Stephen Mertz writes thrillers (sometimes
with a political tinge) as well as westerns. He tells me THE MOSES DECEPTION is
‘State of the Art Mertz,’ not a bad place to begin investigating his work.
Archaeologists
Adam Chase and Lara Newton, excavating in the mountains between Turkey and
Syria, discover an 11th Commandment to add to the 10 Moses brought
down from Mount Sinai. And then they're caught up in the bloody civil war
gripping the region.
All
of which made me think of Indiana Jones, of course, and CHARLTON HESTON (below) as Moses in the 1956 film ‘The 10 Commandments.’
I thought for this blog I’d have a brief look at Indiana
Jones (with the help of Wikipedia.) Here Charlton Heston features again, in a
different guise.
Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., 1930s
archaeologist and adventurer, is a character created by GEORGE LUCAS. He was portrayed by HARRISON FORD in four
movies directed by STEVEN SPIELBERG – ‘Raiders
of the Lost Ark’ (1981) ‘Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom,’ (1984) ‘Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade,’ (1989) and
‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the
Crystal Cave’ (2008.) A fifth film is scheduled to be released in mid-2021.
The young Jones has been portrayed by RIVER PHOENIX (in The
Last Crusade) and in the TV series ‘The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles’ by COREY CARRIER, SEAN PATRICK
FLANERY and GEORGE HALL.
Although Ford was Spielberg’s initial choice for
the role, Lucas and Spielberg auditioned many actors, and finally cast TOM
SELLECK. However, CBS refused to release Selleck from his contract to
his hit TV show ‘Magnum P.1.’ Subsequently
PETER COYOTE and TIM MATHESON auditioned. In the end it went back to Spielberg’s
original choice and Ford got the part less than three weeks before filming
began.
Indiana Jones has become one of cinema's most
famous characters. In 2003, the American Film Institute ranked him the
second greatest film hero of all time, second only to Atticus Finch, as
portrayed by GREGORY PECK in ‘To Kill a
Mockingbird’ (1962.)
The character was originally named Indiana Smith.
Spielberg disliked the name Smith, so Lucas casually suggested Jones as an
alternative. In ‘The Last
Crusade’ script Jones's father reveals his son's birth name was Henry,
and that he somehow acquired the nickname Indiana after a dog they had.
The character is
modelled on the action heroes of 1930s film serials and pulp
magazines both Lucas and Spielberg enjoyed in their childhoods. Spielberg was
interested in doing a fun adventure similar to ‘Dr. No,’ SEAN CONNERY’s first outing as James Bond. So it was
something of an in-joke when Connery appeared as Indiana’s father in The
Last Crusade.’
HARRISON FORD and SEAN CONNERY in 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’
Here Charlton Heston
re-appears. ‘Raiders’ costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis said the
inspiration for Indiana's costume was the outfit worn by the character
Harry Steele, played by Charlton Heston in the 1954 adventure movie ‘Secret
of the Incas.’ Throughout the film Steele looks very much like Jones, wearing a
brown leather jacket, fedora, tan pants, and carrying an over-the-shoulder bag
and revolver. He’s also a cynical American ex-patriot with a sarcastic sense of
humour in a far, exotic place.
Landis said, ‘We did watch this film together as
a crew several times, and I always thought it strange that the filmmakers did
not credit it later as the inspiration for the series.’ She added Raiders was ‘almost a
shot for shot’ remake of the Heston film, stating that Indiana Jones was ‘a
kinder, gentler Harry Steele.’
Other fictional inspirations for the Jones
character were Sir H. Rider Haggard’s safari guide/big game hunter Allan
Quatermain in the novel ‘King Solomon’s
Mines’ and Professor Challenger in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel ‘The Lost World.’
Real life archaeologists and adventurers that
helped inspire the character might include:
American scholar and archaeologist VENDYL JONES (below) who
led digs in Israel from the 1960s to the 1990s searching for the Holy Ark. (Not
too great a leap from ‘Vendy’ to ‘Indy’ Jones!)
Yale University professor, historian, US senator,
and explorer HIRAM BINGHAM the 3rd, who rediscovered – in 1911 - the
lost Inca city of Machu Picchu.
FREDERICK RUSSELL BURNHAM, the celebrated American
scout and British Army spy who heavily influenced Haggard's fictional Allan
Quatermain character and also became the inspiration for the Boy Scouts.
British archaeologist PERCY FAWCETT (below) who disappeared
in the Amazon jungle in 1925, after spending many years exploring the
region.
American archaeologist and adventurer WENDELL
PHILLIPS who led well-publicized expeditions in Africa and the Arabian
Peninsula in the 1940s and 1950s.
Although Indiana Jones made archaeology ‘cool’ the
archaeological fraternity gave a mixed response.
Archaeologist Anne Pyburn described the influence of
Indiana Jones as elitist and sexist. She argued the film series had caused new
discoveries in the field of archaeology to become oversimplified and over-hyped
in an attempt to gain public interest, negatively impacting archaeology
as a whole. Eric Powell, an editor with the magazine Archaeology, disagreed,
saying ‘O.K., fine, the movie romanticizes what we do’, and that ‘Indy may be a
horrible archaeologist, but he's a great diplomat for archaeology. I think we'll
see a spike in kids who want to become archaeologists.’
REVIEWS
for THE MOSES DECEPTION:
'A real page turner.'
‘Hooked
me in right from page one. A riveting, mysterious plot line.’
