Film / Raiders of the Lost Ark

aka: Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark

"The Return of the Great Adventure!"

"It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

— Indiana Jones

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 adventure film and the first entry in the Indiana Jones series. After the release of its sequels, it has also been retroactively called Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is directed by Steven Spielberg, with the screenplay written by Lawrence Kasdan and the story written by the film's executive producer George Lucas and Philip Kaufman.

A few years before World War II, Nazi Germany was searching for supernatural artifacts. In this case, they were searching for The Ark of the Covenant, which held the remains of the tablets of the Ten Commandments. After getting word of this, Dr. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford in his second iconic role) is sent to recover it, due to him knowing some people that had clues to where the Ark is held.

This leads him and his old girlfriend Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) on a wild chase involving fighting bad guys in a burning bar, fighting bad guys on moving trucks, and killer sand ghosts.

And that's not even taking into account what he has to go through in the prologue, which involves the iconic boulder escape scene.

The film also features Paul Freeman as René Belloq, a rival archaeologist from France; Ronald Lacey as Arnold Toht, a sinister Gestapo agent; John Rhys-Davies as Sallah, Indy's Egyptian sidekick; Denholm Elliott as Marcus Brody, a fellow archaeologist and museum curator; and Alfred Molina in his film debut as Satipo, Indy's Peruvian guide.

The film itself was a massive hit, but due to the Troubled Productions of Star Wars, and Jaws, studios were reluctant to fund a film by both Lucas and Spielberg, despite those respective films also being massive hits. Paramount eventually agreed to fund the film, although the series belongs to Lucasfilm (and now to Disney). While the production faced some hiccups (mainly the majority of the crew being ill in Tunisia), it wrapped ahead of time and on budget (something Spielberg felt was important). Kasdan was brought in to write a screenplay based on ideas born during story meetings between Lucas, Spielberg and Kasdan. The screenplay was so good that Lucas asked Kasdan to write the final draft of the first Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. The rest, as they say, is history.

The film is followed in chronological order by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and in production order by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

---

Tropes… Why Did It Have to be Tropes:

