marshall's amateur magic act; the trick was filmed in one unbroken shot on the real train.

Who plays Marcus Brody, the museum curator who "got lost in his own museum"?

Denholm Elliott returns from Raiders, where Marcus was a dignified museum man; here he is rewritten as comic relief, hopeless once he leaves his library.

Which actress plays Dr. Elsa Schneider, the art professor secretly working with the Nazis?

Alison Doody, a young Dubliner, won a part written for an older woman after Amanda Redman turned it down.

Walter Donovan, the businessman who sends the Joneses after the Grail, is played by which English actor?

Julian Glover was first put forward for the film's SS colonel, but Spielberg saw a genial menace in him and cast him as the American traitor instead.

What is the name of the secret society, led by Kazim, that protects the Grail?

Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword: its men set the catacombs ablaze around Indy, yet once he convinces Kazim he only wants his father, Kazim tells him where Henry is held.

In The Last Crusade, where does the inscribed shield in the Venice catacombs say the path to the Grail begins?

Alexandretta is the old name of İskenderun, now in Turkey; Indy sends Marcus ahead to the city with the map, where the Nazis promptly capture him.

In which country is Brunwald Castle, where the Nazis hold Henry Jones Sr.?

Austria is the setting, but the real fortress is Bürresheim Castle in western Germany, judged too small on film and enlarged with a matte painting.

Which SS officer, played by Michael Byrne, commands the castle Nazis and dies going over a cliff in a tank?

Ernst Vogel's plunge was filmed with a quarter-scale model tank driven off a fifty-foot cliff on location, as a real tank could not be stopped safely at the edge.

In Berlin, Indy retrieves his father's diary at what kind of Nazi event?

A book-burning rally: Indy slips in disguised as a German officer and takes the diary back from Elsa, who insists she cares about the Grail, not the Nazis.

How does Henry Jones Sr. down the German fighter on the beach in The Last Crusade?

He scares gulls into its path by flapping his umbrella at them; real gulls proved unusable on the shoot, so white birds and feathered models doubled for the flock.

In The Last Crusade, how does Elsa bring about Donovan's death?

She picks him a false Grail, and one sip ages him to dust in seconds; Spielberg refused to film the decay unless it played out in one unbroken shot.

How does Elsa die at the end of The Last Crusade?

She falls reaching for the Grail after it slips into a crevasse; Indy nearly follows, stretching for it himself, until his father quietly tells him to let it go.

Which ancient Middle Eastern site stands in for the Grail temple in The Last Crusade?

Petra's Treasury supplies the facade, but behind it lies only a bare rock chamber; the temple's interior was a set built at Elstree Studios in England.

In the second Grail trial, which name must Indy spell out on the lettered stones to pass safely?

Iehova: Indy first steps on J and nearly drops through the floor, then remembers that in Latin the name Jehovah begins with an I.

How was the "leap of faith" crossing over the ravine created for The Last Crusade?

A miniature with painted backgrounds: the model bridge was painted to vanish against the cliff from one camera angle, and a puppet cast the shadow Harrison Ford's bluescreen take lacked.

Which character delivers the verdict "He chose... poorly" in The Last Crusade?

The Grail Knight, last of three crusaders who found the Grail, has guarded it for centuries and mistakes Indy for a fellow knight come to defeat him.

Which Henry Jones Sr. line did Sean Connery improvise on the set of The Last Crusade?

"She talks in her sleep." That ad-lib from Connery, explaining how Henry knew Elsa was a Nazi, stopped filming while everyone laughed, so Spielberg kept it in.

Indy teaches archaeology, but what is his father's academic field in The Last Crusade?

Medieval literature is his chair, but Sean Connery refused to play a mere bookworm and modelled Henry on Richard Francis Burton, the Victorian explorer-scholar.

George Lucas's abandoned treatment for a third film was titled Indiana Jones and the what?

Monkey King: borrowed from Chinese legend, the story sent Indy to Africa, and the producers had begun scouting locations there before Spielberg and Lucas shelved it.

Chris Columbus's rejected third Indiana Jones script opened with Indy battling what in Scotland?

A ghost: the Gremlins and Goonies writer opened with a murderous baron haunting Scotland, and later in the same script had Indy killed in battle and brought back to life.

Which playwright rewrote much of The Last Crusade's dialogue without receiving a screen credit?

Tom Stoppard went uncredited, yet Spielberg later said he was responsible for almost every line of dialogue in the film.

When Indy comes face to face with Hitler in Berlin, what does the Führer do with the Grail diary?

Signs his autograph in it: taking the priceless diary for an admirer's autograph book, Hitler scrawls his name and hands it straight back to the disguised Indy.

Which 1988 film did Spielberg leave after months of development so that he could direct The Last Crusade?

Rain Man passed to Barry Levinson, who won the Best Director Oscar for it; Spielberg, who had spent months shaping the project, later said he regretted leaving.

The Last Crusade began filming in May 1988 in the Tabernas Desert, in which country?

Spain's Almería desert hosted the tank chase, a brief sequence in the script that Spielberg storyboarded into the film's centrepiece.

Which kitchen mixture made Henry's bullet wound fizz as the Grail water healed it in The Last Crusade?

Baking soda and vinegar: make-up thick with baking soda was dabbed on Sean Connery, and vinegar poured over it foamed up before washing the wound clean away.

Which animals did the crew breed by the thousand to swarm the catacombs in The Last Crusade?

Rats: about a thousand were ordered and bred up to some 5,000 because grey ones were scarce, while mechanical stand-ins took their place for the fire.

