Saturday Afternoon at the MoviesL a true Saturday type matinee

This is a scheduled post.  I may not be around if I have no internet.  Thankfully, I already had this post prepared, so all I had to do was go into my blog at my friend Scott's place and add this disclaimer.

My internet friends CJ and Kathy are part of this meme where you post your all time favorite films.   I'm not sure I have more than about FOUR favorite films, but I have films I have seen that I can share.  However, unlike CJ, who says the meme cites there is no need to explain why you like the film, I prefer the way my internet friend Birgit reviews films (often hilarious, occasionally irreverent).  Her synopses are not to be missed.

As I've explained the other times I've shared a film, one thing you should know about is my choice of films.  You won't find any "chick flicks" here and any romance is simply a side effect of the major overall film.  The film I have chosen this week is Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and according to Roger Ebert:

plays like an anthology of the best parts from all the Saturday matinee serials ever made.

It is also one of my favorite movies of all time, too.  It is the first in a series of Indiana Jones films, and the best, as far as I'm concerned.  I suspect most people have seen this film which came out in 1981.   It stars Harrison Ford as archaeologist Indiana Jones.  The idea that Jones battles a group of Nazis searching for the Ark of the Covenant is not lost on most of us.  Per Roger Ebert who gave it four stars:

The Saturday serial aspects of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" have been much commented on, and relished. But I haven't seen much discussion of the movie's other driving theme, Spielberg's feelings about the Nazis.

Further:

Spielberg is not trying here for human insights and emotional complexity; he finds those in other films, but in "Raiders" he wants to do two things: make a great entertainment, and stick it to the Nazis.

There are tons of anti-Nazi references, some subtle, some sly, some religious, some blatant, that weave their way into and through this film.

The opening Peruvian jungle sequence, which grabbed me from the very beginning, was filmed on the island of Kauai, one of the Hawaiian islands.  Later the island was used in Jurassic Park.  Again, per Roger Ebert:

As the movie opens, Indy brushes aside a web taller than a man, is assaulted by giant spiders, narrowly eludes a booby trap and then another, leaps across a bottomless pit, is nearly crushed by a lowering slab, is betrayed by his companion, leaps the pit again, is pursued by a gigantic boulder that rolls behind him, is surrounded by natives with spears and dart guns, leaps into a river, crawls into an airplane and finds a giant snake in the cockpit. "I hate snakes," he says.

The remainder of the film was shot in the UK, which is the reason the studio sets, including Marion’s Raven Bar, the Peruvian temple, and the Well of Souls were built at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire.

The cast included Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Denholm Elliott, Alfred Molina, John Rhys-Davies, George Harris, and Anthony Higgins.  It was written by George Lucas and Phillip Kaufman, and directed by Steven Spielberg.  It was 1981's top-grossing film and remains so to this day.

I have no idea where you can find it, but if you have a copy, or have access to it, be sure to see it again, because it's definitely one I could watch over and over (unlike the follow-up Indiana Jones films).  Thanks for joining me today as I look back on a great film worthy of being a Saturday at the Movies film!