• Action Dress Rip: Marion when trapped in the Well of Souls with Indy, to use the strips of cloth to light the torches and scare off the snakes.
• Action Prologue: The golden idol retrieval, consisting of Indy being hunted by the natives, and the temple scene (which created the Indy Escape trope, and the first confrontation with Belloq.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • When Belloq's Mooks are about to gun down Indiana in the bar, Sallah saves him by having his children come rushing in and declaring that "Uncle Indy" must come home with them immediately. Many of the minions (still holding their rifles and guns) can't help but laugh and smile at the ploy, and even Belloq seems amused by the situation.
  • Again with Bellog when Marion pulls a knife on him so she can escape. Justified because he's rather drunk from Marion's attempt to drink him into unconsciousness.
• Adaptational Villainy: The novelization says that Marion was only fifteen when Indiana Jones first got involved with her (he was only 20-something, but it's still pretty creepy), which explains her "I was a child!" line. The novelization actually expands on Indy's evident thing for younger women — early on, he's having a fling with one of his students. Marcus picks up on this, and implies that it's not the first time Indy's done this.
• Advanced Ancient Acropolis: While Indiana Jones is exploring the native temple, he comes across a trap that operates on the principle of an "electric eye" device. When a beam of sunlight is interrupted, the trap sends out spears that impale whoever broke the beam. The Hovitos must be centuries ahead of their time, since it would take modern electronic equipment to do so.
• Advertising by Association: The original poster (see above), teaser and TV spots name-drop some blockbusters that Spielberg and Lucas had previously directed or written individually, such as Jaws and Star Wars. Notably, it leaves out Spielberg's actual previous film, 1941, which had been an infamous flop.
• After-Action Patch-Up: After a day spent fighting off an entire cavern full of snakes, fistfights with multiple soldiers, getting shot, being dragged by a truck and more, Indy's body is a complete wreck and every time Marion tries to help him clean any of his wounds or put on or change bandages he winces or exclaims in pain until finally an exasperated Marion asks the big question.
  Marion: Well, goddammit, Indy, where doesn't it hurt?!
• All for Nothing:
  • In the opening segment, due to Belloq’s intervention, Indy fails in his quest to retrieve the golden idol of the Hovitos and barely escapes with his life.
  • Implied by the ending where Indy is told the Ark is being handled by "top men" (meaning Indy's accomplishment in finding it is barely being acknowledged), and the final shot shows the Ark enclosed in a crate and stored away in a massive, seemingly endless warehouse full of identical-looking crates — meaning it's going to be ignored. It hasn't fallen into the Nazis' hands, but in essence it remains lost and buried just as it was to begin with.
  • Marion's escape attempt from Belloq's tent, where she makes use of her talent at drinking large quantities of liquor and staying relatively sober, abruptly fails. Belloq held his liquor better than she had planned for, thus she was far more drunk than she had planned when she made her attempt. When she does make her attempt, Toht appears at the entrance the moment she's about to leave. It also isn't clear she would have gotten very far even if she had successfully escaped the tent, as the place is crawling with Nazis, she'd be without any supplies beyond a knife, and she isn't exactly dressed in a way that would help her survive a night in the desert. And she's drunk.
• All There in the Manual: The novelization reveals a few things...
  • Before he goes off to find Abner Ravenwood, Indy is obviously having a relationship with one of his students. Marcus is aware of this, and it's strongly hinted that this is not the first time he's done this.
  • Marion was only fifteen years old when she and Indy (who was in his twenties at the time) began their relationship. This explains her "I was a child! It was wrong and you knew it!" comment. Later Indyverse material such as Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide (2008) would retcon this to make Marion a couple of years older than that at the time of her relationship with Indy, but it's still a situation with unsavoury undertones.
  • Marion also has something of a Dark and Troubled Past with regards to the bar she runs in Nepal (which is revealed to be called "The Raven"). Rather than it being left to her by her father (as viewers of the film might reasonably assume), it's mentioned in the novel that she actually started working there in order to make ends meet after Abner died, and that she "wasn't exactly the bartender" — no more is said, but the obvious implication is that she was obliged to prostitute herself. She took over the place after the previous owner "went crazy".
  • Indy's owning of a bullwhip is explained by the fact that he was fascinated by the whip act in a travelling circus he saw when he was seven; he subsequently obtained one himself and spent many hours perfecting the art of how to use it. Marion recalls him practising with "that ratty old whip" every day. This, of course, would later be retconned by the prologue sequence of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (although said retcon does also involve a travelling circus).
  • The headpiece to the Staff of Ra is (also) engraved with a warning not to look inside the Ark of the Covenant, which is how Indy knew to close his eyes when the Nazis opened it (although such advice can also be found in The Bible). Belloq spent several hours making a copy from the burn mark on Toht's hand, and so only knew what was engraved on one side of it.
  • Belloq doesn't much care for the Nazis — in the novel, he is revealed to have met Adolf Hitler himself, and was unimpressed. This disdain does not, of course, stop him from working with them to recover the Ark, with which he is obsessed. Although it's not stated, he may well have got this obsession from Abner Ravenwood, who was his tutor as well as Indy's.
  • The rivalry between Indy and Belloq goes all the way back to graduate school where Belloq stole Indy's research while Indy was conducting his, ah, extracurricular activities with his tutor's daughter. This also explains why Marion and Belloq are on a first-name basis, as — being a student of the same subject at the same institution as Indy — he'd have known the Ravenwoods too.
  • Marion thinks that Belloq is a good kisser.
  • Indy manages to stow away on the U-boat without drowning by using his whip to tie himself to the periscope (although in the film, he isn't carrying it when he boards the sub.)
  • The base and the U-boat, along with its crew, were also destroyed by the Ark.
• All There in the Script:
  • Toht's name is only revealed in the credits and in an old TV ad, and much, much later in LEGO Indiana Jones.
  • According to the script, Abner Ravenwood was killed in an avalanche (a detail which also gets a mention in the novelization).
• Alternate Monochrome Version: While not an official release, Steven Soderbergh did a Re-Cut of the movie in 2014 titled Raiders, which both renders the film in black and white and strips it of its native sound, done as an exercise to emphasize how much of Steven Spielberg's directing abilities were shown off in the film.
• Always Save the Girl: Subverted twice:
  • Just after he discovers the location of the Ark in the map room, Indy dodges some Germans by ducking into a tent in their camp, only to be surprised to find that Marion is tied up and gagged in the tent. He had thought she was killed in the earlier street fight. He starts to release her, but then changes his mind and gags her again, telling her that he'll come back for her later, since if he frees her now the Germans will start searching the area for him and he'll loose his chance to recover the Ark.
  • Indy offers to let the Nazis keep the Ark in exchange for Marion, threatening to destroy the Ark if they don't comply. Belloq calls his bluff. He knows Indy won't be able to bring himself to destroy the Ark, even to keep it out of the Nazis' hands. Indy gets captured.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • Numerous vehicles, weapons and accessories which did not exist in 1936; this has its own page.
  • Maps appear showing Thailand, which was called Siam until 1939, and Jordan, which was called Transjordan until 1949.
• Ancient Tomb: In the words of Roger Ebert: "For locations, it ticks off the jungles of South America, the hinterlands of Tibet, the deserts of Egypt, a hidden submarine base, an isolated island, a forgotten tomb — no, make that two forgotten tombs — and an American archaeology classroom."
• And Starring: Denholm Elliott (Marcus Brody) has this credit.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: The movie features a minor character version. At one point a swordsman in black challenges Indiana and starts swinging his sword around. However, Indy isn't in the mood for a fight and promptly shoots him. The crowd around the swordsman immediately starts cheering.
• Angelic Abomination: At the end, something that might be this trope emerges from the Ark of the Covenant when the Nazis open it. At first, they are awestruck by the beauty of the wisp-like entities and their feminine faces, but then the main angel's face warps into a Ghostly Gape, the Nazis scream in terror, and everything gets very scary, very fast.
  Indy: Don't look at it!
• Animal Espionage: The Nazis and Belloq attempt to have a monkey spy on Indy, but the attempt fails when it eats a poisoned date and dies. This alerts Sallah, who stops Indy eating one.
• Anywhere but Their Lips: Indiana Jones complains about his body hurting when Marion tries to treat him. Marion exasperatedly asks him where it doesn't hurt, and he throws up his elbow — and she kisses it. He then points to his forehead. She kisses that, and then he points to a corner of his mouth. As she goes in for a kiss he falls asleep, exhausted.
• Apple for Teacher: A student places a green apple on Indy's desk as his class leaves the room.
• Appropriated Title: The movie was released as just Raiders of the Lost Ark, while subsequent installments would establish the Character Name and the Noun Phrase convention for the series. Home media releases changed the display title for this film to match, resulting in the rather long Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (and wasn't Indy among the titular "raiders"?). The original title is still retained onscreen in the movie itself, however.
• Archaeological Arms Race: This is alluded to, since both the US Army Intelligence and the Nazis might want to use the Ark as a weapon (although it's more of a powerful spiritual artifact than lost technology). More directly to the "arms race" portion, US Intelligence gets wind that Hitler is looking for the Ark, and decides that if he wants it, it's in their best interests to make sure he doesn't get it.
• Artifact Collection Agency: The Secret Government Warehouse seen at the end of the movie implies the existence of such an agency: It's far too large to only contain things stumbled upon by chance. The fourth film starts at either the same or a very similar warehouse, located in Area 51.
• Artifact of Death: The Ark of the Covenant supposedly grants the owner great power, and may be used as a means of communicating directly with God. However, opening the Ark releases the Wrath of God, and anyone who looks upon the spirits that are released dies an extremely gruesome death.
• Artistic License – Biology: Like all reptiles, snakes are ectothermic animals, meaning they're attracted to sources of outside heat, not warded off by it. invokedWord of God didn't realize this, so a "making of special" shows Steven Spielberg humorously scolding a snake for messing up a scene. There's also the fact that most of the snakes are harmless non-Egyptian species including a European Glass Lizard, which isn't even a snake.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: The movie briefly has a Nazi machine-gunner try to kill Indy with it by firing in his general direction. Not only does he miss cleanly, the angle is such that he sprays the cargo compartment of the truck in front of him (the mooks in the truck are shown hitting the deck to avoid the gunfire).
• Artistic License – History:
  • The Nazis have a vast base complete with soldiers and aeroplanes in Egypt, which had a strong British military presence at the time. Ditto for the hidden U-Boat base in the Aegean — Germany didn't occupy Greece until 1941 (their ally Italy held Rhodes and the Dodecanese, but whether they would have allowed a German U-Boat base on one of the smaller islands is another question).
  • Tanis, one of the ancient capitals of Egypt, is depicted as having been a lost city since antiquity, which Abner Ravenwood had more or less dedicated his life to locating, and Indy reacts with consternation upon learning that the Nazis have re-discovered it. In real life Tanis has never been a lost city; located in the Nile Delta north-east of Cairo, it was first studied in 1798 during Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian campaign, and was the site of numerous archaeological excavations in the 19th century.
  • Contrary to what the US government agents say at the beginning of the movie, Hitler was not obsessed with the occult, although other Nazis (notably SS chief Heinrich Himmler) were. In fact, historians largely believe that he was for the most part openly scornful of occultism and mysticism, similar to his views on religion, and he seems to have regarded archaeology in general as a waste of time. That said, he was OK with the search for legendary relics because of their propaganda value.
  • The Gestapo, of which Toht is evidently a member (what with the black leather overcoat), was dedicated to internal security within Nazi Germany (and, later, the territories it conquered). There's no way one of its agents would be sent on a mission to Nepal as part of an operation in Egypt. It would make more sense for Toht to be an agent of the SD (SS intelligence) or the Ahnenerbe. He was probably presented as a Gestapo agent because as far as sinister Nazi organisations go, it's much more widely known.
• Artistic License – Religion: Marcus speculates that the Nazis want the Ark because "an army that carries the Ark before it is invincible". In The Bible, every time the army of Israel carried the Ark into battle without God's specific direction to do so, they were soundly trounced and usually lost the Ark as well. For the capturing nation, at best, it would remain inert. At worst... well, let's just say it was usually hastily returned, often with a request to please ask the Lord to stop smiting them now. Although Hitler did say several things in real life indicating that he believed he was specifically directed by God to take over the world. Whether it was a lie he used to motivate his followers or he actually believed it is up for debate. Belloq also made the fatal mistake of getting all the ritual gear right but missing the multiple clear warnings not to look in it.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Although the Nazis speak German in many scenes, most of the lines were redubbed for the German versions of the film as the actors spoke very bad German, with a strong American accent. They were redubbed by native German speakers for later DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the film.
• Aside Glance: It's subtle, but as Indy clings to the front of the Nazis' truck which then accelerates attempting to crush him against the German staff car, Indy looks straight into the camera as if to say, "Can you believe this?"
• Assassin Outclassin': In the film's opening scene, Indy has just finished reuniting the two pieces of map when Satipo's partner Barranca attempts to shoot him in the back. However, Indy hears the gun's hammer and deploys his whip, knocking the gun out of Barranca's hand and forcing him to flee.
• Asshole Victim:
  • The traitorous guide Satipo gets killed by the very traps he helped Jones escape. His buddy Barranca, who tried to kill Indy first, doesn't fare much better as he gets shot with numerous poisoned darts.
  • Belloq, Toht and Dietrich attempt to tamper with the Ark, with grisly consequences.
