About Sallah.

Matt deMille said:

Since this seems to have such interest, my own opinion is that, while they signed contracts for additional films, at the time nobody anticipated making a sequel, so Sallah was expendable. I think it came down to a "Now what do we do with him?" moment, and many ideas were thrown out there. I think his execution being carried out was just one of many things that were probably scripted but then decided against.

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This seems plausible. I poked around a bit in the Raiders story conference transcripts to see whether they ever indicated what would happen to the "digger," as he is called there, but didn't find anything.

I suppose what's really striking is the mere existence of the idea for the scene in the first place, especially with the outcome that we are accustomed to hearing about for it. It's such an unusual break from the action that, from all reports, would have been quite serious and affecting. This character of the German soldier who couldn't follow through on the execution, and played by a German tourist who just <I>happened</I> to be there? There's an audacity to it that I really respect, and would be very interested to see where and how it would have fit into the film.

Hmmm, I always thought about it kind of the opposite, that killing Sallah would eliminate the need to re-introduce a character later when the action was ramping up, which goes against the American screenwriting way. Maybe that's why I believed those pages to be legit out of hand. Of course, that doesn't allow them to have Sallah get them passage later, but maybe they were thinking of changing that too (Maybe one person -- Marion -- was thought to be enough?) and they either never used or never got around to writing the later-changed scene.

Having changed Sallah from Danny DeVito to John Rhys-Davies shows they were really flexible about the character, i.e. that he wasn't critical, so I could see them killing him off, or at least considering the idea.

After all, what was the purpose of "almost having him executed", and then having the Nazi have a change of heart? There's nowhere in the film we're even invited to consider sympathy for the Nazis. It's a serial. The villains are supposed to just be pure mule-mean. No redemption what-so-ever. Maybe the scene of the Nazi having morals was deemed too out of place with the rest of the film's tone, so they decided to have him be pure Nazi like everyone else so as not to emotionally confuse things, but then someone decided it was unnecessary altogether.

Attila the Professor said:

For once, the man was willing to actually explicate what he remembered, which is more than I can say for his methodology most of the time. I think it's either a mistaken memory or what Lonsome outlines below.

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More like fabricating this ****'n'bull story to cover his initial, erroneous statements. deMille is attempting to create a rumour rather than just admit to being wrong.

First deMille wrote that hoax/fan-scripts are "difficult to tell these days" but after being probed, stated the exact opposite in that he's able to spot them "quite easily".

Matt deMille said:

Maybe it was a hoax or fan-script I read (difficult to tell these days).

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Matt deMille said:

I recall it being done in proper script form, and I've read enough of them to be able to spot fakes or fan-fictions quite easily.

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It makes no sense that killing off Sallah would have even been considered since the scene at the Bantu Wind dock was already filmed 2 months before and the ship was only hired out for a limited time. It would have meant an entire re-take of the dock scene. (Not to mention the bit at Tanis where Sallah tells Indy about Ark being loading onto a truck would also have to be modified.)

Sure, re-writes while filming are common but Willie in the snake pool is a poor example to compare with because it was never intended that she'd die there.

Matt deMille said:

Maybe the scene of the Nazi having morals was deemed too out of place with the rest of the film's tone, so they decided to have him be pure Nazi like everyone else so as not to emotionally confuse things, but then someone decided it was unnecessary altogether.

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It was left out because Spielberg apparently felt it was too long. This was already explained to you more than once.

Matt deMille said:

After all, what was the purpose of "almost having him executed", and then having the Nazi have a change of heart? There's nowhere in the film we're even invited to consider sympathy for the Nazis. It's a serial. The villains are supposed to just be pure mule-mean. No redemption what-so-ever. Maybe the scene of the Nazi having morals was deemed too out of place with the rest of the film's tone, so they decided to have him be pure Nazi like everyone else so as not to emotionally confuse things, but then someone decided it was unnecessary altogether.

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Actually, Raiders is only something that emulates a classic serial, while in reality slightly subverting just about everything we know about them. It's the exact reason why the film is hailed as a classic of modern cinema instead of something utterly forgettable.

