Raiders of the Lost Ark

Reader's Guide

The hunt begins in Peru, where Indy retrieves a golden idol from a booby-trapped temple, narrowly escaping a rolling boulder. Briefed by two Army Intelligence agents that the Nazis are digging at Tanis, he travels to Nepal for the headpiece of the staff of Ra and reunites with his former lover Marion Ravenwood, whose bar is burned down in a shootout with the Gestapo agent Arnold Toht. In Egypt, Indy recruits Sallah to locate the Well of Souls using measurements from the artifact.

After Belloq and the Nazis seize the Ark and seal Jones and Marion in the Well of Souls, they escape, Jones captures the truck carrying the Ark, and a German U-boat later intercepts their ship, seizing the Ark and Marion while Jones covertly boards the U-boat. The climax unfolds on an island in the Aegean Sea, where Belloq intends to test the Ark's power before presenting it to Hitler. The opened Ark releases spirits, flames and bolts of energy that kill Belloq, Toht and the assembled Nazis, while Indy and Marion survive by keeping their eyes closed.

The film closes with the Ark crated up and stored among countless other crates in a vast government warehouse, to Marcus Brody's disappointment.

Did You Know?

• The rolling boulder was made of fiberglass, plaster and wood, cut from a planned 65 feet to 22 feet, and was controlled by a steel rod concealed in the wall.
• The long swordfight planned with a Cairo swordsman was cut and Jones simply shoots him, because Ford was suffering from dysentery.
• Lucas conceived the film after the serials he enjoyed as a youth, such as Buck Rogers, Zorro's Fighting Legion, Spy Smasher and Don Winslow of the Navy.