INDY III
JEFFREY BOAM
SECOND REVISION
FEBRUARY 23, 1988
Much like the final film, the second revision begins with Indiana Jones as a teenager on a Boy Scout field trip in Colorado, 1912. When he races home with the Cross of Coronado, his dad is on a long-distance phone call concerning an important document. Indy's mother, Margaret, shoos Indy away.
A new character, only referred to in the previous draft, is rich philanthropist Walter Chandler, who tells the adult Indy: "Find the man and you will find the Grail." In Venice, Brody and Indy are introduced to a large Italian family, in whose house Elsa and his father were staying. The family provides comic relief and gives Indy a clue that leads him to the library. Elsa is more of a central character and an ambivalent figure. Her personality is more developed, with her distinguishing characteristic being that she is always eating or snacking on something.
Henry Sr.'s diary is more central to the story—everyone is trying to get it because it's the key to finding the Grail. Indy, Brody, and Elsa go to a basilica, where the priest tells them the library used to be an old church. Indy and Elsa fall through a trapdoor. As they make their way through the catacombs, we learn something new about Indy's father:
INDY: Ha! He never would have made it past the rats! He hates rats! He's scared to death of 'em! (beat) I know. We had one in the basement once. Guess who had to go down there and kill it? And I was only six!
When Indy and Elsa travel to Austria, there is more talking in the car, as they discuss food. The Nazi Vogel makes his first appearance at the castle. Chandler is also now in the castle. Indy escapes with his dad, and, on the road, Henry explains why it's so important to obtain the Grail and his diary, and hence go to Germany instead of rescuing Brody right away:
HENRY: There is an evil loose upon the world, son. Perhaps the greatest evil mankind has ever faced. The only thing that matters is the Grail... and who gets to it first. (beat) I had a lot of time to think while they were holding me in that castle. And I realized that this is why my search has taken so long... because now - at this exact moment in history - is the time to release the Grail's radiance upon the world. Now is the time to shed its light of goodness and wisdom. Of compassion and charity. Now is the time to share its power of healing and immortality, (beat) But if the Grail falls into Nazi hands, its light will be extinguished for all time... and it will be the armies of the Fuhrer who live forever.
Once in Berlin, Indy crosses paths with the notorious Nazi filmmaker-propagandist Leni Riefenstahl, who is trying to shoot a documentary:
LENI: One step forward, please, Mein Fuhrer.
Hitler takes a step back.
LENI: (sighing) All right. That's fine. Everybody else... one step back as well.
They, instead, take one step forward. Leni wants to pull her hair out...
CREW MEMBER: (to Leni) The Fuhrer says, 'No double chin'!
Elsa is about to throw the Grail diary into the bonfire of forbidden texts, but Indy manages to switch books on her before she obliges Hitler and Riefenstahl's camera. Later, as father and son converse on the Zeppelin, Henry confesses that he slept with Elsa, too.
During Indy's fight with the Nazis in the desert, Chandler goes over the side of the cliff on the Nazi tank. He plunges to his death, but Indy—believed dead—has saved himself by cutting off part of his pants:
Indy carries the knife in one hand and his pants— which have been slit from the waist down-gather in a heap around his ankles...
HENRY: I would have missed you, Junior.
SALLAH: Junior?
Indy makes a face, tries to improvise a way of holding up his pants... Sallah laughs even louder-slapping Indy on the back-causing Indy's pants to drop around his ankles again.
Vogel is beheaded in the Grail trials. Then a big gun battle takes place as Kemal tries to blow everyone up so they can't retrieve the Grail; the fight is semi-comic as a trail of gunpowder is repeatedly lit and extinguished. Kemal and all his men are knocked out, with Sallah's help—but Elsa shoots Henry. After Indy locates the Grail room, it is Elsa who drinks from what she believes is the Grail cup—indeed, she is about to shoot Indy when she dies horribly. Henry and Indy cross over the seal with the Grail, provoking an earthquake. Henry almost falls to his death—but he lets the Grail go. The Grail Knight turns into a skeleton as they leave.