• Attack the Injury: When Indy attempts to hijack the truck carrying the Ark, he fends off multiple German soldiers who try to take it back, but one of them finally gets a shot off and hits Indy in the shoulder. Moments later the last soldier left manages to make it into the truck's compartment and makes it a point to repeatedly punch Indy in the injured shoulder before trying to finish him off by throwing Indy out of the truck.
• Audible Gleam: The head-peace of the Staff of Ra.
• Avoid the Dreaded G Rating: Inverted. To avoid the film getting an R rating, the filmmakers had to add a wall of fire to slightly obscure Belloq when his head explodes in the Opening of the Ark scene.
• Badass Boast: Indy delivers one of the best in cinema history to Belloq after he thinks Marion is dead, and it is ice cold.
  Belloq: Jones, do you realize what the Ark is? It's a transmitter. It's a radio for speaking to God, and it's within my reach.
  Indy: You wanna talk to God? Let's go see Him together. I've got nothing better to do.
• Bait-and-Switch: A huge part of the plot; the basket with Marion inside is put on a truck loaded with explosives, which crashes and explodes. Much later, Indy finds her alive, realizing, "They must've switched baskets."
• Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: During the fight in Marion's bar, one of the mooks points a gun at Indy, and there's a gunshot. Indy realizes he isn't hurt, and the mook keels over, revealing Marion behind him holding a smoking gun.
• Balls of Steel: Indy is challenged by a hopelessly larger fighter; he kicks him the groin in desperation — in response to which the fighter just challenges him again.
• Bamboo Technology: Ancient South-American Indians develop a trap with a trigger that uses a beam of sunlight as an electric eye: when anything interrupts the beam, the trap activates.
• Bang, Bang, BANG: Used intentionally to provide "heroic" and "villainous" gunshot motifs. Note that every pistol Indy uses (from his spare 9mm Browning Hi-Power in the bar fight to his trademark revolver) produces the exact same sound, a huge "kaboom" that was actually a recording of a .30-30 rifle.
• Bar Brawl: Marion's bar is destroyed as the result of one of these, which includes a lot of burning drink and a full-scale shoot-out.
• Bat Scare: A flock of birds emerges from a statue's mouth, startling one of Indy's jungle porters.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: Indy and Marion fight against Toht and his henchmen while surrounded by fire inside the bar.
• Bear Hug: Sallah gives Indy a big goodbye hug — which Indy would've appreciated more had he not recently gotten the crap beaten out of him by a whole platoon of Nazis.
• Beast in the Building: When Indy and Sallah open the Well of Souls, they discover it's infested with snakes, to Indy's frustration since it's his one fear. Later, the Nazis seal Marion and Indy in this snake-infested pit where the two have to fend off the snakes and find a way out.
  Indiana: Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?
• Bedsheet Ladder: Sallah makes a replacement rope for Indy while he's in the map room that is made from Nazi flags.
• Berserk Button: Don't tell Marion what to do in her own house. Unfortunately, she says this to Nazis.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Technically all three antagonists are working for the Greater-Scope Villain Adolf Hitler, but all three have their own authorities and agendas — Belloq is in charge of the actual archaeological side of things which the other two are clueless about, Dietrich provides the military muscle and is nominally in charge but would be ineffectual without Belloq in his mission, and Toht is more of a specialist Torture Technician probably on loan from either the Gestapo or the SS and not necessarily a subordinate to Dietrich as he is part of a separate command structure. All three die together, killed by the Ark while standing as equals over it, with Belloq (the least powerful) being in the centre of the group between the other two.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Just when Toht is about to torture Marion with a red hot poker, it is ripped from his hand by a bullwhip with Indiana Jones at the other end, ready for battle.
  • A more Played for Laughs example in the bar — Indiana is about to be gunned down when Sallah's children show up to retrieve "Uncle Indy". Belloq finds it amusing enough to hold his fire.
    Belloq: Next time, Dr. Jones, it will take more than children to save you!
  • God Himself after destroying Belloq and The Nazis, also burned the rope that tied Indy and Marion up.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Between Marion and Indy on the boat after their After-Action Patch-Up.
• Big "NO!": While the Nazis are sliding the stone block to seal off the Well of Souls (with Indy and Marion inside), Marion yells "Noooo!" The sound is abruptly cut off when the block slides into place.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • The Nazi officer who finds Indiana at the U-boat base says, in German: "Good day. Tired? Why do you sleep? Wash yourself! And straighten your shirt, so that you don't look like a pig at your court martial. Stand up..." *punch*
  • Before opening the Ark, Belloq recites an actual Jewish prayer that is said when opening the Torah ark in a synagogue (though his pronunciation is hilariously off).
• Binocular Shot: Indy scans the Nazi dig site with a surveyor's transit to find where the Well of Souls is hidden.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Ark, a legendary historical artifact of considerable academic, scientific, and religious interest, is locked up in a warehouse, never to be heard from again. On the other hand, a bunch of Nazis are dead, Indy and Marion have patched up their relationship, and considering the sheer threat the Ark possesses to any living being, is its disappearance really such a bad thing?
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands:
  • The opening sequence does a variation: Indy whips the gun out of someone's hand when he tries to shoot him.
  • At the start of the Nepal gunfight, Indy shoots a machine gun out of the hands of a mook who was about to shoot him. While the mook doesn't actually drop his gun, it does cause the mook's shot to miss and buy Indy enough time to get to cover.
• Blatant Lies: After the Ark's recovery, Major Eaton assures Indy that it's now in a safe location where no bad guy can reach it. The Ark ends up occupying a storage crate where it is never heard from again until it makes a cameo appearance in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in the Area 51 warehouse.
  Major Eaton: We have top men working on it right now.
  Indy: Who?
  Eaton: Top... men.
• Bloody Horror: The Wrath of God scene at the end of the movie — Toht's face melts with the skin and blood evaporating off his face.
• Booby Trap: The temple in the opening scene is full of these. Examples include: a light-sensitive spike trap, walls that shoot darts, a Collapsing Lair, and a giant rolling boulder.
• Booked Full of Mooks: In Cairo, Indiana Jones is told that someone in a local bar wishes to speak with him. Indy walks inside and finds his arch-rival René Belloq. They spar verbally for a bit until Indy gets pissed enough to pull out his gun and threaten Belloq — at which point every Arab in the bar draws their own gun and takes aim at Indy.
• Boom, Headshot!: Indy kills a Mook on fire with a shot to the head.
• Boring, but Practical: The famous gun vs. sword fight. A mook brandishes a scimitar in precise and skillful ways, but Indy just raises his gun and shoots him.
• Boring Return Journey: The titular Ark melts the faces off of all the Nazis who were gathered to see it opened, but it's left completely unexplained how Indy and Marion recovered the Ark and got off the Mediterranean island past all of the other Nazis who may have still been there.
• Brownface: Played straight with Toht's henchman in Nepal known as the Ratty Nepalese. Malcolm Weaver, the stuntman who plays him, is in full makeup and prosthetics to appear Nepalese. Strangely somewhat averted with Pat Roach who in the same sequence plays the Giant Sherpa, despite the fact that his character is also meant to be Nepalese.
• Brown Note: Do not gaze directly into the opened Ark. Whatever is inside The Ark of the Covenant melts the faces of the people who look at it when the cover comes off.
• Captive Date: After Marion is kidnapped, Belloq tries to be civil, bringing her a nice dress and then talking to her over wine; unfortunately, the far less civil Toht comes in and breaks this up.
• Car Fu: The Truck Chase carrying the Ark of the Covenant shows Indiana Jones using the aforementioned truck to smash up every other vehicle in the Nazi convoy, from cars to motorcycles.
• Celebrity Cameo: Special effects artist Dennis Muren is a Nazi reading an issue of Life magazine. Some people mistook him for Toht.
• Chain Lightning: This depiction of the Ark generates an electrical effect that jumps from person to person and even the Nazis' electronic equipment.
• Chased by Angry Natives: In the opening, after Indy escapes the temple, Belloq sets the Hovitos natives after him for stealing their idol.
• Chase Fight: The running battle between Indiana and the Nazi convoy that's trying to get the Ark to Cairo. Indiana chases after it on a horse, eventually boards the truck and fights everyone involved.
• Chase Stops at Water: In the opening scene, Indy is chased to the riverside and manages to escape in a seaplane.
• Chekhov's Gun: During the fight in Marion's bar, Toht tries to grab the medallion from a fire — and, not surprisingly, burns his hand. The burn marks on his hand allow the Nazis to translate one-half of the medallion.
• Chekhov's Skill: Marion's Establishing Character Moment shows her drinking a large, burly brute under the table. She later uses her hard-drinking ability to get Belloq drunk in an attempt to escape from him. Subverted when it turns out Belloq isn't too shabby at holding his liquor himself, forcing her to go to plan B (grab a knife and try to duck out).
• Children as Pawns: A heroic Human Shield version, where Indy finds himself surrounded by armed Arabs in a Cairo bar. Sallah saves him by sending a group of children into the bar who swarm around Indy and lead him out of the place with the baddies unable to interfere.
• Cobweb Jungle: The entrance to the Idol Temple is littered with cobwebs complete with absurdly out-of-place tarantulas. ("Never too-covered" is avoided: as Indy runs from the giant boulder, he goes through a door-wide web).
• Cold-Blooded Torture:
  • Toht seems to enjoy this, even if the subject is willing to talk without torture:
  Marion: I'll tell you everything!
  Toht: [advances with red hot poker] Yes, I know you will.
  • Subverted on another occasion between Toht and Marion, where he approaches her while assembling what appears to be a nunchuck-type device — which turns out to be a hanger for his overcoat.
• Collapsing Lair: The Chachapoyan temple starts collapsing after Indy swaps the golden statue for a bag of sand.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • One of the most famous examples in all of film; Indy, after going through a lengthy fight and chase sequence, is approached by a villainous swordsman who proceeds to show off a few fancy sword moves with a scimitar. Indy opts simply to pull out his gun and shoot the swordsman. (This wasn't in the original script and was a suggestion by Harrison Ford who had dysentery at the time of the scene and wasn't up for the scripted fight.)
  • In the scene where he fights the Giant Mook mechanic by the plane, Indy practically runs down a checklist of pragmatic/dirty fighting moves. Pulling a Look Behind You and then launching a surprise Groin Attack? Check. Biting? Check. (And bonus points for it not being a last resort either.) A fistfull of sand to the eyes? Check. Attempting to reach his fallen gun with the apparent intention of shooting a completely unarmed man? Check! And, finally, Indy "defeats" him by serving as another distraction until the guy realizes too late that he's directly in the path of a spinning propeller.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Jones just happens to have an illustrated Bible at an impromptu meeting with a couple of intelligence people, when neither party had any idea that the Ark was even going to feature in the conversation.
  • Of all the tents at the dig site, Indy stumbles directly into the one where Marion is kept.
  • The secret room in the Well of Souls just happens to have a loose stone in the wall that lets Indy and Marion escape back outside directly overlooking the airfield with the flying wing just before the Nazis are going to load the ark on the plane for its flight to Berlin.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Averted. When Toht goes to pick up the medallion in the burning bar, it has become hot enough to cause massive burns to his hand, despite not touching any flames. Marion has the good sense to pick it up using a handkerchief.
• Convenient Decoy Cat: Inverted when a monkey reveals to the villains the basket that Marion hid herself in to escape detection. Had it not recognized Marion, it's likely that she would have escaped.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind:
  • Marion Ravenwood knocks out a mook from behind with a burning log during the bar fight near the beginning just as he's about to shoot Indiana Jones.
  • She does this sort of thing again later during the fight on and around the Nazi plane. A German pilot is about to shoot Indy when he's hit over the back of the head, and we see Marion Ravenwood lifting some airplane wheel chocks triumphantly.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Producer Frank Marshall is a pilot knocked out by Marion.
  • Harrison Ford's stunt double Terry Leonard appears as a Nazi truck driver.
  • Stunt coordinator Glenn Randall, Jr., appears as a mechanic.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: At the end of the fight scene with the mechanic, Indy is losing but makes one final effort to win the fight, getting more aggressive (including literally roaring) and manages to punch the mechanic right in the face with several big blows. The mechanic still beats him but is visibly bloody afterwards, the first time that he's really shown much of an effect from Indy's punches.
• Cutlery Escape Aid: While Marion is drinking brandy with Belloq, she grabs a table knife in order to escape. The attempt fails because of the arrival of Major Toht and the Nazi guards.
• Damsel in Distress: Marion Ravenwood is captured by Toht and threatened with torture in her own bar and has to be rescued by Indy. Later in Cairo she's captured by the Germans' Arab allies and carried away in a basket. Then she's captured yet again by Nazi troops while she's aboard the ship. Somewhat averted because she isn't completely helpless, including knocking out one of her Arab pursuers with a frying pan and pulling a knife on Belloq in an attempt to escape.
• Dangerous Backswing: During the street fight in Cairo, one of the Mooks accidentally hits his comrade when he winds up to hit Indy with a piece of wood.
• Dangerous Clifftop Road: Part of the road from the Tanis excavation to Cairo passes a sheer cliff, despite this not being a common feature in that part of Egypt. Indy rams one of the Nazis' vehicles off it.
• Danger Takes a Backseat: Indiana finding a snake in the compartment of his friend's plane is a subversion, as the snake is harmless. Not that he cares.
• The Day the Music Lied: During his fight with the Giant Mook, there's a bit where Indy sees his fallen gun lying on the ground, and a triumphant version of his theme song starts playing, and he tries to go for the gun with the intent of using it to end his fight... and then he's cut off from reaching it and the theme song peters out almost immediately.
• Dead Foot Leadfoot:
  • After Indy shoots the truck driver in Cairo, the truck keeps moving forward until it hits an obstacle and tips over.
  • When Marion knocks out the pilot of the Nazi plane, he slumps forward onto the controls and the plane starts moving forward.
• Dead Guy Puppet: After escaping the temple, Indy finds himself surrounded by angry natives and the guide who tried to pull a gun on him earlier. After a moment the guide falls on his face to reveal his back is riddled with poison darts.
