Don't Make a Scene: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

The Story: First off, Happy Father's Day. As such, here's a scene about...a father.

 

So, it didn't hit me when I first saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (in a theater) how significant this scene was. An awful lot (as per Steven Spielberg action movies) had happened. There'd been a lot of bickering between father and son with some teasing of reconciliation that usually fell back into bickering. It became a trope, a trademark, in order to keep up the pretense. I started to ignore it.

 

It was years before the importance here struck me. For the entire movie, Indy's father had been insisting on calling his son "Junior"—he is, after all, Dr. Henry Jones, Jr.—to the point of irritation ("we called the dog "Indiana!"). But, it's only here—to snap back his son's distracted, obsessive attention—that Professor Jones calls him what everybody else in the world calls him—his nickname, "Indiana". 

 

Now, Indy's father had been pursuing the Grail his entire life...to the point of being an absent-minded father and ignorant of his late wife's illness. And here he is, watching his son risk his own life for the very thing that made a mess of his own. And he puts aside his ego, his life's work, his rather dismissive view of "Junior", he puts aside everything...to save his son. That is a pretty significant character moment and done in about 30 seconds. 

 

And, of course, there's the back-story of why Sean Connery plays Indiana Jones' father. Director Spielberg was vacationing in Hawaii with George Lucas—the eventual producer of the "Indy" films—right after Lucas' Star Wars had opened. Lucas (who was not fond of directing) asked Spielberg if there was some kind of movie he really wanted to make. Spielberg admitted he'd always wanted to direct a James Bond film (and had pursued directing The Spy Who Loved Me only to be rebuffed by Bond producer Albert Broccoli).*  

 

Lucas replied "I have something better than Bond!" that being Indiana Jones, which he'd been developing with Philip Kaufman. And, of course, Spielberg said "yes" and finished developing the project. So when the time came to cast the father of Indiana Jones? Who better than Sean Connery, the original film James Bond. It's a great story and Ford and Connery made a great team.

 

One last thought. Has it occurred to anybody that the Indiana Jones series is all about loss?

  

The Set-Up: The quest for the Holy Grail, the chalice Jesus Christ used at The Last Supper, has been a life-long obsession for Professor Henry Jones (Sean Connery), but now, in 1944, he has gone missing and his son, Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. (Harrison Ford) must retrace his father's steps to find him. At the end of the adventure, the two men, father and son—and not always on the best of terms—have found the grail. But, the circumstances are dire. And some generational divides, wider than chasms, need to be crossed.

 

Action. 

 

Now the ledge Indy lies upon begins to break apart. 

Henry grabs one of his hands 

as Indy struggles to reach the Grail with the other. 

HENRY Junior, give me your other hand! 

HENRY I can't hold on!! 

INDY I can get it -- 

INDY I can almost reach it, Dad. 

Indy looks down into the black bottomless pit beneath him from which nothing can ever be retrieved. 

HENRY Indiana. 

HENRY Indiana!! 

Indy snaps his look up to his father. 

His father has never called him this before. 

HENRY (very calmly) ...let it go... 

Indy abandons the Grail 

...and grabs onto Henry with both hands. 

Henry pulls him up... 

...to safety.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

 

Words by Jeffrey Boam, George Lucas and Menno Meyjes

 

Pictures by Douglas Slocombe and Steven Spielberg

 

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is available on DVD, Blu-Ray and 4KUHD from Paramount Home Video. 

 

* So, hey, how come no one's asked Spielberg to do the first Amazon Bond film? Seems like an obvious idea to me!

Don't Make a Scene: Marty

The Story: First off, Happy Mother's Day.

 

I've done several of these for Mom's Day...and they are always...a bit dark—scenes from Hitchcock (who always seemed to resent mothers and their frailties...yeah, like he didn't have any!) and the like. And it's not entirely fair, less of them than of me. I got along great with my Mother, although we had our differences. She grew up in a household that didn't employ the rod, but "the guilts" and she learned how to apply that very well, intimidatingly so. She wasn't one for therapy or self-examination ("pull yourself up by your boot-straps!"), so she probably never reflected that where she got it was from her parents. She only knew what she knew from her experience, what she grew up with (my Father, on the other hand, was a happy-go-lucky Irishman, and probably thought punishment was an interruption of "good times ahead." He could "guilt" you, too. But rarely).

 

And Mom was so much better at it.

 

Maybe next year, I'll celebrate with a "mothering instinct" kind of scene, although I'm not sure from where. John Ford, maybe, but he treated mothers like they were holy shrines (Oh! I know one. It's heart-breaking!).