Even the main villain is about as multifaceted as one can get - at least I certainly can't see Belloq as simply a "mule-mean" stooge, no matter what angle I take. The rest of the film's rogues' gallery are hardly cardboard copies of each other either. In my opinion it fits perfectly to the film's tone to show even a standard stooge having a hint of humanity.

Well, I meant the Nazis, not Belloq. Toht, Dietrich, etc. These guys had no redeeming qualities, nor did any of the soldiers. The most we ever saw was them get angrier when their own were killed. The rest of the time they were punching bags for Indy (or visa-versa). Even Pat Roach, he seemed delighted to fight, rather than show any sympathy for his fellow German getting the crap kicked out of him. He even waited for his fellow soldier to go down before challenging Indy.

Amidst all these rather remorseless guys, the executioner finding morals, I imagine, would seem really out of place, maybe even suggesting wrong things to the audience.

Belloq is definitely a deep character. Apologies for the ambiguity on that.

Matt deMille said:

Well, I meant the Nazis, not Belloq. Toht, Dietrich, etc. These guys had no redeeming qualities, nor did any of the soldiers. The most we ever saw was them get angrier when their own were killed. The rest of the time they were punching bags for Indy (or visa-versa). Even Pat Roach, he seemed delighted to fight, rather than show any sympathy for his fellow German getting the crap kicked out of him. He even waited for his fellow soldier to go down before challenging Indy.

Amidst all these rather remorseless guys, the executioner finding morals, I imagine, would seem really out of place, maybe even suggesting wrong things to the audience.

Belloq is definitely a deep character. Apologies for the ambiguity on that.

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The would-be executioner finding morals, which was intended by the script, would have been totally in place. Especialliy since Lucas and Spielberg chose to outfit Dietrich and his men as ordinary soldiers, and not political troops. The role of the Nazis was fulfilled outwardly by Toht (with the Gold Party pin) and the plain-clothes Gestapo.

Since Dietrich was not an SS officer (as Vogel was), there is an added dimension to ROTLA. These are ordinary soliders (who may or may not be politically motivated), who are obeying orders and ultimately pay the price for their obedience. Omitting the soldier with the conscience took a layer of depth out of the film, and lessens the impact of 'Indy the murderer', regardless of his motives.

I wasn't aware there were any, Attila?

DiscoLad said:

I wasn't aware there were any, Attila?

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Hmm? Any what?


Anyhow, not to be constantly echoing Montana (or Finn, for that matter), but let me throw in my support for the view that the portrait of villainy that the film offers us is a rather full one with many different motivations on offer for why the people in question do what they do. Heck, even at the climax of the film, we get the three starkly different reactions to the contents of the Ark of Belloq, Dietrich, and Toht. Toht is a sadist, Dietrich is a company man who doesn't like getting his hands dirty, Belloq is a treacherous believer using his temporary allies, the German mechanic loves a fight, the tough sergeant is a dependable doer of his duty...why not have someone who can't follow through on the job and kill an innocent? It fits in.

Cliques. Attila.

Why do I like saying that name.

DiscoLad said:

Cliques. Attila.

Why do I like saying that name.

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Oh, that. No, there aren't, despite claims to the contrary.

And, yeah, the name's got a ring to it. Fun to type, too, what with the constant need to remember whether it's got a double "t" or a double "l".

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Attila the Professor said:

Oh, that. No, there aren't, despite claims to the contrary.

And, yeah, the name's got a ring to it. Fun to type, too, what with the constant need to remember whether it's got a double "t" or a double "l".

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

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I have to keep checking the spelling...

But yes back to talking...

Not so much the attempt...but you knew that Stoo.

Some info about Sallah's death can be found in the bonus DVD of ROTLA.

Good thing is that the making of is uploaded on Youtube... it starts at the exact beginning of part 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1vacF353TQ&feature=related

Scene starts at 00:40!

As already said, Sallah had a violent diarrhea in his djellaba in front of all the cast and the crew.

A lot of the cast members turned sick during the shooting in tunisia due to the local food, and only Spielberg stayed healthy... by eating only can food imported from UK during all the shooting.

I don't know if they had spare djellabas or not, but I think it's probably the reason why they didn't kept the scene... I'm not sure that they shot it, finally.