I didn’t go see it until a couple of weeks after release.
All I knew was that Harrison Ford was in it, and I liked him in Star Wars. The year before he had been frozen in carbonite and taken by Boba Fett to be delivered to Jabba the Hutt.
And at 14, a lot of ch-ch-ch-changes were goin on around me.
I had just graduated from middle school, high school was a couple of months away. A couple of my closest friends were going to a different school.
One of those friends, Jeff, met up with me at the old Regency Theatre on Van Ness.
I miss that place as much as I miss the Coronet.
We bought our tickets and went inside. I think we bought popcorn and drinks.
There may have been a trailer or two.
And then the movie started.
I thought it was very cool how the Paramount logo faded into the opening shot of the mountain, a motif that was carried over into the other films in some way, shape, or form.
When Ford finally stepped into the camera, I noticed right away that this is what a scruffy lookin’ nerf herder really looked like, down to the unshaven 3-day beard.
The only scene I had seen prior to this, on TV, was the scene in the temple where Ford exchanges a bag (of sand, we found out while watching) for a gold idol. The way the scene was shot, along with the music, made me believe that this was the END of the film, and that gold idol was the ‘Ark’ from the title.
Imagine my confusion when that scene appeared so early in the movie. Right away I figured that this was not the ‘Ark’.
And then something clicked. And it wasn’t just the trap that Ford had sprung.
From that moment I was transfixed on this new character that Ford had become. He was dodging darts, leaping chasms, outrunning A FREAKING BOULDER, fleeing from angry natives, AND THEN…
Music is a funny thing.
You can hear a song from 20-30 years ago and you remember where you were and how you were feeling and who you were with, the first or second or 9th time you heard that song.
That works with movie soundtracks for me as well.
In 1977, the opening note from Star Wars seemed to rewrite my brain, and I can recall things much clearer after that moment than before it.
But hearing the Raiders March for the first time, as Indy swung on a vine, into the water, and swam to his friend’s plane?
That shit touched my fucking soul, something primal, and I have not been the same since.
For the rest of the movie I was enthralled and excited and entertained, watching this globe-trotting everyman outwit his enemies, and sometimes fail.
When the climax arrived, we could actually feel the theatre vibrating as the power of the Ark came to be, claiming the lives of those who dare defile the sacred chest. The fate of the three main villains at the end was pretty graphic for the time, and as much as I avoid gore, this wasn’t so bad to me.
And as early as that first viewing, I recognized the staircase of San Francisco’s City Hall at the end, standing in for some Washington D.C. building’s foyer.
Afterwards, Jeff and I talked about how amazing the film was. I may have even said that I liked it better than Star Wars, or at least Empire, because Ford’s character made it through to the end.
We walked from the theatre to downtown SF. I can’t recall if we grabbed some food or just went home after that.
This was one of the last times before high school that I had hung out with my friend Jeff. He and Mike, the other part of our ‘Awesome Trio’ from middle school, went to see the film later, and a bunch of us went to a small exhibit of props, models, and artwork from the film.
I don’t know how much of an impression the movie left on Jeff, but it definitely left a lasting impression on me.
I bought a bullwhip from the Johnson Smith catalog, and got pretty good with cracking it.
After my grandpa passed away in 1983, I took home his fedora, which I tried to reshape into Indy’s fedora, but the brim was too short.
I didn’t get a ‘Raiders’ jacket unti about 20 years after the film, and it was an authentic Wested Leather jacket from the same design Peter Botwright created for the film. He and I exchanged emails when I first bought my first Wested (I’m on my third). He passed away a couple of years ago.
10 years ago I went to see the 30th anniversary screening at the now defunct Retrodome in San Jose. I later saw it in IMAX for the 35th(?). And somewhere in between those I brought my nephew to see it, and sat through an Indy marathon.
4 years ago was the live music screening at the San Francisco Symphony, where the orchestra got out of sync with the film during the Desert Chase (!) and somehow I guessed right as to when intermission was going to happen (when they start digging for the Well of Souls).
I was starting to think that nothing was being done to mark the 40th anniversary*, due to COVID, but then Jen came home last Saturday, asking me if I knew that the movies was being shown that night.
I quickly went online and started to buy a ticket, and then Jen asked if I could bring Chloe with me, so I bought a second ticket.
The movie still had me mesmerized from the opening shot on the big screen. And the theatre vibrated, too.
I’ve lost count as to how many times I’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, though I think I’ve seen it on the big screen at least a dozen times (6 times in 1981).
Happy 40th Anniversary, RotLA!
* I suppose starting production on the fifth and final Indiana Jones film could be considered a tribute, along with the release of the films in a 4K blu-ray boxed set.