Where do you go after Star Wars? After watching the trilogy a million times throughout my childhood and teens I did, eventually, get kind of bored.
But what were the alternatives? Sports? Eh… no. Read a book? Eh… occasionally. TV? Far too often. Battling the Empire predominantly involved being cooped up in the spaceship of your choice. What I needed was fresh air and adventure.
And adventure had a name. Indiana Jones!
Now the man himself is back in cinemas for one final adventure, and I for one couldn't be more delighted.
Indy united my brother, my dad and I in a way Star Wars didn’t. In a word: stunts.
To be honest, I can’t remember when I actually first saw Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Indy’s original adventure - it opened at the Adelphi cinema in Dublin the summer of '81; I was 10. In all likelihood, it was via a pirate video some time after.
But that wasn’t our family's first introduction to the adventures of Dr. Henry Jones Jr.
The Making Of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, recorded off the telly onto a Betamax tape was our first encounter. The tape proceeded to be worn out throughout 1981 and beyond. Lots of leppin’ and jumpin’ over the (parked) car bonnets of Cabra and the sand dunes of Portrane.
Interestingly, exposure to the secrets of filmmaking in this way didn’t ruin the magic of the movies for me. It had the opposite effect. It enhanced it.
One of the reasons Raiders director Steven Spielberg has always refused to do DVD or Bluray commentaries is this fear of breaking that magic spell.
But with our filmworker dad bringing home tales of film sets - and our own experiences as on-and-off child actors - we often imagined him crashing through sugar glass windows and getting dragged behind trucks... when the truth was his jobs as a stand-in were a lot less risky, for the most part. (He did do Rod 'The Birds' Taylor’s stunts on a film shoot in Dublin one time, but that’s another story).
Entertainment USA on the BBC with Jonathan King (remember him? Maybe best not to) was the go-to place to see the latest film trailers in the early 80s. Movies that wouldn’t be seen in Irish cinemas for as long as a year.
The preview for Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom burned a hole in my brain one night on that programme. A hole which would not be filled in until I finally saw it at the Adelphi an eternity later. I was 13 now, and responsible for my own move-going. So it was straight down to Abbey Street at 10am with my Mount Temple mates to queue for the first show at 1pm.
This early-bird action on our part would be a life-changing experience. For upon seeing us lining up in a group outside the picture house at that hour, an usher emerged and informed us that a film had just started in screen two - and do we want to go in and watch it? He didn’t have to ask twice. It was a press screening.
The movie? Police Academy. To be frank…there were breasts. On screen, just to be clear.
Still, the pièce de résistance was yet to come. When the movie was over and we emerged onto Abbey Street, the queue now stretched all the way to the back of beyond. But that kind usher, who unknowingly had given a bunch of teenage boys a time they would never forget, marched us right to the front despite the deadly glare of the gathered multitudes.
But what of the Temple Of Doom? It was great! And has only gotten better with time. For decades it was too often considered the lesser of Raiders. But it stands today as one of Spielberg’s best pictures, a real showcase for his incomparable skills as a filmmaker.
The summer of 1989 was in some felt like a sequel to the summer of 1984: Lethal Weapon 2, Gremlins 2, Ghostbusters 2, a sixth (count ‘em) Police Academy movie, plus an eighth Friday the 13th. Indy was back - again! And I was back at the Adelphi. Yep, first day.
This time it had to be the 6pm show, as I was now an 18 year old working man (manager of the Forbidden Planet comic shop on Dawson Street). I was with my still best mate to this day, Derek. Both of us, having watched the trailer on a loop for months, now anticipated greatness.
Chances are you’ve seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so you know we were not disappointed.
A rollicking, thrilling tale of a father and son racing across the world fighting Nazis, with no prize for second place, as Indy’s da, Sean Connery says (Connery once kicked my da in the face, in a professional capacity, I stress).
Speaking of prizes, dad had the good fortune to work with a fella of the type they don’t seem to need anymore behind the scenes: cast in concrete, complete with a fearlessness to match his ability to drive or ride anything mechanical or animal.
His name was Bronco McLoughlin.
You might recognise him as the man tied to a cross who goes over the Iguazu waterfalls in the opening of the Robert De Niro film, The Mission (a shot so spectacular it got Bronco on the poster). Knowing I was mad into Star Wars and Indy, Bronco gifted my dad a couple of call sheets (the daily notices put out during a movie shoot listing whose on set that day and what scenes are being shot) direct from Temple Of Doom, on which he’d been a stuntman.
As you can imagine, these remain prize items in my collection of sacred relics.
You can never go home again, they say. Or so Steven Spielberg thought. I have to admit, it was odd to hear him say in the publicity rounds for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, that he didn’t really want to make the film - or words to that effect.
Some have said it's reflected in the final movie (I disagree). Crystal Skull is often dismissed for the scene where Indy, as a character, jumped the so-called shark. In this case it was a fridge. He didn’t exactly jump it - but climbed inside to escape a nuclear explosion. For me, it remains one of the greatest moments in all his adventures.
This happened in 2008. I was 37. A huge explosion had happened in my own personal life. My kingdom for a fridge, I can tell you. Indy succeeded in bringing me some respite during a difficult time. A familiar, long lost friend who pops up out of the blue with a satchel full of memories.
And rides off into the sunset with the woman he’s always loved.
Life never pans out quite how you expect it to. It never follows the movie in your mind. There always seems one too many plot twists. And it’s a miracle that Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny even exists. But It does! I went to it the other night. And this time, I brought my dad. Harrison Ford brings Indy home.
When I was a boy I came for the stunts. Now, as a man (mostly), I came to see Dr. Henry Jones find some resolution in his life. The credits rolled, and my dad and I left the cinema, running for the Luas with big smiles. There was a ruckus of ne'er do wells. The film has to end sometime, but not tonight: Indiana Jones and the Luas of Doom had just kicked off.
For some, it’s music and sports, for me it has always been cinema which shines a light on memory and casts my life’s struggles and joys in amber. Like Richard Dreyfuss says in Stand By Me, you never really have friends again like the ones you have as a kid.
from the author's own collection
I’d like to dedicate these words to fellow Star Wars and Indy-head, Mark ‘Mero’ Meredith, late of London and Raheny in Dublin; a Mount Temple-ite of boisterous presence and big character, who, to my shame, I once abandoned in the queue to see Crocodile Dundee at the Savoy; he failed to pass himself off as16 and didn’t get in. I did, and went in anyway. Some friend I was. We made up. Or, I should say, he graciously forgave me.
Mero passed suddenly in 2020, I only recently discovered; his death slipping by me during those foggy Covid days. Fortune and glory, kid, Indy tells his sidekick Short Round; that’s what it’s all about.
But it’s the journey, Indy. And what an adventure it’s been.
Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny is in cinemas now.
