PART 1

Indiana Jones is in trouble...again!

Two swarthy swordsmen approach him, brandishing their blades like windmills, menacing ivory smiles agains copper skin. Indy tugs his battered fedora tightly onto his head. He as been known to forsake fair fight tactics when survival is concerned. this may one of those situations. With confidence, he reaches for salvation in his right hip holster and finds - nothing!

The action occurs on the set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the just released sequel to 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Harrison Ford reprises his role inthe new cinematic spectacle with more mile-a-minute thrills than a Buster Crabbe film festival.

As the assassins close in, Indy avoids becoming a human shish kebab by using his bull whip, disarming his assailants and tossing their weapons over a nearby cliff. His grin suggests it is slightly better than being dragged behind a Nazi supply truck.

The time is 1935, one year before Raiders took the archaeologist on his quest for the Los Ark of the Covenant. The plot, however, bears no relation to the original, except that another avalanche of peril is ahead for the familiar soldier of fortune who has one eye open for riches, and the other alert to ambush.

"Any story set after Raiders would be awfully close to WW2," explains British producer Robert Watts," and would have had to deal with the Nazi threat. We opted instead to explore fresh ground."

Temple's script, penned be husband and wife screen scribes Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, moves with the momentum of an express train, fueled by the vintage serial tradition that endeared Raiders to armchair thrill seekers wouldwide. Interestingly, scenes not filmed for the first movie have been integrated into the new feature, including the breathtaking opening sequence in Shanghai, featuring Indy diving from an airplane.

"Whenever I hear a story," director Steven Spielberg admits, "even if it's 'Once upon a time...'. I've got it directed upstairs. It's cheaper that way. I usually come out under budget in my imagination. Actually, both George Lucas and I love the audience more than our own indulgences. We want to give them a good time, to get the best possible rise from whoever pays to see our movies."

As one of the finest and most critically acclaimed filmmakers working today, Spielberg first encountered the spirit of Indiana Jones in May, 1977. "George and I were in Hawaii," he recalls. "I wanted a vacation, and George didn't want to be around when Star Wars opened. We were on the beach, and George asked me, 'Have you ever heard of the Lost Ark of the Covenant?' Like so many people, I said, 'Noah's Ark?' And he said, 'No,no,no,no,no! Not Noah's Ark. The Ark of the Covenant contains the Ten Commandments, which were brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses.'

"He knew that Hitler was superstitious and interested in astrology and the future - his future. George wanted to combine the Ark, Hitler and a type of Holy Grail treasure hunt set in 1936 involving an adventurer. And I'm a fan of the '30's, especially pulps like Amazing Stories and Republic serials. All the while, we're building the definitive sand castle out of dark lava sand - it was the size of a small bathroom. Anyway, George suckered me with a really great story, knowing I was unavailable for about two and a half years. He knew I couldn't do Raiders until, 1980, but I began to make time."

While the director completed Close Encounters and 1941, extensive work began on Raiders. Although Spielberg confesses that he never worked so hard in his life or compromised as much, he brought the film in on budget and 15 days under schedule. Since then, he directed the boxoffice smash E.T. and produced Poltergeist, Twilight Zone and Gremlins. He has had three years to develop the fate of Indiana Jones.

Conceived during a memorable four day brainstorming session with the writers, Temple began as a rough story outline presented by executive producer George Lucas. Though Spielberg generated many original ideas, he initially rejected his option to helm the sequel because of other commitments. "More than likely, I will not direct," he told Prevue, "but closely supervise it, almost as a co-producer, with George."

A first draft script was completed within six weeks. Lucas was enthusiastic about the result, but Spielberg's reaction was the payoff. "I can see it already!" he predicted - and agreed to direct the new adventure. After revisions, the screenplay was handed to Harrison Ford, who suggested adding more humor and character refinement in certain scenes to yield a third draft. The first film established a formula, but careful writing insured there were no plot similarities to Raiders beyond a series of diabolic traps hair-raising escapes and two-fisted heroics. Although both films begin in mid-adventure, their resemblance ends there.

"I enjoyed the first film," Huyck reveals, "because it wasn't camped up. It had humor and action, but didn't make fun of itself. Often, adventure character films - Doe Savage, for example - lapse into self-parody, which works against the concept. Being friends with George and Steven, and knowing they are geniuses, made scripting much easier. We could admit our likes and dislikes comfortably - and, believe me, we did! A similar situation occurred with Harrison. A good actor scrutinizes his part more than a writer, who is often too busy with story flows. Harrison made many fine suggestions: he wanted a rationale behind every scene!"