 

But, this is Marty, more a product of Paddy Chayefsky than director Delbert Mann, so I think of Chayefsky as the "auteur" here (only enforced in that it was Mann's first feature film). Chayefsky could put mothers on pedestals, too, but they were frail things sometimes of their own design that could collapse if the slight was too much...or...they'd sabotage it themselves, if only to get you to pay attention to your transgressions against them ("the IDEA!").

 

I love this scene, and Borgnine—extraordinarily restrained—and Esther Minciotti (who's remarkable despite leaning into stereotype) make a meal of it.

 

The Set-up: Marty Piletti (Ernest Borgnine) has a girl! Can you believe it? 34 years and running a butcher shop in the Bronx and never married! He should be ashamed! He is, but it's because he's 34 and unattractive and the girls, they look right through him. But, he spent time with Clara Snyder (Betsy Blair) last night—that school-teacher?—and she's not exactly a spring chicken (if you know what I mean). I mean the mook even took her to his house that he shares with his mother (Esther Minciotti), saint that she is, and after the initial hope that something might come from this, she's heard talk that this is the first step to maybe Marty moving her out. His own mother. Tch! It's a good thing that there's church today. Maybe she can talk him out of something that she's been talking to him about for....well, since EVAH!

 

Action.

 

CHURCH. A HIGH, WIDE ANGLE SHOT of the church establishes that stage of Sunday morning between the nine and ten o'clock masses. People flock around the doors of the church. 

INSIDE THE CHURCH. 

The parishioners are making their ways to the door. A few silent penitents still kneel here and there in the long empty rows of pews. The large, almost empty church is filled now with organ MUSIC. 

Both Marty and his mother seem a little depressed as they stand at the doorway just inside the church, as the nine o'clock mass people flow out, and the first of the ten o'clock mass people file in. 

MRS. PILLETTI That was a nice girl last night, Marty. 

(Marty nods) 

MRS. PILLETTI She wasn't a very good-looking girl, but she looks like a nice girl. 

(she pauses, Marty makes no reply) 

MRS. PILLETTI I said, she wasn't a very good-looking girl... not very pretty... 

MARTY (still amiable) I heard you, Ma. 

MRS. PILLETTI She looks a little old for you. 

MRS. PILLETTI About thirty-five, forty years old? 

MARTY She's twenty-nine, Ma. 

A nearby kneeling penitent looks disapprovingly at Mrs. Pilletti and shushes her. 

The mother nods briefly. 

MRS. PILLETTI She's more than twenty-nine years old, Marty. That's what she tells you.

Bonjourno...

MARTY What, Ma? 

MRS. PILLETTI She looks thirty-five, forty. 

MRS. PILLETTI She didn't look Italian to me. 

Marty frowns but remains silent. 

MRS. PILLETTI I said, is she Italian girl? 

MARTY I don't know. I don't think so, Ma. 

It's Mrs. Pilletti's turn to frown. A silence. 

She turns back to Marty. 

MRS. PILLETTI She don't look Italian to me. 

MRS. PILLETTI What kinda family she come from? 

MRS. PILLETTI I-I-I-I don't know...There was something about her I didn't like. 

MRS. PILLETTI It seems funny, the first time you meet her, she comes to your empty house alone. 

MRS. PILLETTI These college girls, they all one step fromma streets. 

Marty turns, on the verge of anger with his mother. 

MARTY What are you talking about? She's a nice girl. 

MRS. PILLETTI She didn't look Italian to me. 

A silence hangs between them. 

MRS. PILLETTI I don't like her. 

MARTY You don't like her. You only met her for two minutes. 

MRS. PILLETTI Don't bring her to the house no more. 

MARTY What didn't you like about her? 

MRS. PILLETTI I don't know! She don't look like Italian to me. 

MRS. PILLETTI Plenny a nice Italian girls around. 

MARTY Well, let's not get inna fight about it, Ma. 

The kneeling woman shushes them again. 

By now the nine o'clock worshipers have filed out, and Marty joins the flow of ten o'clock people moving in. His mother turns back to him again. 

MARTY (stopping her before she gets started) What are you getting so worked up about? I just met the girl last night. 

MARTY I'm probably not gonna see her again anyhow.

MARTY C'mon.

They continue down the aisle of the church.

 

Marty

Words by Paddy Chayevsky

Pictures by Joseph LaShelle and Delbert Mann

Marty is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from M-G-M Home Video and Kino-Lorber.