49 Fun Facts About Raiders of the Lost Ark

How is Marion Ravenwood introduced in Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Winning a drinking contest: Marion out-drinks a man twice her size for cash in her own bar, and Karen Allen later pushed for her to try the same trick on her captor in the desert tent.

What does Indiana Jones grab from the booby-trapped temple in the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark?

A golden idol sits on a weighted pedestal, and Indy's swap with a bag of similar weight fails: taking it brings the temple down around him and sets a giant boulder rolling after him.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the booby-trapped temple of the opening sequence is in which country?

Peru is only where the story puts it: the temple interior, boulder run included, was a life-sized set built on a soundstage at Elstree Studios in England.

Which rival archaeologist robs Indy outside the temple and later opens the Ark for the Nazis?

René Belloq, the film's French villain, was played by an Englishman, Paul Freeman; French singer Jacques Dutronc was among those considered for the part.

The Nazis are excavating for the Ark of the Covenant at which ancient Egyptian city?

Tanis is a real ruined city in the Nile delta, once Egypt's capital; in 1939, three years after the film is set, intact royal tombs holding silver coffins were dug up there.

In which country does Indy find Marion Ravenwood running a bar?

Nepal is where Marion runs the tavern her late father left her, until a gun battle with Toht's hired thugs leaves it in flames and she sets off with Indy to get paid.

What does the Gestapo agent Toht end up with burned into the palm of his hand?

The medallion's image is seared into Toht's palm when he grabs the red-hot headpiece, but the burn shows only one face, so the Nazis miss the correction on the back and dig in the wrong place.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the snake-filled chamber where the Ark lies buried is called what?

The Well of Souls looked too bare to Spielberg with the snakes first brought in, so filming paused while thousands more were rounded up.

What do the Nazis find inside the Ark when they open it on the island?

Only sand is inside, and the Nazis' disappointment lasts a few seconds, until sparks fly and spirits pour out of the chest to wipe out the whole ceremony.

How do Indy and Marion survive the opening of the Ark?

They keep their eyes shut while the Ark's spirits kill everyone watching; a 2013 Big Bang Theory episode argued this makes Indy irrelevant, since the Nazis would have died opening it anyway.

At the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Army Intelligence agents say the Ark is being studied by whom?

Top men is all Indy gets out of them: the last shot shows the Ark nailed into a plain crate and wheeled into a vast warehouse stacked with thousands just like it.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was conceived as a throwback to which kind of old-time entertainment?

Saturday matinee serials of the 1930s and 1940s were George Lucas's boyhood favourites, and he shelved this tribute to them to make another one first, set in a galaxy far, far away.

Who wrote the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Lawrence Kasdan got the job after his Continental Divide script impressed Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas then had him rework The Empire Strikes Back too.

When George Lucas first pitched him Raiders of the Lost Ark, what did Steven Spielberg say he wanted to direct next?

A James Bond picture was Spielberg's wish on that 1977 beach holiday; Lucas replied that he had something better than Bond, a globe-trotting archaeologist.

George Lucas named the hero of Raiders of the Lost Ark after what?

His dog Indiana, a big and hairy Alaskan Malamute, gave the archaeologist his first name, and the same pet was also George Lucas's model for Chewbacca.

What was Indiana's surname in early drafts of Raiders of the Lost Ark, before Steven Spielberg objected to it?

Smith reminded Spielberg of Nevada Smith, a 1966 Steve McQueen western, so the filmmakers swapped it for another surname just as plain: Jones.

Which writer-director, credited on the Raiders of the Lost Ark story, suggested the Ark of the Covenant as its goal?

Philip Kaufman had been hooked on the Ark since childhood, when his dentist told him tales of its powers; he left the project early to work on The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Which actor was originally cast as Indiana Jones but was tied to a TV series?

Tom Selleck's Magnum, P.I. pilot had sat unsold until George Lucas and Steven Spielberg asked CBS to release him; the network promptly ordered the series and held him to it.

Why was George Lucas hesitant to cast Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones?

He had just been in Star Wars, and George Lucas feared seeming reliant on one actor, the way Martin Scorsese leaned on Robert De Niro; Ford signed only weeks before filming.

Steven Spielberg cast Karen Allen as Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark after seeing her in which 1978 comedy?

Animal House showed Spielberg an actress who could play an independent woman, and one of the first things he asked Karen Allen at her audition was how well she could spit.

Which Taxi star was the first choice to play Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Danny DeVito was the first choice, but between his Taxi schedule and his agent's price the part went to John Rhys-Davies, whom Steven Spielberg had seen in the miniseries Shogun.

Which notoriously volatile German actor turned down Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark for a better-paying horror film?

Klaus Kinski took the thriller Venom because it paid more, and later wrote that he had found the Raiders script moronic; Ronald Lacey played Toht instead.

Which future Spider-Man villain first appeared on film as Satipo, Indy's treacherous guide in Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Alfred Molina's film debut had him covered in tarantulas that would not move because they were all males, until a female was added to stir them up.

Which actor plays museum curator Marcus Brody, Indy's loyal friend?

Denholm Elliott plays Brody as a dignified scholar here, but the third film turned him into comic relief, a man said to have once got lost in his own museum.

The Paramount logo that opens Raiders of the Lost Ark dissolves into a real mountain located where?

Kauai, Hawaii supplied the peak: the match was a last-minute idea Steven Spielberg sprang on his crew, and a producer had to scramble across the island hunting for a mountain of the right shape.