Complications, however, arose like wraiths from the Lost Ark in the creation of new characters, because Indy is the only repeated role from Raiders. The care taken in their development, has ultimately paid off. Temple introduces Willie Scott, a captivating nightclub entertainer who is Jones' romantic interest, played by Kate (A Little Sex) Capshaw. Twelve-year-old Ke Huy Quan portrays Short Round, a Chinese orphan who is as streetwise as he is diminutive.

Naming the protagonists was also about as simple as walking backwards up Khyber Pass, but innovation was the key. "All the main characters are named after dogs," Katz admits, "and I don't believe the actors liked it too much. 'Indiana' is George's malamute, 'Willie' is Steven's cocker spaniel and 'Short Round' is our sheltie." The latter name was also inspired by a role in Sam Fuller's 1951 film, The Steel Helmet.

The remaining cast includes Indian actor Amrish Puri as the evil High Priest Mola Ram of the Palace of Pankot, Roy Chao as Chinese gangster Lao Che, Philip (The Shining) Stone as the British Captain Blumburtt and Roshan (Ghandi) Seth as Prime Minister Chattar Lal. Both villains are named after 17th-century Indian painters.

"Temple has the smallest cast of any film I've worked on in recent years," producer Watts says. "But, it's been the most difficult too; because each role is so crucial to the whole. They had to be right on the nosed While casting problems rivaled the riddle of the Sphinx, Temple's plot features celluloid elements that have captivated audiences since the first stuntman bruised an elbow. Indiana Jones, the heroic cynic who lashes wit and whip with equal precision, is afforded more characterization this time around. The script reveals more compassion - and anger - as he is forced into a situation to save the lives of a group of Indian schoolchildren kidnapped by Mola Ram. The High Priest of the Maharajah's Palace has also stolen three mystical gemstones which renew life to a depressed Mayapor village. Indy's new quest climaxes at the Temple of Doom, a sinister underground lair featuring an array of torture devices - and real lava!

"Indy endures a lot of pain in the film," Katz reveals, "and that matures him. Steven had an emotional preconception, which he added constantly as the story progressed. He executes ideas in his head, and continuously revises the script. He also doodles the action on airplanes, in restaurants, even in the bathroom; then, his sketches are transformed by the artists into storyboards [drawings which detail composition and movement that function as blueprints for the filmmakers to follow]."

Mapping the action was difficult, sometimes even beyond the call of duty. "Screenwriters 'are often asked to cut particular scenes or simplify complex material," Huyck explains. "But, one time, Steven called us and asked, 'Can you rewrite this by tomorrow? We must cut a million dollars from the budget!"'

Regardless of numerous alterations, the scripting duo not only survived, but beat the script with seconds to spare. "I was pregnant during the whole affair," Katz says. "And the moment we finished the final draft, I went into labor. Trouble was, my great security blanket wasn't there - he was proof reading the script!"

The collaborative combo began its team-up at USC, where both were students at the same time as Lucas and Spielberg. Huyck met Katz at a screening of Roger Corman's Wild Angels. "I was wearing a mini-skirt," she reveals. "Willard was a pushover for my - aah! - intellectual qualities."

Their first cooperative effort was American Graflitl, the film with which Lucas gained national prominence. Huyck had just completed writing The Devil's Eight with John (Conan the Barbarian) Milius. "Gloria calls it Roger Corman's rip-off of The Dirty Dozen," he claims, "only he couldn't afford twelve actors!"

The pair has since completed more than 15 scripts, recently producing and directing their own screenplays, including Best Defense with Kate Capshaw and Dudley Moore. Indy whirls, lethal bull-whip cracking the dust-laden air, as he rehearses a scene before filming. Short Round, his chipper Chinese sidekick, grimaces, forgetting a line, and stamps his foot in self-deprecation. Suddenly, Ford's alter-ego vanishes, and it is the actor who confronts his young partner, this time cracking a remark to boost the boy's sore morale. As the crew readies the shot and a dry desert wind flicks sand in spiraling eddies, the spirits are buoyed by encouraging words from the man at his side.

As the cameras roll, Shorty blows his cue again. He turns to the director, and, like an old pro, says, "Keep rolling - let's go again!" He finishes the scene without a hitch.

Surprisingly, filling the role of the Oriental street urchin was one of the production's biggest headaches. Spielberg envisioned the orphan as an innocent adept in the art of survival. The concept of a kid sidekick (in the honorable tradition of Batman and Robin or Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy), combined with the director's remarkable ability to work with children, made the idea a natural. An Indian princess part - which was originally proposed to react with Indy - gave way to Shorty's obvious appeal. Immediately, an international search was launched to discover a Chinese cherub with a demonic delivery.

