Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

 

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the third entry in the Indiana Jones series, and it manages to present a couple of interesting wrinkles in the ongoing saga. First, we get a far-too-short sequence starring River Phoenix as young Indy, and it provides us with explanations for why he hates snakes, why he wears a fedora and carries a whip, even how he got that scar on his chin. It’s only about twelve minutes, but it is a real adrenaline rush to start the film. I know there was television program in the early 1990s called The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles that attempted to capitalize on the fun of this opening sequence with Phoenix. Unfortunately, it wasn’t successful, but perhaps there is more of the tale of young Indy to be told. The other benefit of this entry into the Indiana Jones universe is the introduction of Sean Connery in the role of Professor Henry Jones, Indiana’s father. Harrison Ford, of course, is back as Indiana, and he and Connery are delightful in their characters’ father-son bickering. Connery doesn’t actually appear until about a third of the way through the plot, but when father and son are reunited, the movie ramps up the humor and action. The senior Jones was never particularly interested in his son’s activities while Indy was growing up, but now the younger Jones (who hates to be called “Junior”) has to rescue his father, who has disappeared in Venice, Italy, while looking for clues to the location of the Holy Grail. A rich American, Walter Donovan (Julian Glover), finances a trip to locate Jones Senior, but later we learn the real reason is his own desire to obtain the Holy Grail for himself (since the myth is that it can provide immortality). There’s lots of stuff here about the Crusades, but I don’t think an understanding of historical events is necessarily important, and you shouldn’t want a fiction film to learn a history lesson anyway. Much of the film is set in 1938 and there are Nazis everywhere—the film travels to Italy, Austria, Germany, even the Republic of Hatay—so you get a clear sense that Germany was already beginning to dominate many countries before World War II had started. As for clues to the whereabouts of the Holy Grail, there’s a broken stone table that’s missing significant information and Henry Jones’s diary (which he conveniently mailed to his son before being kidnapped) has a very cryptic map and some very elliptical instructions for how to find the Holy Grail. All of these items are just an excuse for a series of chases and shootouts and adventures across Europe and Asia. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade includes boat races, motorcycle escapes, a ride on a zeppelin, a biplane air battle, tanks, horses, some camels, and lots of broken stuff and quite a few fires. Alison Doody plays Dr. Elsa Schneider, who was assisting the elder Jones in his research in Venice and who has apparently bedded both father and son, something that the film really doesn’t comment upon very much, perhaps for good reason. Denholm Elliott plays Marcus Brody, a colleague who runs a museum and who seems too ill-suited for adventures like this. Sadly, John Rhys-Davies’s Sallah doesn’t get as much to do here as he had in Raiders of the Lost Ark. None of this really matters, though, because much of the film is devoted to the interplay of Ford and Connery as the two Dr. Joneses. Watching the two of them having so much fun as action movie stars is the greatest highlight of the film. 

Oscar Win: Best Sound Effects Editing

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Sound and Best Original Score