As with
i Star Wars
i0 , the George Lucas-produced
i Indiana Jones
i0 trilogy was not just a plaything for kids but an act of nostalgic affection toward a lost phenomenon: the cliffhanging movie serials of the past. Episodic in structure and with fate hanging in the balance about every 10 minutes, the
i Jones
i0 features tapped into Lucas's extremely profitable
i Star Wars
i0 formula of modernizing the look and feel of an old, but popular, story model. Steven Spielberg directed all three films, which are set in the late 1930s and early '40s: the comic book-like
i Raiders of the Lost Ark
i0 , the spooky,
i Gunga Din
i0 -inspired
i Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
i0 , and the cautious but entertaining
i Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
i0 . Fans and critics disagree over the order of preference, some even finding the middle movie nearly repugnant in its violence. (Pro-
i Temple of Doom
i0 people, on the other hand, believe that film to be the most disarmingly creative and emotionally effective of the trio.) One thing's for sure: Harrison Ford's swaggering, two-fisted, self-effacing performance worked like a charm, and the art of cracking bullwhips was probably never quite the iconic activity it soon became after
i Raiders
i0 . Supporting players and costars were very much a part of the series, too--Karen Allen, Sean Connery (as Indie's dad), Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan, Amrish Puri, Denholm Elliot, River Phoenix, and John Rhys-Davies among them. Years have passed since the last film (another is supposedly in the works), but emerging film buffs can have the same fun their predecessors did picking out numerous references to Hollywood classics and B-movies of the past.
i --Tom Keogh