• Deadly Dodging: At one point during the fight in Cairo, a bad guy attempts to stab Indy with his sword. Indy dodges the attack, causing him to stick a second bad guy with the blade.
• Deadly Dust Storm: According to Dr. Marcus Brody, an Egyptian pharaoh took the Ark of the Covenant to the city of Tanis. A year later, Tanis was destroyed by a sand storm that lasted an entire year — "Wiped clean by the wrath of God."
• Deadly Rotary Fan: One of the most iconic in cinema, when the Giant Mook gets turned to chunky salsa by the airplane propeller.
• Death by Materialism: A running theme in the Indy series.
  • Indy's scout in the beginning who seizes the statue but gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice offscreen. Indy then finds his Peek-a-Boo Corpse.
  • Also, the Nazis get this on a literally Biblical scale when they find out why you're not supposed to open the Ark.
• Death Course: The temple in the opening sequence is a Malevolent Architecture, including a corridor with arrows shooting from the walls, Spikes of Doom and a giant rolling stone ball.
• Delaying the Rescue: Indie finds Marion Bound and Gagged in the Nazi camp, but leaves her tied up so he can search for the titular ark without the added complication of search parties looking for Marion.
• Desperate Object Catch: Sallah grabs a date in midair, just short of Indy's mouth, when Jones casually tosses it up to eat it. A fortunate catch too, as dates from the same bowl had just poisoned the monkey to death in seconds.
• Deus ex Machina: A literal example, in that God strikes down the Nazis for opening the Ark of the Covenant, defeating them while our heroes are helpless.
• Didn't Think This Through: Belloq casts his lot in with an organization of anti-Semites hell-bent on eradicating the people who originally built and kept the Ark in deference to their God, all the while gleefully gloating to Indy that the Ark can allow him to communicate with said God. At the end of the day the rabbinical robes and torah reading were comparatively lighter blasphemies...
• Did They or Didn't They?:
  • "I was a child; I was in love! It was wrong and you knew it!" It's not made clear how far Indy and Marion's relationship went back in the day.
  • It's also not explicit what happened overnight on the freighter, since Indy fell asleep earlier, although Marion being nude under the covers in the morning is a hint that he woke up again.
• Dismantled MacGuffin: Downplayed. In the film's opening scene we see Indy reuniting two pieces of a map that apparently lead the way to the gold idol.
• Disney Villain Death: Gobler and some Nazi pals wind up flying off a cliff in their car.
• Distant Reaction Shot: As Indy and Marion are on the ship out of Egypt, Indy is looking in one side of a double-sided mirror. Marion, looking in the other side, flips it around, banging Indy hard in the face. Cut to a distant shot of the ship with Indy's scream of pain audible.
  Marion: What'd you say?
• Doomed New Clothes: The dress Marion gets from Belloq gets burned, shredded, and dirtied in the escape from the Well of Souls.
• Doomed Predecessor: At the beginning, Indiana Jones is well aware he's not the first person to find the lost temple in Peru. When he finds it, he says "This is it. This is where Forrestall cashed in." While navigating the temple, Indy intentionally triggers a spike trap to find Forrestall's corpse impaled on it.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Satipo's partner Barranca attempts to shoot Indy from behind, but Indy is alerted by the cocking of his pistol and disarms him.
• Dramatic Thunder: Rolls in the background when Indy and Sallah discover the ark at the tomb.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Double Subverted. The first guard Indy knocks out in the sub pen is too skinny for his shirt to fit. Fortunately, a larger specimen turns up to scold him for being "out of uniform"...
• Drinking Contest: Marion's introduction comes as she is winning a drinking contest. Later, she attempts to use this skill to get her captor, Belloq, drunk, and escape. Unfortunately, Belloq was much better at holding his liquor than she was prepared for, apparently having grown up on a vineyard.
• Drowning My Sorrows: After Indy believes Marion to have died in the explosion in Cairo, we cut to him mourning at a table sipping on a glass of whisky.
• Dull Surprise: When the spirits emerge from the ark, Belloq is the only one who acts like he's in the presence of something extraordinary.
• Durable Deathtrap: The deathtraps in the temple avert this, as they're apparently maintained by the Hovitos. Well, someone had to reset the spike trap that got Forrestal.
• Eagleland: While being kidnapped, Marion protests, "You can't do this to me! I'm an American!"
• Early-Installment Weirdness
  • It's the only entry in the series to have been originally released with a title not beginning Indiana Jones and the.... Subsequent rereleases, however, have added those words to the title for consistency with the later films (though the 2023 re-release does use the original title).
  • It's relatively more serious in tone than any of its sequels. While it has its share of laughs, most of these consist of brief, dryly humorous moments (like the iconic shooting-the-swordsman scene), compared with the fairly constant banter and even slapstick elements that characterized the sequels. Related to this it ends on a bittersweet note with the US Government confiscating the Ark and Marion taking a dejected Indy out for a drink to try and cheer him up. The next three films all have considerably more upbeat endings.
  • Brody is presented in this film as an older version of Indiana Jones who retired from field work. Brody himself states if it had been five years earlier would have gone after the Ark himself and it's implied he would've stood a reasonable chance of successfully recovering the artifact. Fast forward a couple years and we see a man who is completely out of his element in the field and once got lost in his own museum.
  • It's become a meme that Indy never loses his fedora, but in Raiders, Marion takes off his hat aboard the Bantu Wind and he never got it back before he snuck onto the U-boat. When he has the meeting in Washington at the end of the movie, he's wearing a different gray fedora that matches his suit (which is the proper fashion for wearing fedoras). We aren't shown how he got the hat back in time for the movies that take place later.
  • Indy is portrayed as far more cynical, greedy, and morally ambiguous in this film compared to the sequels. Examples include falling out with his mentor over having an affair with his underage daughter, and then later abandoning her to the Nazis because rescuing her would make it more difficult to get the Ark. When Belloq says that it would take only a nudge to make Indy more like himself, he's not far off.
• Emerging from the Shadows: The first time we see Indy's face is when he steps forward from an overshadowed spot in the jungle after Barranca attempts to kill him.
• Enemy Mine: Indy and the thug after Toht orders another thug to shoot them both; they work together to shoot the other thug and then immediately go back to fighting one another.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • The iconic temple cold open is basically one long example of this for Indy.
  • "Dr. Jones. Again you see there is nothing you can possess which I cannot take away. And you thought I'd given up." Belloq's entire personality and shared history with Indy laid out in three sentences.
  • Marion drinking a huge mountain climber under the table and then punching Indy in the face.
  • The first thing Major Toht does after giving up his pretense of affability is to go for a hot fire poker and have his men hold Marion still — not so he can extract the information from her through torture, but just because he can.
• Ethereal Choir: The Ark theme includes this when the moments get really dramatic.
• "Eureka!" Moment:
  • Indy sees all the light sources and cameras the Nazis set up exploding and realizes the Ark doesn't want to be looked upon. Perhaps making the connection to 1 Samuel 6:19.
  • When Indy and Sallah are having a man translate the inscriptions on the Headpiece of the Staff of Ra. Sallah had earlier informed Indy that the Nazis were making an excavation at a site they believed the Ark of the Covenant might be buried, having made a duplicate headpiece (later revealed to have been based from the burns on Toht's hand from his failed attempt to recover said medallion in Nepal), with markings on one side. The translated instructions on the front spell out, among other things, the length of the staff at six kadams (72 inches according to Indy). But, there is another instruction on the back to shorten the staff by one kadam. Indy realises (after confirming with Sallah that the counterfeit headpiece only had the markings on one side) that the Nazis had apparently missed out this extra instruction, meaning:
    Indy: Belloq's staff is too long.
    Indy & Sallah: They're digging in the wrong place!
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Belloq isn't pleased with Toht tossing Marion in the Well of Souls. And rivalry (and prior attempts to kill and steal from him) aside, he seems to generally admire and respect Indy, even openly acknowledging that Indy is better. When the Well of Souls is sealed he can't even manage a Bond One-Liner, and simply bids him a melancholy "adieu".
  • Oberst Herman Dietrich is disgusted by Simon Katanga's implied desire to sell Marion into sexual slavery, although Katanga is deliberately lying to him to buy Indy time to escape. And that objection might be more ideological than humanitarian; a Nazi would hardly like the idea of a black man having sexual authority over a white woman.
• Even the Guys Want Him: University professor Indy is being openly lusted over by all his female students, and then one of the males leaves an apple on his desk.
• Evil Laugh: Belloq, after sending the Hovitos to kill an escaping Indiana.
• Eyes Are Unbreakable: Early in the movie, Indy discovers the long-dead corpse of Forrestal, a fellow treasure hunting archaeologist. Despite being mostly dessicated and badly decomposed the point that parts of his lower skull are visible, Forrestal's baby blues are still perfectly intact.
• Faceless Goons: The henchmen in Cairo snatching Marion have their faces covered in black veils.
• Face Your Fears: When Indiana Jones finds the Well of Souls, he discovers that it's full of snakes, which is a problem because he has a severe phobia of snakes. He decides to go in anyway because it's the only way he can get The Ark of the Covenant.
• Facial Horror: Belloq, Toht, and Dietrich really shouldn't have looked inside the Ark.
• Fanservice: A captive Marion undressing after Belloq gives her a dress, giving us a brief glimpse of her bare back in his mirror. The dress also does very nice things for her gams.
• Fatal MacGuffin: During the climax, the Nazis take Jones and Marion to an area where the Ark will be opened and tie them to a post to observe. Dressed as an Israelite priest, Belloq performs a ceremonial opening of the Ark by invoking a standard Sabbath prayer, and finds it full of sand, possibly all that is left of the Ten Commandments. As Indy warns Marion to keep her eyes shut, spirits emerge from the Ark, eventually revealing themselves to be angels of death. Flames then form above the opened Ark and bolts of energy shoot through the gathered Nazi soldiers, killing them all. In the extreme heat, Dietrich's head shrivels up; all the flesh on Toht's face melts off his skull; and Belloq's head explodes. Flames then engulf and vaporize the remains of the doomed assembly, save for Jones and Marion, in a whirlwind of fire before the Ark seals itself shut.
• Feeling Their Age: Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood are recuperating on the tramp steamer, and as Marion tries to "help" Indy, he lets out a bunch of moans and groans. Marion says he's not as young as he once was. Indy argues back, "It's not the years, it's the mileage."
• Feet-First Introduction: The first thing we see of Belloq is his booted feet stepping over Barranca's darted body and walking up to Indy.
• Finish Dialogue in Unison: Part of the "Eureka!" Moment:
  Indy: [after hearing the translated instruction to take back one kadam] You said their headpiece had markings on one side?
  Sallah: Yes.
  Indy: Belloq's staff is too long...
  Indy & Sallah: They're digging in the wrong place.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Before leaving America, Indy expresses his disbelief in the supernatural to Marcus, notable after the fact because he told his class a few hours ago to not ignore folklore surrounding dig sites, and he immediately writes off all mysticism and faith-based info surrounding the Ark. Doubled down on after the release of Temple of Doom, in which Indy witnesses relatively conclusive evidence of supernatural religious phenomena. Possibly Justified if he's just trying to pull some Obfuscating Stupidity and not wanting word to get out in academia that the famous archaeologist Indiana Jones 100% believes in the existence of the supernatural.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Marion Ravenwood treating Indiana's injuries on the ship. They start to get flirty, then Indiana falls asleep.
• Follow the Chaos: After he has seen Indy buried alive in the Well of Souls, Belloq looks around at the burning airfield and destroyed plane.
  Belloq: Jones!
• Forced Friendly Fire: Played with in the bar fight when Indiana Jones is wrestling for a gun with a mook. When a second mook gets the order to shoot them both, Indy and his adversary work together to fire off several shots at the second mook. They then immediately go back to fighting each other.
• Foreign Cuss Word:
  • Gobler yells "Ah, Scheisse!" when getting rammed off the road by Indy. The sergeant on the truck growls the same after losing his last guy.
  • And Belloq five minutes later uttering "putain!" when his driver restarts the car while he's still standing in it and throws him off balance.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When the film goes to all that effort to reveal so many deadly booby traps in the jungle temple and that they all still work, it's inevitable that they're going to get set off and additional unseen deadly traps will be released.
  • Indy tells the two men in the lecture hall scene that nobody really knows how long the Staff of Ra is. The Nazis think they find out thanks to Toht burning his hand on the medallion and later translating the inscription on that half of it, but, as the interpreter points out, they missed the other side of the medallion's inscription saying the staff should be shorter.
  • We don't really see outright supernatural stuff in the film, until the Ark is on the cargo ship, and the box containing it suddenly gets partly burned, blackening out the swastika, and just the swastika, showing exactly what God thinks of the Nazis and why not having respect for the Ark's power is a BAD idea.
  • The wind picks up when the interpreter reads the true height of the staff off of the headpiece of the staff of Ra. Later, the multiple lightning strikes across the sky when Indy and his men are uncovering the Well of Souls are heavy hints that God is less than pleased that the ark is being recovered.
  • The propeller from the plane comes into play twice before it slices the Giant Mook to pieces. First, before taking on the Giant Mook, Indy fights a regular-sized mechanic who attacks him with a wrench. The fight ends just after Indy wrestles the wrench into the path of the propeller, which cuts off the head of the wrench. The second time, Indy himself almost runs head-first right into the propeller during the middle of the fight with the Giant Mook.
  • Major Toht burns his hand horribly when he grabs the medallion out of the fire in Marion's bar. He really should have learned his lesson the first time, because the next time he touches a sacred artifact, the consequences for him are even more severe.
  • In the map room, the words "Nicht stören" or "Do not disturb" are painted on the (presumed) location of the Well of Souls and Ark. Whoever left that message should've taken that advice to heart.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • If you look carefully at the shot where the Germans are disembarking from the submarine you'll notice that Marion's guard has one arm in a sling and is covered in bandages.
