"I'm missing you already"

Rating: 10/10 (5 August 2007)

Sallah wasn't the only one who was saddened to say goodbye to Indiana Jones. At the end of this showing at the Garland Theatre, we all had to bid him a reluctant adieu. Anybody that hates snakes, Nazis and unscrupulous treasure hunters is a hero to be admired. This was the first film in the saga of Indiana Jones, and what a character he was and will be again, if the fourth film in the series makes it to the big screen next year. It would be hard to top this first one, although the third picture had some more character development than the others and Sean Connery nearly stole the flick from Ford in one of Connery's most memorable roles since playing James Bond. Let's hope he will appear in the next one in a flashback, since he was killed off in his last appearance. There's little I can add to the hundreds of user comments posted here already. But I will say that we can all thank MAGNUM P.I. for RAIDERS' success. Had Tom Selleck been able to leave MAGNUM and play the Indiana Jones role as Lucas and Spielberg apparently wanted, he, not Ford, would have been the face of the franchise. I can't see anyone but Harrison Ford playing Indy. Perhaps Selleck could have had the kind of career that Ford enjoyed after playing Indy, but I doubt it. Selleck never got such a plum role offered again and the casting decision of Ford for Selleck makes for a terrific what-if scenario had it gone the other way. It's probably my second favorite what-if Hollywood story. Number one on my list goes back to 1968 when a series called STAR TREK was cancelled because the NBC network thought it was too cerebral and too expensive to produce, so they put ROWAN AND MARTIN'S LAUGH-IN in the show's time slot. When STAR TREK was cancelled, it became the Cinderella that was rejected by the evil network, that became a hit in syndication and went on to spawn a series of successful movies and TV series as no other TV series has done before or since. If the fans had gotten their fill of STAR TREK after a few more seasons on the network, would it have gained the impetus to take off like it did with later movies and TV sequels? I think not. And neither would it be the same RAIDERS trilogy without Harrison Ford. Dale Roloff