A multitude of screen tests in New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, London and Montreal neKed little more than enormous travel expenses. "We roamed the globe looking for this kid," Robert Wads laughs, "and, what happens? He turns up in our own back yards.

Ke Huy Quan was discovered in LA's Chinatown by Spielberg, and given an ad-lib test with Ford. Due to the boy's ethnic background, he had no preconceived notion about the proseedings, and treated the entire episode like a game.

"He wasn't intimidated by the fact that George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford were in the same room with him," Wads relates. "He'd never even seen a movie before." One of nine children raised by Vietnamese immigrants in the United States for the past five years, Quan dovetailed into the homeless vagabond rote as if he were born for the part. His natural ability to deliver a line gave the director the key to a believable performance. Rather than memorization, Spielberg opted for spontaneity; he reads Shorty's lines to Quan just before filming. The child actor then repeats them in appropriate pidgin English for the cameras.

He is equally fluent in Chinese, and converses with his mother, who accompanies him on the set; she speaks no English. The lad has also adapted a more elliptical tongue from the pervasive influence of the movie unit, which is manifested when he and Ford saunter across the rugged terrain to another shooting site. "Cut Print We're over here!" he yells.

Ford laughs, underscoring the camaraderie between Temple's two leading men. The actor has coached Quan, even given him personal lessons with the bull-whip - much like their cinematic counterparts. The boy's reverence is evident, yet he is not awed by the man who is Han Solo to millions of kids worldwide. His adventurous spirit has kept pace with Indy's daring exploits, and the two are together for most of the film.

As Quan and Spielberg discuss lines for an upcoming scene, the boy's expression indicates his concern with what he hears - and the director offers him a stick of chewing gum as compensation. It is not quite enough; the young actor asks, "But, what's my motivation?" Spielberg suddenly looks like he knows how Victor Frankenstein once felt.

As with Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., the child's role is prominent in Temple. Shooting schedules have been rearranged to comply with child labor laws, which mandate that Quan must have an on set tutor, and may only work three-and-a-half hours a day.

He is not, however, the only one keeping up with the Joneses. The next set-up features a sumptuous banquet in the Palace of Pankot, a background for the stormy love affair between Indy and Willie. The Shanghai songbird was perceived as a feisty, independent woman who becomes entangled in Indy's exploits by circumstances beyond her control, similar to Karen Allen's Marion Ravenwood character in Raiders. Willie Scow is plying her bar act one minute, and the next, finds herself paddling a boat downriver to save her neck. But, where Marion was adept at survival from personal experience, Willie is totally out of her element in the brutally physical and fast-moving environment in which her reckless companion thrives.

"Willie's strengths are unlike Marion's," Gloria Katz explains. "Yet, the two are alike in other respects, because Indy can only believably meet a certain type of woman." Spielberg wanted an unknown, natural, beautiful, self-assured actress with a strong comedic sense - and she had to be blonde.

"We needed a contrast between Marion and Willie," he says. "What's more unlike a brunette than a blonde?" The platinum look was also sought to convey the '30s Jean Harlow-Carole Lombard leading lady image. Filling the bill provided a problem exactly the opposite of the Oriental orphan - too many possibilitiesl More than 1,000 actresses, including East Coast soap opera stars and one Noxema girl, auditioned before Kate Capshaw arrived. After viewing her video-taped test, Spielberg knew he had found his girl.

Capshaw will be featured in three upcoming films besides Temple in 1984: Best Defense, Dreamscape and Windy City. Although her talent won her the much-coveted role, convincing the actress of the fact was like telling her the world is flat. "Steven called me," she explains, "and told me I got the part. Maybe I expected fireworks and bombs, but I just laughed. I thought he was kidding."

While the creative talent labored to pack Temple of Doom with more thrills, spills and chills than a runaway roller coaster, the production crew scouted shooting locations. The second unit sealed on China's southern coast city of Macao for a dramatic chase through crowded, narrow streets and shadowy back alleys. Doubles were used for the action, with their footage edited into studio close-ups of the principals, so the substitution is impossible to determine.

Temple's tropical scenes were shot first, necessitating the main unit set up for three weeks in Sri Lanka, the Pearl of the Orient. The location was chosen for its exquisite jungle foliage and picturesque terrain. Never the less, the 18-hour plane trip from London and unusual filming sites distressed the British crew and cast. one of the film's most spectacular scenes, for example, called for the erection of a swinging rope bridge across a large natural gorge. The problem was the gorge had yet to be located.

