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TheRaider.net Films Last Crusade Deleted Scenes
 
Deleted Scenes
Not all scenes made it to the final cut of the Last Crusade.
Here follows a list of 12 scenes that have been left out and why.
 
Donovan's Men Kidnap Indy
According to Jeffrey Boam's script Indy was taken to Donovan's apartment against his will. In this sequence Indy encounters Walter Donovan's henchmen, they pull a gun on him and Indy agrees to follow them because he doesn't want to endanger students with a fight on campus. Some more footage of Indy's coerced trip to Donovan's penthouse apartment is also shown. In the finished film the scene was cut considerably and an artful cut between the men approaching Indy and Indy standing in Donovan's apartment leads the story.
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Flight to Venice

Originally the film was to show more of Indy and Marcus on their flight to Venice. While studying his father's diary, Indy finds a charcoal rubbing of Donovan's grail tablet and sees the stained-glass window sketch above Roman numerals. This foreshadows the discovery of the secret passage in the Venice library and sets up Indy's interest in making a rubbing of the knight's shield. What remains of this footage was incorporated into the montage as the familiar red line traces Indy's route across the globe.

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Smacking the Camel

As Marcus and Sallah tried to run from the Nazis at the Iskenderun train station, there was originally two additional actions, one of Sallah slapping a camel and causing it to spit mucus all over the Nazis nearby and another of Sallah fighting the Nazis.

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Arriving at Brunwald

When Indy and Elsa arrived at the Brunwald castle to free Henry from the Nazis Indy presents himself as a Scottish lord by imitating a Scottish accent. The suspicious butler who opens the door acknowledges Indy's skim and answers by saying, "If you are a Scottish lord, then I am Jesse Owens." The reference to the black Olympic runner who defeated Nazi Germany at the Olympic games of 1936 was appropriate for the time and place, but might have gone over the heads of many viewers. Lucas and Spielberg changed the reference to the '30s Hollywood starlet Mae West, but decided again that modern movie audiences would miss the joke. So, they settled on Mickey Mouse, something everyone young and old can relate to, even though it wouldn't be the first thing to come to the mind of an elderly German butler from the '30s.

With his bluff called off Indy knocks the old butler unconscious, takes him on his back and starts looking for a place to hide the body while Elsa congratulates him for his accent. Finally, they hide the butler in a sarcophagus that once closed its lid features a face similar to the butler's face.
In the finished film, we see Indy knocking off the butler and from there we witness Indy and Elsa wandering in the castle with no interest in the butler's body.

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Hitler, Himmler and Elsa

Originally, the sequence in which Indy recovers the Grail diary and gets it signed by Hitler was longer. Before the book burning rally started, Hitler was seen marching with his lieutenants while a woman was filming the scene. Although her name was not mentioned the woman was assumed to be Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's official biographer. In spite of the fact that she was a Nazi sympathizer Spielberg and Lucas had great admiration for the woman who directed two wonderful documentaries, The Triumph of Will and the Festival of the Nations for the Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin.

Once Indy and Henry spot Elsa up at the high-ranking officials infested platform, viewers can see among them actor Ronald Lacey, who played Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark, as another German official named Himmler.

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Leaving the Book Burning Rally

This little scene takes place after Hitler autographs the grail diary in Berlin. Indy is stopped by a Nazi wearing a long black overcoat who reprimands him for intruding on the procession. Much like the scene in 'Raiders', Indy knocks the bossy superior officer out cold and steals his clothing. This brief comedic scene explains where Indy got the disguise he wears at the Berlin airport in the following scene. Possibly it was cut to avoid repeating the same joke too many times.

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Berlin Airport

More of Indy's unique brand of subterfuge was cut in the airport sequence. As Indy and father prepare to buy a ticket, Indy spots Vogel and other Nazis standing guard at the plane ticket lines. He rushes Henry back through the crowd to hide him, then goes to the only unguarded ticket line. This explains why they ended up using as unorthodox means of travel as a zeppelin. It seems like the scene where Indy tells dad he "got the first available flight out of Germany" was filmed as an efficient substitute for this longer cat-and-mouse sequence.

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The Flying Ace

Here we have a German World War I flying ace trying to impress fellow zeppelin passengers with his spectacular war stories. This scene would have probably cut back and forth between the flying ace and the conversation between Indy and Dad over on the other side of the passenger lounge. After Indy and Dad head down below to the biplane, everyone in the passenger lounge is alerted to the presence of "spies" onboard. The drunken flying ace jumps up to help in catching these spies, and with several others he heads down below to find that Indy and Dad have already left in the biplane.

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Fortunately for Indy's pursuers there is another plane attached to the bottom of the zeppelin. Without thinking, the flying ace hurriedly jumps into the plane's cockpit along with a young pilot that tagged along. In his drunken state, the flying ace forgets to start the plane's engine before detaching it from the zeppelin, therefore causing the plane to plummet to the ground. This scene also features the appearance of Indy veteran Pat Roach as the black dressed Gestapo agent who follows the Flying Ace to death.

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Iskenderun Train Station

This is a brief scene showing Indy and Henry getting off the train at Iskenderun to meeting Sallah. It would have answered the question of how they got to Iskenderun and meet with Sallah. Again, this is a simple transitional scene without a great deal of importance to the storyline.

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Kazim's Death

Kevork Malikyan spent hours with Spielberg staging his death. He was to collapse into Alison Doody's arms and slide down her body. After grabbing him, she pulls her hands back to find them covered with blood. The shot never managed to achieve the impact Spielberg wanted and he finally dropped it. The scene was actually a recreation of David Gelin's from Hitchock's remake of 'The Man Who Knew Too Much'.

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The Canyon of the Crescent Moon

This little scene explained how Indy and company track the Nazis to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon so quickly. After surviving the tank battle, they witness an explosion in the distance. The Nazis are blasting a wider entrance through the canyon. This scene was part of a larger cut story element, about the Grail Temple being hidden past a narrow chasm. This also explained how it could go undiscovered for so long. Since Henry has a copy of the map to the canyon in his diary, this transitional scene was considered unnecessary.

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The Word of God

The second challenge in the Grail Temple was first planned to have tarantulas hidden under each wrong letter. Indy is shown being menaced by a tarantula crawling up his body, after stepping on the "J." While in post-production Spielberg decided the scene didn't had the impact he was looking for and he came up with the chasm under the stone tablets.

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Sources

- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: A Marvel Movie Special - Numbers 1to4 - 1989
- And many of the same sources from the Making of the Last Crusade article.

 

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