SUMMER, 1981. BRITAIN IS ALL pageantry and petrol bombs as a royal wedding and inner-city riots dominate the news cycle. Harrison Ford has just flown in, obliged to promote a film with the tantalising title Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Interviewed by a national newspaper, he’s pictured looking characteristically wry beneath a headline that may seem insane to 21st century eyes: “Hollywood Calls Him The New Bogart. London Says Harrison Who?”
Raiders will propel Ford from irresistibly watchable ensemble player in the likes of Star Wars and Force 10 From Navarone to bona fide leading man, capable of balancing a blockbuster on his rangy shoulders. And in Indiana Jones he will find the role that defines his entire screen persona: laconic but heroic, an A-list everyman who can land a smirk as powerfully as a punch.
Now, 42 years on, Ford’s finally saying farewell to his signature character, coiling the whip and hanging the hat. This time, we’re told, it really is the last crusade. “This is the full stop,” insists veteran producer Frank Marshall of Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, a suitably breakneck swansong for the daredevil archaeologist. “We’ve done it. We’ve made, I think, a wonderful movie.”
MOONAGE DAYDREAM
It’s been an intrepid quest. Franchise creator George Lucas relinquished Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012. Steven Spielberg stepped down as director in 2020, following years of development hell. A succession of writers have come and gone, searching for that perfect take as if scouring tractless desert for the Well of Souls.