  • When Belloq, Dietrich, and Gobler are at the dig site discussing their progress, Sallah walks right through the group, covering his face with the end of his keffiyeh scarf.
  • When Indy and Marion escape the Well of Souls, there's an Arab man sitting next to where they come out, apparently sleeping in the shade of the structure.
• Fresh Clue: In the Action Prologue Indiana is leading an archaeological expedition in the Peruvian jungle. They find a poison dart and one of the bearers, Satipo, tastes the tip and determines how close the local indigenous tribe is.
  Satipo: The Hovitos are near. [tastes the dart, then spits] The poison is still fresh. Three days. They're following us.
• Fruit Cart: Inevitably destroyed at the chase scene on the Cairo market.
• Frying Pan of Doom: When Indy and Marion are attacked in the marketplace, Marion grabs a large iron frying pan off a stall and knocks out one of the attackers with it.
• Gasoline Dousing: While in the underground Well of Souls where the Ark is hidden, Indiana Jones uses a water pump to spray gasoline over the snakes that cover the floor. He then throws a lit torch onto the snakes, setting them on fire.
• George Lucas Altered Version: There is a minor edit when Indy falls into the cobra pit, in the theatrical cut it was extremely obvious that there was a pane of glass between Harrison Ford and the snake. The DVD version removes the reflection.
• Get Out!: Said by Marion when she angrily throws Indy out of her tavern.
• Give Chase with Angry Natives: Belloq sent the Hovitos on Indiana Jones after taking from him the idol from the temple. Through a combination of holding the idol and speaking the native's language, he was able somehow to command them to go after Indy.
• Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: Subverted; Marion tries this on board the ship after leaving Egypt, but Indy falls asleep in mid-kiss. It's implied that he woke up later, though.
• Go-Go Enslavement: Belloq convinces his captive Marion to put on a fancy dress that he just happens to have with him.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Marion and Belloq having a drinking game while she is held hostage. Despite her obvious intentions of escaping, judging by their laughing, they are having fun in doing so, Belloq even laughing when Marion pulls a knife on him.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Nazi tampering with the Ark of the Covenant leads to infamously gruesome results.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: The movie is granted the suspension for toughness. The tough heroine Marion Ravenwood smokes during her meeting with Toht in her saloon, and blows smoke in his face and makes him cough.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The camera cuts away as the Giant Mook gets turned into red paste, only showing the splash of blood on a swastika. This is occasionally edited out of broadcast versions, but it's anyone's guess if they're editing out the blood or the swastika itself. The mook who is run over by Indy's truck gets a Scenery Censor, as well. During most of the film, though, the writers love creative ways of including gore.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Hitler never appears, but his Nazis' plot to find the Ark is all part of his plan for world domination. In the novelization, Belloq gets to meet Hitler for a short briefing before setting out to find the Ark for him. However this is described as Offscreen Villainy as it is just narrated through Belloq's memories of the meeting a few moments before.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: During the bar fight, Indy asks Marion for a bottle of whiskey, which he smashes on the mook holding him against the bar.
• Groin Attack: Indy tries it on the Giant Mook during the flying wing fight and fails. He tries it later on a Nazi officer in a U-Boat base and succeeds.
• Guns vs. Swords: In a famous scene, Indiana Jones is confronted by a formidable sword wielder. So Indy just shoots him. Allegedly a hasty rewrite. An epic Sword Fight was planned but Harrison Ford had a minor back injury when it was due to be filmed. Comedy and pragmatism took the day. Another version has Ford suffering from diarrhea that day. All the cast and crew got food poisoning at some point during filming in Tunisia, aside from Steven Spielberg who only ate canned food.
• A Handful for an Eye: During the flying wing fight, the Giant Mook knocks Indy to the ground and he scoops up an handful of sand which he throws in the mook's face.
• Hand Signals: While exploring the underground temple, Indy instructs his guide Satipo using hands isgnals when he sees that his back is covered with tarantulas. He signals to Satipo to "Come here" and "Turn around" so Indy can brush them off.
• He Knows Too Much: The reason the Nazis were obliterated by The Ark is because it destroys those who witness its power. Indy and Marion are spared only because they kept their eyes shut.
• Heroes Fight Barehanded: Subverted: After beating the asses of several opponents, Indy is sick of fighting. So when another opponent steps up with a sword and starts twirling it around, Indy just pulls a revolver on him.
• Hero Stole My Bike: Indy steals a horse from a tent in Tanis so he could catch up with the Nazis who are driving away with the Ark.
• High-Speed Hijack: Indy hijacks the truck carrying the Ark of the Covenant from horseback, then uses it to bust up the rest of the convoy.
• Historical Villain Upgrade:
  • The Nazis were nowhere near as interested in the occult as the film portrays. Hitler especially thought it was nonsense and insisted that National Socialism was rational and scientific, contrary to what the film claims about him. Individual Nazis who were occult fans like Heinrich Himmler and Alfred Rosenberg had zero interest in recovering Jewish artefacts like the Ark of the Covenant, but instead wanted to validate their Neo-Pagan Nordic beliefs as well as to fund expeditions to Tibet (partly due to their being interested in Asian mysticism). Even these expeditions were led by a rationalist scientist named Ernst Schaefer who was more interested in collecting animal and plant samples for study than in validating any of Himmler's pseudoscientific theories. That said, the Nazis were interested in any ancient religious artifacts that they could get their hands on, but purely for their propaganda value — as evidenced by the Holy Lance.
  • The film is set in 1936, before World War II broke out and when Germany was still insecure in its military, yet the Germans have a secret submarine base in Greece and can freely mount archaeological expeditions in British-controlled Egypt backed by plenty of soldiers who are openly wearing military uniforms and parading the Swastika. Had anything like the events of this film actually happened at this time, the British and likely the French would probably have declared war on Germany immediately.^note Notably, The Last Crusade would later address this sort of thing with a scene in which the Nazis are explicitly shown getting the Sultan of Hatay's permission to retrieve the Holy Grail from his country.
• Hollywood Density: The gold idol at the start of the film, which should weigh far too much to be toted around as easily as it is, let alone weigh about the same as a small bag of sand. When Indy looks at it, he actually removes sand from his bag to approximate its weight. A solid gold object of that size would weigh about 27 lb / 12 kg. However, it's never explicitly stated that the idol is indeed solid gold.
• Hollywood Natives: The Hovitos in the Chased by Angry Natives opening, complete with blowguns, spears and a nasty attitude.
• Hollywood Torches: Happens twice. Near the beginning, Indy's companion in the underground area carries a torch. Later, while Indy and Marion are in the Well of Souls they have a bunch of torches. A minor aversion occurs when Indy's and Marion's torches burn out.
• Holy Burns Evil: A Downplayed example. While the Ark of the Covenant is stored in a Nazi crate, it burns the swastika off the crate. The Ark does kill all the Nazis when they open it, but that's because Holy Is Not Safe. Indy and Marion would have died as well if they hadn't been smart enough to close their eyes first.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Indy shows the two government guys a picture of the Ark being used to crush Israel's enemies in battle. Later in the movie, the Germans and Belloq get a taste of it.
• Holy Is Not Safe: The Nazis succeed in their goal of smuggling the Ark out of Egypt, but its power turns out to be too great for them to harness. In the climax, all of the villains — Dietrich, Toht, Belloq, and all of their Mooks — are struck dead, melted alive or otherwise smitten by the Ark's power as soon as they open it.
• Hot for Teacher: Indy has to deal with this back at the university, and manages to take the high road.
• Hypocritical Humor: Toht dismissively accuses Americans of overdressing for the wrong situations... while wearing a three-piece black suit, complete with black leather overcoat and black hat... in the middle of the desert.
• If I Wanted You Dead...: This is actually more of a subversion, because the Hovitos do in fact know that they are there, it's just that they are following the advice of evil Adventurer Archaeologist René Belloq, and waiting for Dr. Jones to retrieve their sacred idol from the Death Course protecting it before ambushing him.
  Satipo: The Hovitos are near. The poison is still fresh, three days. They're following us.
  Barranca: If they knew we were here, they would've killed us already.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: After Marion is captured by the Nazis, Belloq is very affectionate with her and even gives her a beautiful dress to wear.
• I'm Melting!: Indiana Jones tells Marion to not look at Belloq, Dietrich, Toht and the Nazis open the Ark of the Covenant. Indy and Marion wisely keep their eyes closed, while the Nazis and Belloq suffer God's wrath. Those who look end up being killed gruesomely by the Ark, but Toht is the one whose death stands out, as his face literally melts off of his skull in liquid form. He is left gurgling on his own blood even after most of his skin has been graphically reduced to a fleshy puddle, implying that he's drowning in his own blood as his flesh liquefies.
• Improperly Placed Firearms:
  • The main weapon of the German soldiers is the MP 40, despite the movie taking place in 1936. The MP 40 was the MP 38 slightly redesigned to be cheaper to manufacture and a little safer to carry, and the two are visually nearly identical, but still falls 2 years too short (there was a little-known prototype version of the MP 38, the MP 36, which bore a superficial resemblance to the later weapon but it had a wooden body, a slightly tilted magazine housing and was produced in very small numbers). Of course, as the Germans were collecting paranormal technology, they obviously must have acquired a short duration time-machine.
  • Some German officers are armed with Walther P38 pistols, which would not be produced until 1938; only hammerless prototypes of the gun existed in '36, which probably wouldn't be in the hands of regular soldiers.
  • Something more jarring: Near the finale, Indiana Jones threatens the bad guys by aiming at them with a rocket launcher. Ignoring the fact that such weapons didn't even exist at the time (they only came about during the war as a more powerful upgrade from the anti-tank rifles used at the time), said weapon is actually a post-war RPG-2 with several cosmetic addons.
  • Another, smaller goof is that Indy is at one point seen with an Inglis Hi-Power, a Canadian variation of Browning's design that didn't begin production until 1944. Even having the original FN Hi-Power, like he does in the bar shootout,^note Indy was originally envisioned as having the Colt 1911 for at least this scene, but as above, since 9mm blanks were more reliable they went with the Hi-Power instead would have been a stretch, since it would have only been in production for a year at best at the time of the film. Moreover, the initial sales were almost all for military contracts and FN had an agreement with Colt at the time to not sell its guns in the United States. So Indy would've needed to meet up with an FN sales agent in Europe and special-order the pistol.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: During the shootout in her bar, Marion helps herself to some alcohol after a barrel gets shot through.
• Immune to Drugs:
  • Not drugs, per se, but Marion's ability to drink seasoned heavyweights under the table comes up twice. She doesn't even come across tipsy either time. This is especially impressive the first time, when her opponent passes out and it takes her more than one trip just to move all the shot glasses she used back to the bar.
  • Unfortunately for Marion, Belloq has the same superpower, at least where his family's eau-de-vie is concerned.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: "Adios, Satipo." Forrestal, a rival of Indy's bit it to the same trap years before, leaving his remains as a Peek-a-Boo Corpse. Indy's scout suffers the same fate.
• Improperly Placed Firearms:
  • Various soldiers and other armed militants are equipped with Walther P38 pistols or MP40 submachine guns, guns that did not exist in 1936. The MP40 was first produced in 1940 and the P38 was first produced in 1938.
  • Indy is at two separate points seen with variations of the Browning Hi-Power; the first time, in the bar shoot-out, is a bit of a stretch but still at least possible (the weapon had entered production the year before, though at the time every one of them was for military contracts, on top of FN reaching an agreement with Colt to not sell the pistol in the United States). The second time on the Bantu Wind is pure Anachronism Stew, however — he's using a Canadian variant, the Inglis Hi-Power (distinguished by a noticeable hump below the rear sight) that didn't enter production until 1944.
  • German soldiers use Mauser Karabiner 98k rifles, introduced in 1935, so it is conceivable they could be out of the country by 1936, but they would more likely carry the Mauser Gewehr 98 at that time.
  • Near the climax of the movie, Jones is seen holding a Soviet RPG-2 rocket launcher, which was not produced until 1949. Such shoulder-fired rocket launchers didn't even exist in 1936; they came about during the war to replace the older anti-tank rifles.
• Indy Escape: Trope Maker. Indy thinks he's successfully stolen a treasure from an ancient temple, only to be confronted with a giant rolling rock trap that he has to sprint from in order to avoid being crushed. It's easily the most-parodied scene of the entire film franchise, and the one most people think of when they think of Indiana Jones.
• Indy Ploy: Lampshaded. Indiana Jones is, of course, the Trope Namer.
  Indiana: Meet me at Omar's. Be ready for me. I'm going after that truck.
  Sallah: How?
  Indiana: I don't know, I'm making this up as I go!
• Infernal Retaliation: During the fight in the burning bar, a Sherpa gets his sleeve soaked in booze and then set aflame. He still takes a couple of swings at Indy before going down. This is done for effect but is a case of Accidentally-Correct Writing: alcohol burns from fumes, not liquid, and the coat he's wearing is quite thick.
• Instant Death Bullet: Used for comic effect when confronted by a swordsman all clad in black. Instead of being intimidated by his fancy swordplay, Indy just rolls his eyes and shoots him dead. Never bring a sword to a gunfight.
• In the Back: Indy escapes from the temple to find Satipo's friend hit with numerous darts to the back.
• Intimidation Demonstration: The famous scene where Indiana faces the Master Swordsman has the swordsman demonstrating just how skilled he is by throwing his scimitar from one hand to the other and then spinning it in his hands. Indy promptly puts an end to it by just shooting him.
• Island Base: An island in the Aegean Sea is the site of a secret Nazi U-Boat base.
