Recently, thanks to a friend at university, I got hold of a 1989 CD known as The Story of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It's a CD-length audio drama that combines dialogue lines spoken in the movie with descriptive narration by John Rhys-Davies.
However, as the CD was assembled before Last Crusade's final cut was locked, it contains a staggering amount of alternate takes, different lines, and references to deleted scenes.
A list follows:
-Donovan's thugs have an extra dialogue line when they confront Indy at Barnett College, and the narrator tells us that they show Indy the guns under their coats.
-When Indy reads the Grail tablet in Donovan's apartment, he mentions that the entrance to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon is "broad enough only for one man". Much later, as Indy and his father are following Donovan to the Grail temple, they witness the Nazis blasting open the canyon entrance with explosives.
-When Donovan mentions Indy's father as a Grail scholar, he points out that Henry has "occupied the chair of Medieval Studies at Princeton for nearly two decades." It would seem Lucas had Henry Sr. pegged as a Princeton man long before he made Young Indy.
-There's a description of a deleted scene aboard Donovan's airplane, in which Indy discovers his father's reproduction of Donovan's Grail tablet, which he later produces in the Venetian catacombs.
-There are a couple of alternate lines when Indy enters the Venetian library, and again when his father laments the destruction of the (fake) Ming vase.
-When Indy tries to bluff his way into Castle Brunwald, the butler says "And if you are a Scottish lord, then I am Mae West."
-As Indy and Henry board the Zeppelin, they notice two biplanes, not one, hanging from its belly. Once on board, Indy notices a Gestapo agent (who was played by Pat Roach but cut from the film). He ducks into a crew compartment, and when the Nazi follows him inside, he knocks him out. Indy stuffs the body into a locker, then notices a radio nearby. Indy breaks the radio wires before rejoining his father. When Indy and Henry get into the biplane, it's mentioned again that their biplane is only one of two.
(The reason for the extra biplane is mentioned on TheRaider.net's main site, but I'll describe it for those who don't know: in a deleted scene after Indy and Henry have escaped, Pat Roach wakes up and realizes the Joneses have made off with a biplane. The Gestapo man recruits a WWI flying ace from the passenger lounge to fly the second biplane in pursuit, but the ace is so drunk that he forgets to start the biplane engine before takeoff, sending them plummeting to earth.)
-We hear that Sallah meets Indy and Henry at the Iskenderun train station, and get a line of dialogue from that cut scene.
I have audio clips from the passages in question, if anyone would like me to upload them.
I forgot one deleted scene! When Indy and Elsa are trapped in the burning catacombs, the CD's narrator describes how they swim through a broken wall into an adjoining storm drain, before reaching the manhole and gaining the surface.
Location: Montreal, Canada (livin' in Switzerland for 2010)
Posts: 3,775
ATMachine, I can't thank you enough for posting these!!! You've unearthed a treasure!
Great to finally hear the Mae West line. I still can't believe the wealth of extra stuff!!!
("The Story of the Empire Strikes Back LP has alternate/extra dialogue but nothing
compared to this.)
I'm nuts for deleted scenes so, once again...Thank you, thank you , thank you!
Hearing the original version of the vase bit all but confirms for me what I already suspected, that the cross-purposes dialogue in that bit was nearly all Tom Stoppard.
I should do this once I have the book with me again, but any recollection on their conversation in the zeppelin, in terms of differences?
Actually, since the audio drama had to be shortened to fit on one CD, the conversation is very short; there's no mention of Elsa, only the three trials. But in the novel (which was pre-Stoppard) the Elsa conversation is exactly the same save a few extra lines, as is the talk about the trials. (Most notably, Indy asks what exactly Elsa said in her sleep, and Henry replies "Mein Fuhrer.")
This is really brilliant, ATMachine! If you wanted to upload the whole thing that would be fine. I love Davies' narration. How long is the disc? Maybe if it's short enough they'll rerelease the the others on one compilation...
Quote:
The Story of Last Crusade; Dialog from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack; 12 pages photo book [5008-70656-4]
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom/Dc238 Cassette [Hotho & Co, 1984, 9997017935]
This is a sealed copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark:The Movie on Cassette which contains the most important parts of the films dialoge and music without narration. Also included is a 24 page booklet with some of the best pictures from the film you'll find anywhere and a nice, gatefold cover with the international Drew Struzan poster art of the front. There are also 4 scenes on this album which are audio outtakes, different from those in the finished film. By CBS Records, 1981.
