When Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand and Carrie Fisher pranked Harrison Ford
It seems like the mischief and zaniness of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom happened off-camera as well as on. During the filming of a climactic scene, in which Indy is to be whipped as punishment, director Steven Spielberg obviously felt the need to spice things up a bit. With leading man Harrison Ford turned away, Spielberg lets a few extra guests sneak onto the scene.
Shown on shockingly grainy footage, presumably the product of someone filming at a public screening, we see Barbra Streisand bounding up behind Ford in a dominatrix outfit, whip in hand. She proceeds to lash him, eliciting laughter from both the on-set crew and the public audience watching the footage.
Whilst her first feigned shouts of anger that accompany the whip are inaudible, with the second, we hear her jokingly make reference to The Guns of Navarone. Ford, who starred in the film’s sequel, starts to cotton on to the prank and gamely corrects her on the title. Laughing, Streisand lashes at him again, reprimanding him for “Force 10 from Navarone”, and then for “Hanover Street”, the joke being that both films were box-office flops.
She has at him once more, this time for “all the money you’re gonna make on Return of the Jedi“, referring to his work on the third film of the hugely popular Star Wars series, before Carrie Fisher of ‘Princess Leia’ fame comes to Ford’s rescue.
Throwing herself in between Ford and his superstar attacker, Carrie recreates the famous scene in Return of the Jedi where she and Ford’s character are reunited. She plants a kiss on his cheek, at which point the Empire Strikes Back director and frequent Lucas/Spielberg collaborator Irvin Kershner interrupts the whole thing, mockingly chastising Spielberg for his poor direction of the scene. Taking matters into his own hands, he then gives extensive directing notes to Streisand, Carrie and even Ford.
What would have been a fairly comical and wholesome little joke is unfortunately spoiled by Streisand who, right at the end, refers to herself with a homophobic slur, declaring that she “feels like a f——”. No doubt a lot more socially acceptable back in 1984 than it is today, seeing Streisand say it nonetheless leaves a sour taste in the mouth of the viewer, for what should have been a rare and joyous look at the off-screen antics of one of the biggest movies of the decade.