Which director's visiting daughter reported Raiders of the Lost Ark to a cruelty-prevention charity over its snake scenes?

Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian wandered onto the snake-covered set, was upset by what she saw and phoned the RSPCA, which cost the production another day.

Which country stood in for Egypt during the filming of Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Tunisia gave the film its Cairo in the old city of Kairouan, where a day of shooting was lost while the crew took some 300 television aerials down from the rooftops.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, why was the planned whip-versus-sword fight in Cairo cut down to a single gunshot?

Ford had dysentery and was in no state for a long, choreographed duel, so he suggested simply shooting the swordsman, and Spielberg said he had been thinking the same.

The rolling boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark is widely seen as a nod to a comic starring which Disney character?

Uncle Scrooge got there first: Carl Barks's 1954 comic The Seven Cities of Cibola has a booby trap that sets a giant stone rolling, and the filmmakers have cited those comics as an inspiration.

Sound designer Ben Burtt made the Raiders of the Lost Ark boulder's rumble by recording what?

A Honda Civic on a gravel hill did it: Burtt let his own small car coast slowly over the stones, and the tyres became the roar of the giant rock.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the sound of the Ark being opened was made with which household item?

A toilet cistern lid: sound designer Ben Burtt lifted the heavy cover off his own toilet at home, and he got the snakes' slither by running his fingers through a cheese casserole.

During the Flying Wing fight in Raiders of the Lost Ark, what happened to Harrison Ford?

The wheel rolled over his foot and was braked just short of his knee; the desert heat had softened the tyre, and it took some 40 crew to rock the plane off him.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Toht's melting face was built from layers of what, warmed by heaters?

Gelatin was layered over a heat-proof stone skull and filmed in time-lapse as it slowly melted, which is why Toht's face seems to run off the bone in a few seconds.

Which effects company, supervised by Richard Edlund, created the visual effects for Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas's own effects house, made the Ark's ghosts by shaking small robed puppets in a cloudy water tank and filming them against a blue screen.

What finally got the monkey in Raiders of the Lost Ark to give its Nazi salute?

A dangled grape did it: tapping the monkey's head had not worked, so the crew hung the fruit on a fishing line just out of shot, and the salute is really a reach for a snack.

Who composed the score for Raiders of the Lost Ark, including "The Raiders March"?

John Williams played Steven Spielberg two candidate tunes for the hero on the piano; the director asked why he didn't use both, so one became the march's main theme and the other its bridge.

Why does Raiders of the Lost Ark show its journeys as a red line crossing a map?

To save money: the script called for lavish montages to carry the story from one country to the next, and Steven Spielberg swapped them for a map with a moving line.

To keep Raiders of the Lost Ark on schedule, Steven Spielberg had four artists produce thousands of what?

Storyboards covered not just the chases but the dialogue scenes too, and sticking to them let Spielberg wrap in 73 days, 12 ahead of the schedule the studio had set.

Which Paramount president, later the boss of Disney, agreed to George Lucas's costly terms for Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Michael Eisner said yes after rival studios balked at the terms, but in return he secured the rights to any sequels and wrote in stiff penalties for any overrun.

Made for roughly $20 million, Raiders of the Lost Ark has grossed about how much worldwide?

$390 million or so, re-releases included, for a film that most Hollywood studios had turned down as too big a risk at that budget.

Which sequel was tipped as the runaway hit of summer 1981, only for Raiders of the Lost Ark to out-earn it?

Superman II so dominated pre-summer polls that one pollster dropped it from the list, while almost nobody had heard of Raiders; the unknown film went on to earn roughly twice as much.

Raiders of the Lost Ark lost the Best Picture Oscar for 1981 to which film?

Chariots of Fire won, and its screenwriter Colin Welland waved his own Oscar at the crowd and announced that the British were coming; Raiders went home with four craft awards and a special one for sound effects editing.

Raiders of the Lost Ark won the Academy Award in which of these categories?

Best Visual Effects was one of its four competitive wins, all for craft; its famous march, by contrast, lost Best Original Score to a synthesizer soundtrack by Vangelis.

How did three Mississippi children pay tribute to Raiders of the Lost Ark between 1982 and 1989?

Made a shot-for-shot amateur remake: Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala began as schoolboys and gave it their summers for years, and the one scene they had to skip, the exploding plane, they came back to film as adults.

Which Indiana Jones sequel, released in 1984, is actually a prequel set before Raiders of the Lost Ark?

The Temple of Doom takes place in 1935, a year before Raiders, and it opens in Shanghai with a sequence first written for the original film and cut from its script.

The TV spin-off The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles sent its teenage hero to fight in which war?

World War I: George Lucas designed the series to teach history, so young Indy serves in the trenches and, across the episodes, meets real figures from Theodore Roosevelt to Leo Tolstoy.

The fifth Indiana Jones film, released in June 2023, was subtitled what?

Dial of Destiny opens in 1944 with Harrison Ford, by then 80, digitally de-aged to look as he did around the time of the original films.

Raiders of the Lost Ark rented a full-size vessel from the makers of which other film?

Das Boot had a full-size U-boat replica built for its own shoot, and renting it saved Raiders the cost of making one; the crew filmed it at real wartime submarine pens on the French coast.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, what appears to crawl into the villain's mouth in the middle of a speech?

A fly landed on Paul Freeman's lip during a take and he simply carried on; Steven Spielberg maintains he swallowed it, Freeman says it flew off, and critic Pauline Kael singled him out for not flinching.