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Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders of the Lost Ark, also known as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, is a film released by Paramount Pictures in 1981. Directed by Steven Spielberg, it is a fantasy adventure and the first released, though the twenty-fourth, chronologically, in a series of film and TV productions about the adventures of the heroic fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones.

The story introduces us to archeologist, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). Jones is a professor of archeology and also acquires artifacts for Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott), who works for a museum. On his adventure in the film, he is accompanied by Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies). His adversary is Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman).

Set in 1936, the story begins with Jones's journey into the South American jungle with a few local guides to find a hidden temple that houses a golden idol head. Jones avoids various traps, his betrayal by both his guides, and, in one memorable and much-parodied scene, a giant rolling boulder that chases him out of the temple. Waiting for him outside is his old enemy, French archeologist Rene Belloq, and a small army of natives. Belloq steals the idol from Jones, who barely escapes in his nearby float plane.

Back at the American university where he teaches, two US Army intelligence men summon Jones into the auditorium along with Marcus, head of the department and a good friend of Jones. The men explain that the US has intercepted a cryptic Nazi message that mentions a Prof. Ravenwood being under the scrutiny of German intelligence. Jones, a former student of Ravenwood, helps interpret the message as an indication that the Nazis are close to finding the Ark of the Covenant — a golden and jeweled chest constructed under the guidance of God and Moses that housed the remnants of the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Legends imply that Hitler could use the Ark to render his rising army invincible.

The Germans believe that Ravenwood has the headpiece of the Staff of Ra needed to pinpoint the Ark's resting place. The headpiece is a golden disk that, when affixed to the top of a staff of a specific height, focuses a beam of sunlight on to a model of Tanis (an ancient Egyptian city) and thus reveals the Ark's location. According to Ravenwood, the Pharaoh Shishaq stole the Ark from Jerusalem but then buried it in the desert sands of his capital city, Tanis, in the Well of Souls.

Jones flies to snowy, mountainous Nepal to speak with Marion Ravenwood, the professor's tough-minded and independent daughter, only to find that her father died and that she's reluctant to part with the headpiece. A Nazi agent named Toht who has followed Jones to Marion tries to take the piece from her by threatening her with a hot iron. Marion teams up with Jones, following a shootout between him and Toht's hired thugs in Marion's tavern. The pair drive off the assailants, although Toht inadvertantly brands the markings of one side of the headpiece on his palm when he tries to grab it when it is red hot. Jones and Marion fly to Cairo and meet Jones's friend Sallah, a skilled Egyptian digger and archeologist, to find help in decoding the markings in the headpiece that specify the height of the staff needed to hold the headpiece.

While touring about Cairo's markets, Marion and Jones are chased by hired swordsmen. Nazi operatives grab Marion and throw her in a truck, but the vehicle crashes and explodes when Jones shoots the driver with his pistol. Fearing that Marion was most likely killed in the blast, Jones in a rage encounters Belloq once more in a Cairo tavern and wishes to hurt him despite Belloq's sermon about the Ark's wonders. Sallah and his children rescue Jones from Belloq's bodyguards.

That evening, Sallah takes Jones to an old wiseman who decodes the markings. He notes that one side of the headpiece says that the staff must be shortened out of respect for the Hebrew. It appears that the Nazis have misread the headpiece (since they only have a copy of one side's markings). Their staff is too long, and they are thus digging for the Ark in the wrong place.

Infiltrating the dig, Jones and Sallah use the headpiece in the map room to then find the Ark deep within the snake-infested Well of Souls. Belloq and the Germans, led by the sadistic Col. Dietrich and his assistant Gobler, surround the entrance, take the Ark, and leave Jones and Marion to die in the snake-infested pit. They escape though a weak stone wall and arrive in time to see a Luftwaffe plane being prepared to ship the Ark to Berlin.

After attempting to stop the pilot, Jones gets entangled in a fight with a muscular soldier (Pat Roach) around the spinning propellers of the plane. Marion knocks out the pilot and fends off some infantrymen with the plane's machine gun while Jones hides his face when his opponent is torn apart by a propeller. Gasoline leaking from a bowser ignites and destroys the plane, causing Belloq and Dietrich to put the Ark on a truck instead.

Stealing a horse, Jones chases the truck convoy, he manages to take the wheel of the truck, throw the passengers off the back, fend off the other support vehicles, and escape, all in a rather dramatic chase scene. Retaking the Ark, Jones and Marion depart from a happy Sallah and sail with it on a ship bound for England.

A Nazi U-boat with Belloq and Dietrich stops the ship and takes the Ark and Marion, but Jones covertly boards the U-boat. It docks at a submarine pen on an island in the Aegean Sea, where Jones steals a soldier's uniform. Threatening to destroy the Ark with a rocket launcher, Jones is soon convinced by Belloq to surrender, giving in to his own deep desires as an archeologist to see the Ark's contents.

Marion and Jones are tied up and forced to view a ceremony where Belloq opens the Ark in front of a group of German soldiers. Strange and mysterious spirits emerge, damaging Belloq (whose head explodes), Dietrich (who dries up like a raisin), Toht (who literally melts), the soldiers, and evaporating their souls into the afterlife. Jones and Marion are spared because Jones realizes that the spirits must not be viewed and shuts his eyes and instructs Marion likewise. The couple thus escape the wrath of the Ark.

Later, back in Washington D.C., the two Army intelligence representatives tell Jones that "top men" are studying the Ark, but in a dramatic irony the Ark is sealed in a wooden crate and stored in a giant government warehouse filled with countless other similar crates.