At the end of Raiders when Eaton and Musgrove brief Indy and Brody about where the Ark's ended up there's a bespectacled random quiet man in the background just sitting on the edge of a desk.
I know he's probably just meant to be "security" or something but anyone any idea if that character's ever been given a name or cropped up in Indy literature later?
"In the storybook adaptation of the film, the bureaucrat, described as a high-ranking American official, has some dialogue, including handing over payment for Jones' services in retrieving the Ark.
Given the sensitive nature of the Ark of the Covenant, it is likely that the bureaucrat is part of US Army Intelligence or in a similar intelligence service."
"In the storybook adaptation of the film, the bureaucrat, described as a high-ranking American official, has some dialogue, including handing over payment for Jones' services in retrieving the Ark.
Given the sensitive nature of the Ark of the Covenant, it is likely that the bureaucrat is part of US Army Intelligence or in a similar intelligence service."
There's more to support this, Koosh, in the 3rd draft of the ROTLA script:
Indy, Brody, and Marion, looking very stylish, are seated
in Colonel Musgrove's huge office. Sun pours in a window,
through which Washington can be seen sparkling across the
Potomac. Everything is neat and clean and regular. In-
cluding the three men who are arrayed around the office.
Two we know--Col. Musgrove and Maj. Eaton. The third is
an unnamed Bureaucrat. He hangs back, smiling and genial,
his features obscured by the glare of the window. He doesn't
say anything, yet you have a sense that the others defer to
him in the matter at hand. He is the essence of all that
is Byzantine and inscrutable in our scrubbed government
machine.
...
BRODY
When can we have the Ark?
Eaton's glance flicks over to the mysterious Bureaucrat,
then back to Brody.
EATON
I thought we answered that. It's
someplace very safe--
That scene is a great precedent for the warehouse in Skull and the interrogation scene where they talk about OSS and CIA. It closes the saga where it begins 20 years before.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by http://indianajones.wikia.com/wiki/Bureaucrat
"In the storybook adaptation of the film, the bureaucrat, described as a high-ranking American official, has some dialogue, including handing over payment for Jones' services in retrieving the Ark.
Given the sensitive nature of the Ark of the Covenant, it is likely that the bureaucrat is part of US Army Intelligence or in a similar intelligence service."
Can anyone with the Storybook give us the skinny on his dialogue, the payment, etc.? As the 3rd draft description which Montana quoted says, he is government (and not army or otherwise). Maybe he works for the War or Treasury Departments? Into which branch would The Bureaucrat fit c.1936/37?
Here's a pic I posted when we (briefly) talked about him in this thread: minor characters rule!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wilhelm
That scene is a great precedent for the warehouse in Skull and the interrogation scene where they talk about OSS and CIA. It closes the saga where it begins 20 years before.
For me, it just raises more questions! Anyway, it's a great scene and one of the reasons why "Raiders" has the best ENDING in all of Indydom. It's a classic.
Can anyone with the Storybook give us the skinny on his dialogue, the payment, etc.? As the 3rd draft description which Montana quoted says, he is government (and not army or otherwise). Maybe he works for the War or Treasury Departments? Into which branch would The Bureaucrat fit c.1936/37?
I don't have the story book, andte WEG Raiders Sourcebooks offers nothing on the 'third man'. What it does say about Major Eaton and Colonel Musgrove is that they are
"...of fairly low importance on the Defense Department's list. A.I. [Army Intelligence] is more interested in breaking German codes, checking on the status of weapons' development, and pursuing 'more important' investigations than looking into Hitler's 'nutty' fascination with the occult. When Indy finds the Ark and brings it back to the U.S., part of the reason it is not investigated immediately is probably because of their recommendation. They both are 'skeptical' of any reports of 'mystical fires' and 'the wrath of God,' and they don't want to get branded 'nuts' by their own superirors."
Campbell Black's novelization offers little more on the mystery man in Musgrove's office:
"There was another man, a man who stood leaning against the wall and who hadn't uttered a word; he had the sinister anonymity of a bureaucrat. He might have been rubberstamped himself, Indy thought, Powerful Civil Servant in thick black letters on his brow.
"'We appreciate your service,' Musgrove said. 'And the cash reimbursement - we assume it was satisfactory?'"
So, the best I can offer at the moment is that the Bureaucrat is either their boss in their Army Intelligence bureau, or he is another 'suit' from higher up in the Defense Department. In the Sourcebook Eaton himself is described as a "bureaucrat", whilst Musgrove is a much more "practical" man. Together they from an Army Intelligence team specializing in following leads on Hitler's international activities.
Last edited by Montana Smith : 01-29-2010 at 12:50 AM.
He was probably an official who was planted at the meeting...or perhaps...he was a Nazi Spy !
Think about it, perhaps the Nazis placed an unassuming old man in Washington to find out where the Ark would be kept. Eaton then, seemed to know what he was doing with the whole 'TOP MEN' thing.
And so the Nazis lost the Ark of the Covenant forever.
In the first draft summary in the Complete Making Of book, he's Davona, and appears at Marshall College:
Quote:
Brody takes Jones to meet with Musgrove, Eaton, and Davona ... Calvin Stansbury debriefs them on the Ark ... at three o'clock the following morning a sleeping Indy is awakened by the government trio ... Jones tries to find out from Davona what's happened to the Ark, but leaves unsatisfied.
Stansbury's character was absorbed by Indy and Brody. The exposition gang went from six to four. The three G-man sound like frat boys at the 3:00 am raid...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Montana Smith
they don't want to get branded 'nuts' by their own superirors.
In the first draft summary in the Complete Making Of book, he's Davona, and appears at Marshall College:
Stansbury's character was absorbed by Indy and Brody. The exposition gang went from six to four. The three G-man sound like frat boys at the 3:00 am raid...
Indeed.
While some of the content of the first draft survived into the third, including the crushed hat and Shanghai, this didn't:
Quote:
Brody takes Jones to meet with Musgrove, Eaton, and Davona— the "important people" who have come to discuss Hitler and his occult obsessions—and they discuss the Spear of Destiny. Hitler is planning to annex Austria to get it.
Almost as though they were setting up a sequel? It could also have shifted the Raiders timeline from 1936 closer to 1938.
Yet, the flight from Shanghai to Nepal would have included the prequel's raft drop, and consequently changed current perceptions that Raiders' was the 'sensible' non-cartoon one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ROTLA First-Draft Summary
But the plane is ditched by its passengers and pilot, so Indy wraps himself in an inflatable life raft and jumps out, inflating the raft in midair and careering down snowy slopes and through a Sherpa village where a Shaman stands before the people.
Indy whizzes by on his raft. He waves once. The Shaman looks wearily... and decides not to mention it...
Anyway, it's a great scene and one of the reasons why "Raiders" has the best ENDING in all of Indydom. It's a classic.
!
