|
The forerunner is de Broca's That Man from Rio, thus the American daredevil vying with his Gallic rival for the plundering of ancient cinematic treasures. Globe-trotting looter, dreamboat scholar, Harrison Ford wryly iconic with fedora and bullwhip—Indiana Jones, embodiment of the Walter Mitty fantasies of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. The flavor of serials in superabundance, a rapid tempo announced in the introductory set-piece with a profusion of gags like the gargantuan marble run and the snake in the cockpit. "I'm making this up as I go." The Thirties of swashbucklers and cliffhangers, where a Nepalese tavern is shot like Only Angels Have Wings with a freckled tomboy (Karen Allen) who can drink any giant under the table. An Old Testament MacGuffin, the Ark of the Covenant holding the Ten Commandments (or perhaps The Ten Commandments) sought by the Nazi and the collaborationist French (Paul Freeman). (Freeman's resemblance to Paul Henreid adds to the painstaking emulation of a Curtiz programmer ca. 1942, so does Ronald Lacey as a giggly Peter Lorre ringer.) A matter of lightness of touch ("You would use a bulldozer to find a china cup!"), packed frames for a postmodern comic strip, kinetic stunts in tribute to Yakima Canutt. Jungle chases and bazaar melees in a fearsome technique blithely deployed as slapstick, a stick in the eye of fascism—Teutonic behemoths are minced by propellers, "Sieg Heil" is something for monkeys. The fascinating streak of Jewish vengeance culminates with a reconfiguration of Hiroshima into a divine melting of the Reich's face, the patented Spielberg light-show darkened from smiling beauty to grinning skull. The punchline is one last hint of Seventies paranoia before the onslaught of Eighties optimism, and the archeological process by which blockbusters become classics. "Who knows? In a thousand years, even you may be worth something." Cinematography by Douglas Slocombe. With Denholm Elliott, John Rhys-Davies, Wolf Kahler, Anthony Higgins, Don Fellows, William Hootkins, and Alfred Molina.
--- Fernando F. Croce |