• It's Personal with the Dragon: Oberst Hermann Dietrich is in charge of the quest for The Ark of the Covenant, but his advisor, Dr. René Belloq, is Indiana Jones' long-time nemesis. Indiana also sees Dietrich as just another Nazi among many, but Belloq as what Indy himself could have become with no moral scruples.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Belloq is absolutely right that Indy could have walked out with the idol at the start if he'd bothered to ingratiate himself with the natives. And also that in this case there is really nothing separating Indy from him. What actually makes them different comes up later, as Indy would never associate himself with Nazi Germany for profit and glory.
• Jump Scare: During the uncovering of the Well of Souls, lightning flashes to reveal the snarling face of an Anubis statue which startles Sallah.
• Jungles Sound Like Kookaburras: An Australian kookaburra sound can be heard in the Action Prologue when Indy is looking for treasure in the Amazon.
• Just Plane Wrong:
  • Indy flies out of San Francisco on a Short Solent 3, first flown in 1946, which makes stopovers at Honolulu (Hawaii), Wake Island, Manila (Philippines) and finally arriving at Nepal (possibly Kathmandu). All of these non-stop flight stretches (ranging from 2,300-3,000 miles) are way too long for the Short Solent's maximum range of approximately 1800 miles (the Solent was representing the Martin M-130 China Clipper, which crashed in 1945. Its range was 3,200 miles, for reference). And unless Indy caught a connecting flight in Manila, he couldn't have taken the Solent 3 to Kathmandu; the Solent, like the M-130, was a flying boat — it has no landing gear so it can't land on a conventional runway.
  • Indy and Marion travel from Nepal to Egypt on a Douglas DC-3. The DC-3 first flew on December 17, 1935, and the first ones were delivered in 1936. Most of the 300–400 DC-3s in service were flying for American, Eastern, United, and TWA airlines in 1936, and it would have been highly unlikely to find one flying between Nepal to Egypt then. It also makes stopovers at Karachi (Pakistan, which was part of British-controlled India in 1936), Baghdad (Iraq) and finally arriving in Cairo. With the exception of the Baghdad-Cairo stretch (about 800 miles), all of these flight stretches (which range from 1,200 to 1,500 miles) are way too long for the DC-3's maximum range of approximately 1,000 miles.
  • The Flying Wing was invented for the film and would never have flown — its design is completely wrong from an aerodynamic perspective. It's based on a combination of two prototypes, one German and the other American — the Horten Ho 229 (a jet-powered fighter-bomber developed for the Luftwaffe in the later stages of World War II, although they only got round to flying a glider prototype) and the propeller-driven Northrop YB-35 (which first flew in 1946).
• Karma Houdini: The evil eyepatch-wearing owner of the monkey vanishes from the film unscathed. The monkey isn't as lucky.
• Karmic Death: Delivered en masse to Belloq and the entire Nazi group that searched the Ark, who end up being wiped out by the very thing they wanted to use as a weapon of mass destruction. For additional karma, it was the Jewish deity that carried out this deed.
• Kick the Dog: Frustrated after losing the Ark to Indy, Colonel Dietrich throws an offered watermelon from a merchant at an off-screen dog.
• Kill It with Fire: Indy used this to clear out the snakes in the Well Of Souls by pouring gasoline all over them and lighting it.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Major Toht threatens Marion with a hot poker. Later, in the bar, he tries to grab the medallion in the fire and gets his hand burned, and much later, he suffers a painful death involving fire from God.
  • There is also the guide who abandoned Indy and ran off with the statue and is soon impaled by one of the traps in the temple.
• Lecture as Exposition: The Infodump when Jones meets the government men. It has become so iconic that George Lucas refers to it as "the pointer scene".
• Like a Son to Me: According to Marion Ravenwood, this is what her father Abner thought about Indy, "the most gifted bum [Abner] ever trained".
• Liquid Courage: During the shootout at Marion's inn, a barrel gets pierced by a bullet and loses liquor which Marion takes a sip from before jumping into action.
• Look Behind You: Indy does it to the Giant Mook mechanic he fights near the plane, then follows it up with a Groin Attack.
• Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: When Marion is dumped into the tomb, she manages to hold on to a statue but loses a shoe during the fall which lands amidst a heap of poisonous snakes.
• Lost in Transmission: There's a gold talisman that has instructions to find a temple. The antagonist tries to steal it from our main characters, but grabs the talisman while it is so hot that it burns his skin. The result is that he has a copy of the talisman, and its readable instructions, seared into his palm. It looks like the bad guys will find the temple first, searching where the man's scarred skin says to search. However, the main characters then learn that the talisman actually has instructions on both sides; the bad guys' gruesome "copy" only has one side.
  Indy & Salah: They're digging in the wrong place!
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: It happens twice in the movie — first with the idol in the Amazon and then with the Ark itself — that Indy runs all the risks to retrieve a valuable artifact, only for Belloq to be waiting at the entrance to take it off him.
  Belloq: Again, Dr. Jones, what was briefly yours is now mine.
• Made of Incendium: Marion's bar catches fire incredibly quickly. Granted, it appears to be mostly wood construction with quite a bit of cloth, but unless her patrons are extremely rowdy and make a habit of spilling whole bottles' worth of her very highest-proof spirits (most liquors are not flammable) absolutely everywhere to make the fire spread as quickly as it does, there's no reason the entire structure should have burned down other than Rule of Cool.
• Magic Countdown: During the opening scene in the dungeon, when the stone door is about to close down in front of Indy, time seems to stand still until Indy manages to sneak through under the door.
• Make Them Rot: In the scene where Toht's starts melting in an extremely gory way after the Nazis open the Ark of the Covenant, Dietrich's face starts rotting and deflating in a similarly gruesome, although not nearly as gory way.
• Man on Fire: Indy sets one of Toht's men on fire in the bar shoot-out. The guy runs around screaming for several seconds before Indy gives him a Boom, Headshot!.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": All the German characters and Belloq after the Ark is opened and the spirits turn on them.
• Match Cut: The Paramount logo in the beginning transitions into a mountain from South America.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: The Nazis finally get their hands on the Ark but Belloq wants to ensure it's real. The resulting ritual ends up killing him and his team.
• Men Can't Keep House: Indy's house is better than most but still disorganized and disheveled and when he and Marcus have a drink to celebrate Indy going after the Ark the glasses are mismatched.
• Mischief-Making Monkey: A cute, playful little monkey shows up around Sallah's home when Indy visits him, causing a bit of comical mischief as the two discuss their plan to find the ark. Little do they know, both the monkey and its owner are spying on them for the Nazis. The monkey even knows their salute!
• Misplaced Wildlife:
  • The monkey looks like another capuchin. At least the monkey is a pet, and not necessarily native.
  • The big, hairy spiders that climb all over Jones and his guide are Mexican red-kneed tarantulas, native to deserts and scrublands, not rainforests.
  • The boa constrictor that falls on Marion, even though constrictors aren't found in the arid regions of Egypt.
  • In the scene with the tomb full of snakes, one reptile that's visible is not only not Egyptian, but not a snake. It's a European glass lizard.
  • Indy is treated to the threat display of a beautiful... monocled cobra. Egypt does have its own species of cobra, but it has no hood markings.
• Mobstacle Course: Indy does this to chase Marion-in-a-basket.
• Moment Killer: Indy and Marion share a Big Damn Kiss during Indy's After-Action Patch-Up — and then Indy conks out from exhaustion.
  Marion: We never seem to get a break, do we?
• Money to Throw Away: Indiana throws a handful of change at panhandlers mobbing him.
• Monochrome Apparition: White specters appear when the Ark is opened. While they initially seem to be beautiful (and one of the bad guys calls them such), they quickly show a more eerie expression and proceed to kill all the people present except Indiana and Marion (because they close their eyes and the specters not only spare them but also burn the ropes that were keeping them tied).
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Indy and Sallah are jubilant when they realize that Belloq has incorrect information due to only having part of the information describing the staff of Ra, and thus the location in the map room. The mood suddenly chills when Sallah barely saves Indy from being poisoned seeing the dead monkey holding a half-eaten date.
  • When the spirits first come out of the ark, Belloq exclaims "It's beautiful!" Indeed, the spirits are rather serene... until they turn really angry. Cue harsh music, screaming, and faces melting.
• Mook–Face Turn: The Giant Mook Indy grapples with in Marion's bar gives a very startled "HUH?" when Toht orders for both him and Indy to be killed, and immediately helps Indy gun down his Nazi lieutenant. It doesn't last very long since they continue fighting once that's done.
• Mook Horror Show: God, in His righteous fury, slaughters all of the Nazis by piercing the soldiers with beams of light, then imploding Dietrich's head, melting Toht's skin off, and exploding Belloq's head, as punishment for arrogantly disrespecting the Ark, and for their plans to use it for their selfish needs.
• Mugged for Disguise: Zig-zagged. When Indy reaches the secret Nazi sub base, he quickly knocks out a guard and takes his uniform... which is so ill-fitting on him that he can't even button it. Worse, he's quickly set upon by a German sergeant... who seems to accept Indy as a fellow soldier and merely berates him for his shoddy uniform. But the sergeant is starting to ask questions... so Indy knocks him out as well and puts on his uniform, which fits perfectly.
• Native Guide: Downplayed, but Indy is accompanied by two shady local guides during the opening quest set in the Peruvian jungle.
• Near-Villain Victory: Indiana Jones arrives on the Nazi-controlled island and finds The Ark, but the Nazis capture him and hold him and Marion prisoner while they open it up. This turns out to be a bad idea on their part, due to God hating the Nazis and the fact that the Nazis look at the Ark when it is opened. The angels that come out of the Ark soon attack everyone except Indy and Marion (who kept their eyes closed). All the Nazis on the island are killed and Indy and Marion are freed, as when they reopen their eyes they find that their bonds are cut.
• Needle in a Stack of Needles:
  • Indy sees Marion getting carried off in a straw basket, and chases her into the square — which is crammed with people carrying identical baskets. He just goes for knocking them all open until he hears her shouting elsewhere.
  • At the end of the movie, the Ark is put in a nondescript wooden crate and hidden in a warehouse full of other identical, nondescript wooden crates.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Especially when the actor with the gun is sick and wants to get the scene over with. A Master Swordsman approaches Indy, elaborately showing off his skills with his scimitar. Indy doesn't entertain the idea of duelling the swordsman at all, and instead casually pulls out his pistol and shoots him dead. As the story of the film's production goes, there was to be an extended sword fight, but Harrison Ford (playing Indy) was sick with dysentery, and suggested that he just shoot the swordsman. They decided to go with it.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • An early trailer shows one of the booby traps protecting the Golden Idol, but makes it seem that this is in fact protecting the Ark itself.
  • The trailers and merchandise make Toht out to be the sole Big Bad of the film while Belloq rarely got mentioned. While he is part of the Big Bad Duumvirate with Belloq, the latter has had more of a presence as an antagonist.
• Newspaper-Thin Disguise: A Nazi agent played by Dennis Muren, one of the men behind Industrial Light & Magic, follows Indy on his flight from America, watching him from behind a copy of Life magazine. This unnamed character is sometimes mistaken for Major Toht.
• Nightmare Face: One of the spirits to emerge from the Ark puts on a skeletal, pissed-off Ghostly Gape while snarling directly at the camera. And let's not forget Toht's infamous melting face.
• No Body Left Behind: After the opening of the Ark kills Belloq, Toht, and Dietrich and the entire Nazi batallion gathered, the fires raging from the Ark sweeps up all the corpses, leaving no trace of them left behind when the dust settles.
• No MacGuffin, No Winner: Invoked when Indy threatens to blow up the Ark of the Covenant while Belloq and the Nazis are making off with it, to get them to release Marion. Belloq calls Indy's bluff (even pulling a gun on the Germans to prevent them from shooting Indy) and Indy hesitates, leading to him being captured. The Nazis get what's coming to them real soon afterwards, though.
  Dietrich: Dr. Jones. Surely you don't think you can escape from this island?
  Indy: That depends on how reasonable we're all willing to be. All I want is the girl.
  Dietrich: If we refuse?
  Indy: Then your Führer has no prize.
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Marion's captivity with Belloq.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Dr. René Belloq is an intelligent Manipulative Bastard who surrounds himself with his personal goons whenever he confronts Indiana Jones, but never attempts to actually fight him. However, without him, the Nazis would have gotten nowhere. Colonel Herman Dietrich, the leader of the Nazis searching for the Ark, also qualifies. Although Dietrich looks imposing, he never does any physical work apart from manhandling Marion, leaving his Nazis to do all the fighting.
• Nonviolent Initial Confrontation: Belloq telling Indy they're not so different in the Arab bar.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Discussed when Indy and Satipo enter the Golden Idol temple.
  Satipo: We must hurry. There is nothing to fear here.
  Indy: That's what scares me.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Belloq makes occasional references to sharing Jones' devotion to archaeology. He even deduces that Jones won't destroy the Ark because, just like Belloq himself, he can't resist knowing what's inside.
• Novelization: The film was novelised by Campbell Black. The book, which adds a few extra details (see above), actually came out before the film. More details here.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Several characters use the Nazis' racist nature against them:
  • Sallah is the smart and competent head of "the best digging crew in Egypt" but he acts like a bumbling buffoon several times around the Nazis, usually to keep them from finding out what Indy is up to, making the digger seem Beneath Notice.
  • Captain Katanga seems well aware that the Nazis will see a black man like him as being little more than a barbarian and pirate. He plays up the stereotype to protect Indy and Marion, claiming he killed the former so they won't search the ship for him and that he plans to sell Marion into sexual slavery in an attempt to keep the Nazis from taking her. The latter doesn't work but, he's got a great deal of nerve for being able to lie right to their faces and get away with it.
• Odd Name Out: This movie is the only entry in the main series not to begin "Indiana Jones and the...", although for consistency it does have these words appended to the beginning of the title on some home media covers.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Marion has one when she sees Toht approaching her with the red-hot poker from her bar's fire.
    Marion: You don't need that. Wait. I'll tell you everything.
    Toht: [grinning while bringing the poker towards her face] Yes. I know you will.
