How food poisoning almost derailed ‘Indiana Jones’
It practically takes a minor miracle to get any blockbuster movie made. Throughout the editing process, directors are known to put their crew and themselves through the wringer to ensure everyone delivers the best they can behind the camera. Although Steven Spielberg had one of his greatest franchises on his hands when working on Indiana Jones, a nasty case of stomach issues almost derailed the entire project.
By the time production started, though, the hype was already through the roof for what the movie would be like. Since Spielberg had pioneered what would be known as the blockbuster, the idea of him working alongside Star Wars mastermind George Lucas to create the story of an archaeologist in search of treasure seemed wildly exciting.
While the idea may have seemed novel at the time, Spielberg claimed to get the idea from his childhood history of watching various movie serials. Looking to capture the same type of idea, Raiders of the Lost Ark became one of the biggest films of the early 1980s, giving Harrison Ford another famous as the fedora-clad archaeologist.
Since the storyline involved crisscrossing around the world, the crew felt it necessary to film in specific locations, going to Tunisia to film the scene where Jones tried to apprehend various goons that captured his girlfriend, Marion. After eating some of the local food, though, the entire cast and crew had massive food poisoning during the shoot, which led to the production grinding to a halt.
During one of the scenes, John Rhys-Davies’s Sallah was intended to get shot by one of the Nazi soldiers that are trying to capture Jones. While the shot would have drastically changed the movie, Rhys-Davies ended up coming down with diarrhoea during the shot, recalling, “I remember Steven saying, ‘John, could you get just down a bit lower to give them a better eyeline?’ And as I got down to give him a better outline, I filled my djellaba [an Arab tunic] in front of 200 people – and I didn’t care.”
Even though the food poisoning may have set production back for a few days, it did make for one of the most unintentionally hilarious scenes in the film. While trying to find the right basket with Marion inside, Jones comes across a sword fighter looking to have a duel with him, making for a stunning sword-fighting sequence.
Since Jones was already done with the day, he recommended that it be funnier if the swordsman showed off his tricks only for Indy to shoot him. While the shot may seem anticlimactic when watching it for the first time, it’s more indicative of what Jones would have probably done, not willing to suffer fools when he was looking for the love of his life.
Despite the scenes that were thrown away, many of the action sequences in the film feel like they should have been nerve-wracking trying to put them together, including a shot where Jones and Marion run away from an explosion from an abandoned plane. While no movie set is safe from a few production hiccups, Spielberg was able to quite literally turn shit into gold when things went awry.