Why did Ford and Connery film much of the Zeppelin table conversation without their trousers on?

The set was overheated: Connery was in a tweed suit and Ford in his leather jacket, and going trouserless below the table meant fewer stops to mop off the sweat.

Which Bay Area landmark doubled for the exterior of Berlin's airport in The Last Crusade?

Treasure Island: its Art Deco administration building had been a 1930s flying-boat terminal, and ILM added a control tower and Nazi banners to complete the disguise.

How do Indy and his father flee the burning castle in The Last Crusade?

On a motorcycle with a sidecar, Henry riding as passenger; at a crossroads he then insists they head not for safety but for Berlin, to get his diary back.

Donovan's on-screen death in The Last Crusade is credited by ILM as cinema's first what?

All-digital composite scene: ILM scanned three puppet heads of the character and blended them by computer, building on the morphing it had pioneered for Willow.

Which circus animal nearly gores young Indy through the roof of the train in The Last Crusade?

A rhinoceros thrusts its horn up through the roof of its boxcar, only just missing Indy while he wrestles a knife-wielding graverobber on top of the moving train.

Which composer scored The Last Crusade, as he had the first two Indiana Jones films?

John Williams earned an Oscar nomination for the score, but he was also up for Born on the Fourth of July that year, and both lost to The Little Mermaid.

Which Hollywood studio released The Last Crusade and the other early Indiana Jones films?

Paramount's mountain logo dissolves into a matching peak at the start of each of the first four films, a gag Spielberg improvised while shooting Raiders of the Lost Ark.

In The Last Crusade, what does Indy tell the stunned Zeppelin passengers after throwing a Nazi colonel out of the window?

No ticket: disguised as a steward, Indy punches the colonel through the window onto a heap of luggage, and the other passengers hurriedly wave their own tickets.

After The Last Crusade's release, Harrison Ford donated Indy's fedora and jacket to which institution?

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History took them in, so the hero who keeps insisting that relics belong in a museum ended up in one himself.

The point-and-click game of The Last Crusade tracked player progress with a score called what?

Indy Quotient (IQ) points carried over between games, and the top score of 800 could only be reached by replaying puzzles with different solutions.

In The Last Crusade's prologue, how does young Indy acquire his fear of snakes?

He falls into a crate of them aboard a circus train, a scene shot with thousands of real snakes of five kinds and rubber ones for the young actor to land on.

Which Last Crusade shot was filmed in Texas months after the main shoot wrapped?

The four heroes riding into the sunset emerge from a canyon filmed in the Middle East, but the sunset they ride into was shot near Amarillo, half a world away.

How does Henry's Grail diary come into Indy's hands at the start of The Last Crusade?

It arrives in the mail: with the Nazis closing in, Henry posted his life's work home from Venice to keep it out of their hands, and Indy pockets the parcel unopened.

Which actor returns from Raiders of the Lost Ark as Indy's friend Sallah in The Last Crusade?

John Rhys-Davies had been absent from the second film; Spielberg brought Sallah back, along with Marcus Brody, to recapture the spirit of Raiders.

How does Indy survive the first Grail trial, the Breath of God?

He kneels down just in time: the clue says only the penitent man will pass, and Indy works out that a penitent man goes on his knees, so the spinning blades sweep over him.

The Venice library where Henry Jones Sr. vanished was converted from what kind of building?

A church: Roman numerals in its stained-glass window lead Indy to the tomb entrance beneath the floor tiles, which he smashes open to the librarian's bafflement.

In The Last Crusade's prologue, who gives young Indy the fedora he wears ever after?

The leader of the thieves, impressed by the boy's nerve, tells him he lost today but doesn't have to like it, and sets his own hat on Indy's head.

What does the desert sultan choose over the Nazis' chest of valuables in The Last Crusade?

Their Rolls-Royce: the sultan waves the valuables aside for the car, and in return lends the expedition his soldiers and the very tank Indy later has to fight.

Where did ILM build its long miniature tunnel for The Last Crusade's plane chase?

In its own parking lot: no stage was big enough, so the model filled about 14 spaces for two months, to the annoyance of staff hunting for somewhere to park.

What sets off the temple's collapse at the climax of The Last Crusade?

The Grail crossing the Great Seal: its guardian warns that the cup's gift holds only inside the temple, but Elsa backs away over the seal with it in her hands.

Sean Connery earned a Golden Globe nomination for The Last Crusade in which category?

Best Supporting Actor: Connery earned the nod for playing the father of Harrison Ford, a man only twelve years his junior.

After escaping the temple, what does Henry Jones Sr. tell Indy he found on the quest?

Illumination: moments earlier he tells Indy that Elsa never really believed in the Grail and thought she had found a prize, the opposite of what it gave him.

In The Last Crusade's desert chase, how does Indy catch up with the Nazi tank?

On a galloping horse: Harrison Ford did many of his own stunts, but the sideways leap from the saddle onto the moving tank was made by his double, Vic Armstrong.

Which 1989 hit out-grossed The Last Crusade in North America but finished behind it worldwide?

Batman opened a month later and took more in three days than The Last Crusade had in four, but overseas audiences kept Indy ahead worldwide.

In 1989 The Last Crusade set a box-office record for which American holiday weekend?

Memorial Day: the studio opened the film on the Wednesday before the holiday, so it went into the four-day weekend with two days of takings already banked.

In which real but short-lived republic does The Last Crusade place the Grail temple?

Hatay was a real state that stayed independent for under a year before joining Turkey; the film labels it a republic on screen yet hands it a sultan.