  • Indy's reaction when he sees the huge Nazi mechanic challenging him to a fight is more the style of This Is Gonna Suck. But at the end, Indy and the mechanic himself are definitely in Oh, Crap! mode just before the latter is sliced to ribbons by the propeller.
  • Indy and Marion during said fight when they see the spilled petrol spreading towards the fire in the distance.
• One-Hit Kill: When Indy is searching for Marion, the crowd parts to reveal a black swordsmen with scimitar showing off his skill ready to fight, but Indy casually pulls out his gun and blows him away... enshrining the scene in movie history.
• One-Woman Wail: The Ark's theme has it at certain points. When it shows up, really bad things start happening to people.
• Only the Worthy May Pass: Finding the Well of Souls, which hides the Ark of the Covenant, requires digging in an extremely specific spot. Finding said spot requires reading the words on a medallion which must be placed atop a staff carved to the exact measurements given by the inscription; the medallion will then focus the sun's rays on the correct location on a scale model of the desert which contains the Well. The instructions themselves are also tricky: while one side of the medallion tells seekers to make a staff "six kadam high," the other side informs them to "take back one kadam to honor the Hebrew God whose Ark this is," suggesting that only someone who respects divine power is worthy of uncovering the treasure.
• On Second Thought: When Marion gets thrown into the tomb with Indy, she first catches a statue, then when she falls from the statue he catches her in his arms before she hits the floor. She angrily throws herself out of his arms, but when she sees the swarm of snakes she decides that being off the floor was the better choice after all and climbs on top of Indy.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Jock's first line has something resembling an Aussie accent. His second line doesn't.
• Open Air Driver: The transport truck carrying the Ark has its windows broken when Indy is put through them. Indy returns the favor and puts the driver through the other window.
• Our Angels Are Different: They don't have wings or legs and are transparent like ghosts, but are otherwise fairly humanoid looking, until they put on their Game Face and utterly destroy you for defying God's will.
• Outside Ride:
  • Indy finds himself clambering all over a truck which he's trying to hijack, a process made difficult by the Nazi soldiers who are riding in the back. The Nazis then do it too.
  • There's also the submarine incident of questionable plausibility, in which Indy somehow rides a submarine across the Mediterranean.
• Pants-Positive Safety: As Indiana Jones says to Brody, "You know what a cautious guy I am," he tosses his unholstered revolver casually into his suitcase.
• Pedal-to-the-Metal Shot: A couple of shots of different characters stepping on the gas while driving the truck in the convoy Chase Scene.
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: There are a few of these throughout the movie.
  • The first one is when Indy triggers a spike trap, revealing the body of a Doomed Predecessor.
  • The second one is the body of Indy's treacherous guide who fell into the same trap.
  • The third one is in the Well of Souls when Marion explores the other chamber, only to discover that the room is filled with screaming rotting corpses.
• Perilous Power Source: In the climactic scene, Indiana and temporary love interest Marion are tied to a stake in the middle of things as the Nazis are about to open The Ark of the Covenant. Indy tells Marion not to look at whatever power or entity comes out — sound advice, as it turns out, as nasty things happen to the Nazis, including one guy getting his face melted off.
• Perpetual Storm: After an Egyptian pharaoh took the Ark of the Covenant to the city of Tanis, the city was destroyed by a sandstorm that lasted an entire year (note that this did not occur in Real Life).
• Perverted Sniffing: When the tramp steamer captain is trying to bluff the Nazis into thinking he killed Indiana Jones in order to get Marion, he takes a lock of her hair and sniffs it.
• Pillar of Light: During the climax, the ark shoots a fire beam into the night sky. What seems to be a wondrous sight ends up spelling demise for all the bad guys (and because Holy Is Not Safe, Indiana and Marion only survive because they close their eyes to avoid seeing it).
• Plank Gag: Marion smashing Indy in the face with the two-way mirror. The scream from Indy that follows makes it all the funnier.
• Playing Up the Stereotype: The black Captain Katanga attempts to save Marion from the Nazis by expressing his desire for her and the objective to sell her into sexual slavery, traits very much in line with what the Nazis would assume of him.
• Plummet Perspective: In the temple, when Satipo dangerously swings across an abyss, stones fall towards the camera shooting the scene from below.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: This happens with most of Indy and Belloq's interactions.
  Belloq: How odd that it should end this way for us after so many stimulating encounters. I almost regret it. Where shall I find a new adversary so close to my own level?
  Indy: Try the local sewer.
• Posthumous Character: Abner Ravenwood, Marion's father, Indy's field mentor, and the man who unearthed the headpiece to the Staff of Ra. He died in an avalanche, of which only Marion knows.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: When Marion kisses Sallah goodbye, he stands stunned for a few seconds, before smiling broadly and walking off set, boisterously singing, "A British tar is a soaring soul, as free as a mountain bird..."
• Pre-Violence Laughter: Marion gets Belloq drunk and they start laughing together — then she suddenly pulls a knife on him, her face turning deadly serious. Of course, since they're both completely drunk, they go right back to laughing. She doesn't actually stab him, simply wanting to escape his custody... but then Toht appears at the door.
• Psycho for Hire: Major Toht the Gestapo officer who's a Bad Boss to his mooks and is positively giddy about torturing people for information.
• Public Domain Artifact: The movie uses the Ark of the Covenant as the MacGuffin. It proves too dangerous to actually use, though, turning the whole film into a "Shaggy Dog" Story. You didn't think God was going to just let the Nazis use His ark to take over the world, did you?
• Punch Catch: During Indy's fight with the Giant Mook at the airstrip, Indy throws a punch but the big man catches it and throws his own punch.
• Punch-Clock Hero: Unlike the government officials who hire him, Indy primarily wants to recover the Ark for its historical value, and to prevent his rival Belloq from obtaining it, and doesn't seem to believe it has supernatural powers that could be weaponized by the Nazis.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Belloq similarly wants the Ark for his own reasons, believing it's a vehicle for communicating with God. Still, just like Jones, he's technically a Hired Gun.
• Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: Indy gets in the first punches in his fight with the giant German mechanic, but they have little effect. His first punch knocks Indy to the ground.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "Top. Men." It's used to make it clear that who the top men are won't be revealed — because, of course, there aren't any; as the end credits roll, we can clearly see that the Ark has been boxed up and stored in a huge warehouse.
• Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: Inverted, with Indy being the one holding a RPG launcher on the Nazi convoy aiming right at the Ark of the Covenant, and Belloq calling his bluff to blow up the Ark of the Covenant (with the Nazis present strongly objecting). He knows Indy well enough that a man of his archeological integrity cannot destroy something as priceless to history as the Ark.
• Reality Has No Subtitles: In the US releases this applies. Zigzagged in the Japanese Trilogy Box Laserdisc, where the German lines are subtitled, but other languages aren't.
  • Belloq speaks to the Hovitos in their native language, presumably telling them how great he is to have retrieved their holy object.
  • While Indy and Sallah are infiltrating the Nazi archaeological dig, German soldiers repeatedly speak in German to them. Mostly they are asking Sallah to get them some water.
  • While Indy, Sallah and the Egyptian workers are digging up and opening the Well of Souls, the workers sing a work song in Arabic and Sallah repeatedly speaks to the workers in Arabic to supplement Indy's instructions, all with no translation.
  • While Indy is trying to capture the Nazi Flying Wing, the huge guard calls out to him in German. He is daring Indy to fight him.
  • While Indy is trying to steal the truck carrying the Ark of the Covenant, the German officer gives orders to his men in the back of the truck in German.
  • During the U-boat's journey to the island, the Nazi sailors aboard talk to each other in German.
  • Once the U-boat arrives at the island, the soldiers in the port and a PA system speak in German.
  • After Indy sneaks into the secret Nazi island base, he performs a Mugged for Disguise on a Nazi soldier for the purpose of Dressing as the Enemy. Before he's completely dressed a Nazi officer discovers him and starts criticizing him (in untranslated German) because he's out of uniform.
  • During the ceremony where the Ark is opened, Belloq speaks ceremonial words in Aramaic (with mangled pronunciation).
• Reasoning with God: Belloq tells Indy that the Ark is a "transmitter" and a "radio for speaking to God"; presumably his intense desire to open it before it reaches Hitler is so he can have his own personal tete-a-tete with the Almighty. He never considered the fact that God might not be so interested in hearing what's on his mind ... though he probably did get his conversation with God in the end.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Indy and Belloq, respectively.
• Rejected by the Empathic Weapon: The Ark had already rejected the Nazis far in advance, when it burns the swastika off of the transportation crate its contained in, and later gruesomely kills and annihilates Belloq and the Nazis in the climax. At the same scene in the movie, the trope is averted with Indy and Marion, when Indy, in awed panic, realizes the true power of the Ark, and orders Marion to shut her eyes, of which he also does. They're the only ones to survive, and are even mysteriously freed (their binding ropes burned in one spot) when all is said and done.
• Retronym: Was originally released as just Raiders of the Lost Ark, but once Indiana Jones became an established series with a title scheme, this title was changed to match.
• Revealing Reflection: As Indy is driving the truck carrying the Lost Ark of the Covenant, he looks in his rear-view mirrors and sees German soldiers climbing along the outside of the truck toward the cab so they can attack him.
• Rival Turned Evil: Belloq. It is established early on that he is not just another competitor of Indy; he wants him dead. In their first onscreen interaction, he tries to have Indy killed by the Hovitos. He is willing to put aside his differences with the Nazis because they have a common enemy in Jones.
• Robbing the Dead: After Indy shoots the Cairo swordsman, one person is seen stealing his sword immediately afterwards.
• Rule of Scary: Satipo gets skewered by the temple spike trap from behind, making for a more striking visual when Indy finds his corpse. Realistically, if that same trap had killed him as he was running out, it would have pierced him through his right side.
• Ruthless Modern Pirates: The crew that are hired to transport Indy, his Doggone Partner and the Ark pretend to be these to try and prevent the two of them being captured by Nazis (claiming they killed Indy and planned to sell her into slavery). Interestingly it fails — most likely not because the Nazis were such good guys, but because the pirates have the wrong skin color.
• Sadly Mythtaken: The plot's driver is that The Ark of the Covenant is some sort of magical weapon, and would make its owner invincible. In fact, one instance in 1 Samuel where the Israelites tried to use it as a weapon merely caused the Ark to get very angry at their disrespect and let them lose the battle. Given the Ark simply wiped out the Nazis who opened it, though, perhaps the part of retaliating against its owners was indeed noted.
• Scared of What's Behind You: During the battle against the huge mechanic, Indy gets knocked to the ground and suddenly starts cowering instead of getting back up. Confused, the mechanic looks behind him, but is too late to notice the airplane propeller closing in on him...
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Intimidating Nazi Torture Technician Arnold Toht goes out screaming in unbridled terror at a very high-pitched feminine tone when the Ark is opened. At least, he does for half a minute before his face melts off and his screaming becomes gurgling.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The German plane mechanic knocked out by Indy during the tarmac brawl. After waking up to spilling oil around the plane, the injured technician immediately books it with plenty of time left to avoid the inevitable explosions.
• Sealed Room in the Middle of Nowhere: Belloq seals Indy and Marion in the snake-filled Well of Souls.
• Second-Face Smoke: Marion does this to Toht. Bad idea.
• Secret Government Warehouse: Seen at the end of the movie. Later on, in Crystal Skull, the warehouse is revealed to be Area 51.
• Selective Obliviousness: Oh boy does the pilot of the Flying Wing have it. He fails to notice Indy sneaking around his plane, doesn't hear the first mechanic first challenging Indy or the sounds of the two of them fighting, (a fight which includes the mechanic's wrench hitting the plane, the head of the wrench being cut off by the plane's propeller, and the mechanic being knocked out due in part to getting his head bounced off the plane) but the instant the second mechanic (the Giant Mook) calls out to Indy, the pilot whips around in surprise to see what's going on.
• Self-Plagiarism: The gag of a torture device that turns out to be a coat hanger was taken from a deleted scene from Spielberg's previous film, 1941.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Indy and the Nazis' fighting over the Ark of the Covenant is rendered moot when the wrath of God completely wipes the latter out once they finally open it, and then the Ark ends up 'buried' once again, this time hidden in a massive warehouse as a victim of indifferent government bureaucracy.
• Shoot Out the Lock: Indy shoots out the lock on the flying wing's cockpit so Marion can escape.
• Shout-Out:
  • At the scene where Indy and Sallah get the ark, you can see C-3PO and R2-D2 carved on a column behind Indy if you look hard enough.
  • The booby-trapped statue and boulder-chase scene are taken from the Scrooge McDuck comics-story "The Seven Cities of Cibola" by Carl Barks.
  • Sallah sings snippets of two songs from H.M.S. Pinafore, "I am the monarch of the sea" and "A British tar."
  • The plane waiting for Indy at the beginning of the film has a registration number. It's "OB-CPO", an obvious reference to Obi-Wan Kenobi and C-3PO from Star Wars.
  • The plane's starting-up sound is the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive sputtering-out sound.
  • The ending scene, showing the Ark being stored in a crate in a huge warehouse of identical crates, is an homage to the ending of Citizen Kane.
• Signature Headgear: Indy's hat provides the page illustration for Fedora of Asskicking.
• Slasher Smile: A rare heroic version of this occurs when Indy uncovers the Well of Souls, though it's intended to prove Belloq's comments about the two men's similarities.
• Snake Pit: A natural Snake Pit occurs when the heroes fall in a dried-up well full of various snakes.
• Soundtrack Lullaby: After retrieving the ark from the Nazis, Indy is getting an After Action Patch Up from Marion which leads to the two starting to get amorous, the orchestra building up the Love Theme before...it trails off with a celesta as Indy's exhaustion finally catches up with him.
• Spider Swarm: As Indy and Satipo are exploring the South American temple, Satipo's back becomes covered with tarantulas, which Indy brushes off. Tarantulas are usually solitary.