Robert Wads and veteran production designer Elliot (Dragonslayer) Scow scouted numerous sites throughoutthe island country, and even journeyed to India in search of the perfect spot. Some possible locations either proved inaccessible to the film crew, unavailable for government clearance or too expensive due to import tariffs. "To top it off," Watts declares, "the Himalayas were conveniently under several feet of snow when we needed a dry, desert atmosphere!"

Finally, a 250' deep chasm was discovered in Sri Lanka, but spanning it was a major operation. Literally at the end of their rope, they looked for a solution - and found Indy's phenomenal good luck was still with them. By sheer coincidence, an engineering team was encamped 400 yards up the ravine, buildng a dam across the river at the gorge's bottom.

The British government had mobilized the company, and the native population appeared in droves to aid in construction. The engineers, glad for the break, erected the 300' suspension as a diversion from their own task. "It was really a piece of dumb luck," Watts chuckles. "The locals outnumbered us ten to one, so with the added labor, it took only four weeks to bulld."

The filmmakers suddenly refocus their atention as an approaching Jeep is spoked on the dense jungle road. The morning's rumor has become a fact; George Lucas, the film's "guiding light," is visiting the production. Spielberg greets his friend, and they disappear into the director's trailer to discuss the film and some special fx sequences being created by Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic.

As they confer, the sky darkens along the horizon, a harbinger of the impending monsoon season, a situation worrying producers since shooting began. Local forecasts have called for heavy winds and tidal waves to buffet the coast while flooding occurs inland. A soupy fog shrouds the mountains, and a torrential downpour drenches the unit. Co-executive producer Frank Marshall comments to Spielberg that the cameras should be rolling to capture the violent storm on film.

"Nah," the bearded director says, "let ILM do it - their lightning is much better." While the main unit work proceeds, Spielberg commands the second unit to the Hantane Tea Estate for the crucial Mayapor village sequence. It lies in the midst of coconut groves and mining caverns - a steamy wilderness right out of H. Rider Haggard or Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tea fields surround the area; most of the world's supply grows on the island, and major companies such as Lipton have established local headquarters.

The village, circa 1935, was constructed by local workers. No existing hamlet was feasible due to the transformation which occurs during the film. Desolate when Indy arrives because the life-endowing gems have been swiped, it becomes a vigorous mecca when the jewels are returned.

Situated above the outpost of Kandy in the provincial hinterland, the plantation's location has caused problems in transporting building materials. To further complicate matters, it is nestled in a narrow valley between sheer cliffs; the only accessible road spirals up a mountain for 45 minutes before reaching the production site.

With construction completed, the village has sprung up in the middle of a tea field. However, it is no mere Hollywood-type set with propped-up building fronts. It has full wall-and-ceiling adobe buildings, erected in the same manner that natives construct their own homes. The bright, new result will be shot for scenes at the film's end; earlier footage requires setting,the town on fire.

"To achieve the proper look of devastation," associate producer Kathleen Kennedy explains, "we must torch the tea foliage on the hillsides, and parts of the village. After all, this isn't just a ghost town - it's a place without a soul!"

She has left little to chance as the scrub brush and healthy tea plants are set ablaze with handheld torches. Fire extinguishers and an emergency team are on stand-by alert in case of mishap.

The burning is handled with no problems; shooting is about to commence. The scene calls for a herd of bull elephants to cross the devastated terrain as Indiana, Willie and Shorty approach the village. Only one difficulty remains: the elephants have not arrived.

Instead, they provided a stampede of headaches. Since wild pachyderms could not be trained for filming, the crew had to look elsewhere for a solution to the jumbo problem. An elephant "orphanage" was located in Kandy, 40 miles from the shooting site. Three grown bulls and an infant were temporarily "adopted." Transportation for the animal actors was another maker.

"The elephants had to walk from one location to the next," Wads explains, "and their average speed is only six miles an hour." Besides costly delays in awaiting the beasts' arrival, production has been halted occasionally because of their innate sense of quitting time.

"They know when to stop," the exasperated producer groans, eyeing a bull idly showering water on itself in a nearby stream. "They have a time for work and a time to quit and lie in the sun. It's very difficult to convince an elephant to work when he knows he should be done for the day."

The mammoth animals are less than ideal in other respects, as Ford discovers after riding atop one of them for several hours. He gingerly drops off the beast's neck, and shambles to the closest shade tree, where he collapses.

"Elephants are difficult to ride," Wads comments, smiling as Ford attempts to ease his legs from the ordeal. "They have huge, broad shoulders that require tight straddling; it leaves one very sore."

Ford looks up - without the usual grin - at the understatement.

END OF PART 1