• Spikes of Doom: The spikes that impale people if they move into the light.
• Spotlight-Stealing Title: After the rename, the movie now has the iconic main character in the title as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• Stab the Salad: When Marion is about to escape from Belloq in the desert, she runs into Toht at the entrance to the tent. She cowers by Belloq while Toht enters with some Nazi guards in tow. He pulls out a black-and-silver bar-and-chain object from his trenchcoat, and shapes it into a triangle that looks like a torture device... Then he hands it off to a guard who hangs his coat on it, revealing that it was a simple coat hanger.
• Stalling the Sip: Indy picks up a poisoned date and has a lot "near misses" with attempting to eat it. Just as he tosses it in the air to catch in his mouth, he is saved when his friend Sallah catches it mid-air. Sallah had seen that the monkey that was also eating the dates was now lying dead on the floor.
  Sallah: Bad dates.
• Stock Footage: The footage of the airplane flying over Asia is taken from the 1973 version of Lost Horizon. The Establishing Shot of 1930s Washington, D.C. is from The Hindenburg.
• Stripped to the Bone: At the end of the movie, the Nazis open the Ark and have their skin and flesh blasted away, leaving the bones behind.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The first major sign that things are going wrong for Belloq, who knows only one man could be causing that much chaos even after Belloq sealed him in the Wells of Souls: "Jones!"
• Stupid Jetpack Hitler: A minor case, but that Flying Wing was definitely not in the arsenal of the Luftwaffe at any point in history. They did develope a similar-looking jet-powered prototype towards the end of the war, though.
• Styrofoam Rocks: A famous goof has Indy shove a loose cubical stone the size of a compact car hood out of a wall, and the shadow shows it bouncing several times as it hits the sand.
• Sundial Waypoint: The Staff of Ra must be placed in the Map Room at the right time of day in order for it to throw light upon the site of the Well of Souls. The villains have a staff of an incorrect length, so they are busy searching at the wrong place.
• Super Window Jump: After burning his hand on the headpiece of the Staff of Ra, Toht decides to cut his losses and escapes the burning bar by jumping through the nearest window.
• Surprisingly Creepy Moment: The film has several suspenseful scenes, and a few bloody deaths, but it's still pretty lighthearted up until the ark ghosts appear and massacre the Nazis complete with exploding heads and melting faces.
• Swallowed a Fly: Belloq in the last few minutes of the movie is clearly seen to have a fly crawling across his face and into his mouth.
• Sword Fight: The movie famously teases a swordfight when Indy is faced with a scimitar-wielding baddie, only for Jones to whip out his gun and shoot him. Hollywood lore has it that Harrison Ford had dysentery the day of the shoot and did not want to perform the scripted sword fight scene.
• Taken During the Ending: The titular Ark is sealed away in a government warehouse at the end of the film, among a myriad of other wooden crates. A brief glimpse of it appears during the opening scene of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
• Talk to the Fist: Right as the enemy swordsman is wrapping up his pre-fight flourish, Indy pulls a gun and just shoots him.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: One villain attempts to poison Indy with some substance poured on dates.
• Tap on the Head:
  • Marion Ravenwood.
    • She takes out a mook with a burning log to the back of the head during the bar fight in Nepal.
    • In Cairo she's pursued into a building by a mook and knocks him out (off camera) with a frying pan.
    • While Indy is fighting the Nazis around the flying wing, she KO's the pilot with the plane's wheel chocks.
  • Indiana Jones knocks out two Nazi guards with the "punch to the jaw" technique to steal their uniforms so he can perform Dressing as the Enemy. In the second of these, there are two clearly audible blows after Dr. Jones hauls the guard over the pile of boxes, so it's "Taps".
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine:
  • Toht nearly brands Marion with the red-hot iron. He ends up branding his own hand when grabbing the medallion while it was red-hot.
  • On the truck the German sergeant beats Indy senseless, throws him through the windshield, and tries to run him over. Indy returns and delivers the same treatment on the guy, and he's the one who gets run over.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Shortly after recovering the Ark from the Wells of Souls, Colonel Dietrich is seen drinking and offers Belloq a drink, toasting to "our success in the desert", not knowing that at that very moment Indy is in the middle of trying to spoil their success by hijacking the plane to be used to fly the Ark out. Belloq, for his part, refuses to tempt fate and says that he'll only drink to success "when we are very far from here." Sure enough, Belloq is more pissed than shocked when he finds out that Indy escaped and destroyed their plane.
  • Belloq jubilantly exclaims that the ark spirits are "beautiful". They quickly prove him dead-wrong, revealing themselves to be monstrous Angels of Death.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Usually plays when Indy does something awesome, such as the part where he swings to safety from the angry natives or where he successfully knocks down the statue in the Well of Souls.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: One of Indy's treacherous guides had his back completely riddled with poison darts from the Hovitos.
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Well, less "man will go insane from looking inside this artifact" and more "God will send His angels of death to murder the shit out of you and your entire army in extremely gruesome fashion if you look inside the artifact against His will."
• This Is Gonna Suck: Indy has this reaction when he turns and sees the Giant Mook who's challenging him to a fight at the airfield.
• This Way to Certain Death: In the opening sequence of the movie, Indiana and Satipo run across several desiccated corpses inside the ancient shrine. Most memorable of all, Indy's old rival, Forrestal.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Toht is the torture master. His name is probably a play on the German words "Tod" (death) or "tot" (dead).
• Throat-Slitting Gesture: Belloq uses the throat-slash gesture to tell the Hovitos to kill Indy.
• Thrown Down a Well: Belloq leaves Jones trapped inside the Well of Souls, the underground temple where the Ark was hidden. He taunts Indy thusly:
  Belloq: You're about to become a permanent addition to this archaeological find. Who knows? In a thousand years, even you may be worth something.
• Timmy in a Well: A rare villainous version. The eye-patched agent in Cairo has a pet monkey. The monkey sees an escaping Marion trying to hide in a basket, jumps on the basket and screeches, calling the German agents to capture her.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Satipo (Alfred Molina), Indy's South American traitorous guide at the beginning. He forgets about the trap Indy discovered minutes earlier and blunders right into it.
  • Throughout the movie, the Nazis make sure not to touch the Ark. Belloq even wears the correct high priest outfit and speaks a Hebrew prayer before they open it. Apparently they missed the passages these precautions come from that explicitly say that if you look into the Ark you will die. Then they forget the passages that say not to touch the Ark when they touch the Ark by removing the lid to open it. This is all on top of the fact that they apparently forget that they're trying to harness the power of an artifact owned by a God whose chosen people they're actively trying to wipe off the face of the earth.
• Toplessness from the Back: What the audience sees in Belloq's shaving mirror while Marion changes into the dress he brought her.
• Total Party Kill: Belloq, Dietrich, Toht and all the other Nazis (sans the two who ran away and Indy and Marion who close their eyes the whole time) are all vaporized and wiped out not long after the Ark is opened.
• Tribal Face Paint: The Hovitos Indians at the beginning of the movie.
• Turbine Blender: Indy fights a Giant Mook on and around a Nazi flying wing whose engines are running. Its wheels become un-chocked during the fight and it starts to rotate around. Indy dives for cover, Giant Mook looks behind himself, and cue Gory Discretion Shot.
• A Truce While We Gawk: Near the end of the movie, Indy and the truck driver cease hostilities for just long enough to steer away from a home construction site, and exchange a brief chuckle before resuming the fight.
• Underside Ride: During the truck chase, Indy gets thrown out of the windshield of his truck. He manages to grab onto the grille, but the driver attempts to crush him using the car ahead. To avoid this, Indy hangs on to the bottom of the truck, lets himself down to the back, and climbs back on.
• Understatement: Sallah's immortal line when he saves Indy from a poisoned date after seeing the monkey dead from eating them:
  Sallah: Bad dates.
• Vapor Trail:
  • Toht ignites a trail of spilled booze on the bar in an attempt to incinerate Indy. The flame burns its way along the entire length of the bar and Indy only just manages to get his head out of the way in time.
  • Happens by accident during the scene with the flying wing due to a series of minor mistakes. Marion unchocks the wheel of the flying wing to use the chocks as a weapon against a Mook, and the plane starts to turn in place and its wingtip punctures a fuel truck. Next, Marion uses the plane's machine gun turret to keep Nazi reinforcements at bay and stuff catches fire. The fuel pouring out of the truck eventually reaches the blaze, Indy rescues Marion and they run for cover, and then the whole airstrip explodes.
• Vine Swing: In the opening scene of the movie, Indy swings into a river toward his plane as he is Chased by Angry Natives.
• Watching the Reflection Undress: Marion steps behind a screen to change into the dress provided by Belloq but he (and the audience) just happens to have a shaving mirror positioned so that he can watch her change behind the screen.
• A Way Out of a Cave-In: Indy finds the hidden room in the Well of Souls by noticing that the snakes are coming into the main room from holes along one wall.
• We Have Reserves: During the Nepal bar brawl, Indy is struggling against one of Toht's burly mooks. Toht, however, tells one of his other mooks to "Shoot them. Shoot them both." This has the hilarious effect of making both Indy and the big mook stop fighting over a gun for a moment in order to shoot the other mook who is about to shoot both of them. After killing the other mook together Indy and the first mook go right back to fighting each other again.
• We Have Ways of Making You Talk: Even in the right accent:
  Marion: I'll tell you everything!
  Toht: Yes, I know you will. [raises the red hot poker closer to Marion's eyes]
• Weight and Switch: After dodging a floor full of pressure traps to get to the idol, Indy guesses that the idol itself might be on another one, so he swaps it for a bag he's filled with sand of approximately the same weight. After a moment when it seems to have worked, the pedestal holding the sandbag sinks and the entire temple starts to collapse.
• We Meet Again: Line said by Toht when he comes to "interview" Marion in the dig-site tent.
• Wham Shot:
  • Toht introduces himself to Belloq with a "Heil Hitler" salute, revealing the imprint of the medallion burned into his hand.
  • While the Ark sits inside a Nazi crate during transport, a lingering shot of the crate's exterior shows the swastika gracing it burn off with a blue flame. This is the first unambiguously supernatural occurrence in the film, and doubles as a foreshadowing of what the Nazis have in store when they decide to open the Ark.
  • After the feds have taken possession of the Ark against Indy's objections, it's sealed in a nondescript crate and wheeled into the ginormous warehouse among thousands upon thousands of identical nondescript crates.
• What a Drag: Indy is dragged under the truck. Of course, being Indy, he is barely scratched. For filming the scene, they dug a trench in the road and the driver had to be careful to keep it in the center of the truck and the stunt man had to be lucky. If you look closely, you can see the trench.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Trope Namer. The Well of Souls is completely crawling in a carpet of snakes.
  Indiana: Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?
  Sallah: Asps. Very dangerous. You go first.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: The soldiers on the truck would've stopped Indy easily by just shooting at him through the truck's paneling that separated them, instead of trying to climb along the exterior to get at him. But then the film would've been deprived of one of filmdom's most famous action scenes.
• Wilhelm Scream: Twice. First by the Nazi who falls out of the back of the truck and puts his head through Gobler's windshield, and again by a different Nazi when falling off the side of the speeding truck.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Indiana Jones has nothing to do with the defeat of the Nazis at the end of the movie. He and Marion just shut their eyes and the Nazis are destroyed by the sight of the power of God when they open the Ark. It is one of the most literal examples of Deus ex Machina since the middle ages, and a completely justified one.
• Worthless Treasure Twist: Once opened, The Ark of the Covenant seems to contain nothing but sand and to therefore be worthless to the Nazis seeking it for divine powers... until the wrath of God comes pouring out of it and utterly destroys the Nazis present.
• Worthy Opponent: Just before entering the temple at the beginning, Indy mentions a competitor, Forrestal, who died here. Unlike Belloq, Forrestal seemed to be a legitimate archeologist, and Indy's tone indicates he had a good deal of respect for him. When Indy finds Forrestal's body impaled on the spike trap, he identifies him in a hushed tone. The novelization states that Indy liked Forrestal, and was pained by the thought Forrestal was killed here.
• Wrench Whack: While Indy's going for the pilot's seat of a still-grounded airplane, an on-hand Nazi mechanic innocently questions the jacketed figure with a wrench. Then, when Indy kicks him in the face for his troubles, he gets up and starts swinging it.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: While translating the inscriptions on the headpiece of the Staff of Ra, the Imam initially says the staff should be "six kadam high", or "about seventy-two inches", as Indy notes. However, the Imam then says "And take back one kadam to honor the Hebrew God whose Ark this is". So, the staff has to be 5 kadam or about 60 inches (5 feet) long. Nevertheless, when Indy is seen using the staff, it's much taller than him (Harrison Ford is around 6 feet tall). If the Imam had said "add on" rather than "take back", this would make sense.
• The X of Y: Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: The moment near the end when the spirits reveal their true form to the Nazis who dared to look inside the Ark, they are all sent into fits of screaming before dying in grotesque and gruesome ways.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Why Dietrich has Toht throw Marion into the Well of Souls.
  Belloq: The girl was mine!
  Dietrich She's of no use to us. Only our mission for the Fuhrer matters.
• You Must Be Cold: Belloq covers Marion with his jacket when she stands freezing in her nightgown on the windy boat deck.
• Your Head A-Splode: Belloq, at the end of the film.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: A variation. Indy threatens to shoot the Ark of the Covenant with a panzerfaust if the Nazis don't release Marion. Belloq refuses, taunts Indy to blow it up, and points out how Indy can't do it because of the Ark's archaeological value. Indy thinks about it, realizes Belloq is right and gives up. To prove his point, Belloq even helps Indy by holding the German soldiers at gunpoint with a submachine gun when they try to shoot Indy or get in the way of Indy's line of fire.

---