Movie fans are whipped into a frenzy over Indiana Jones

Movie fans are whipped into a frenzy over Indiana Jones
By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY
CARLSBAD, Calif. — By what standards does a movie achieve greatness?

Take David Lean's 1962 epic, Lawrence of Arabia. It features deft directing, stellar acting and breathtaking scenery. Great movie?

Well, no — at least not if the yardstick of magnificence is the sort of rabid cinema idolatry on display recently at Legoland California. When was the last time you saw someone dress the part of lanky Peter O'Toole done up as Lawrence?

For real devotion, you need to look down. Way down.

"Indy!" squeaks the pint-size toddler dressed from head to toe like Harrison Ford's adventuring alter ego, Indiana Jones. And that's about all he says, letting the gawking and gasping —Just look at that tiny hat! That impossibly cute whip! — speak for itself.

"He likes the mine-car chase scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," says the boy's father, Brandon McClintock, 32, a FedEx courier, one in a stream of self-described "Indyfans" from around Southern California who came to talk trivia, swap leads on gear and generally come out of their Indy-love closet.

"I've loved this series since I was a kid, and it's great to be able to share it with my son. I'm just glad my wife went along with the name."

Right, the name. McClintock named the tyke Harrison after his wife balked at Indiana.

By any hard-core standards of fandom, few movies can compete with the devotion summoned up by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones trilogy, which on May 22 adds a long-awaited fourth — and final? — chapter to its thrills-and-spills saga.

No stereotypes fit this gathering: The crowd included kids, parents, artists, military types and fashion models. Their lone bond was a guy with a five o'clock shadow and a lust for antiquities.

The Star Wars and Star Trek series are famous for their fans. But Indy devotees politely and proudly separate themselves from folks who prefer films set in an era of intergalactic travel.



"We're not like Trekkies, because for one, our movies are rooted in history, not a made-up universe," says illustrator Renee Rose-Perry, 27, whose eerie resemblance to actress Karen Allen — Indy's first love interest — is hammered home by her costume, a Middle Eastern number straight from the series debut, 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark. "Indy lives in a real world. My interest in biblical studies was sparked by those movies."

'Fanaticism like a virus'

Fellow die-hard Christopher Postigo, 11, is a dead ringer — Yankees baseball cap and all — for Short Round from Temple of Doom. "I just can't wait for the next movie," he says. "Without it, I think we'd start losing fans."

Not likely. Around the world, Indyfans gather virtually on sites such as IndyGear.com and TheRaider.net. The former offers discussions on matters such as The Fedora, while the latter is an all-things-Indy clearinghouse that prominently displays a clock counting down the seconds until the premiere of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And then there are those occasions that prompt face-to-face meetings, perhaps chief among them comic book and fantasy film powwows.

"Whether you're talking about Star Wars or Hellboy or Indiana Jones, there are franchises out there that generate fanaticism like a virus," says Lance Fensterman, manager of New York Comic Con, which runs April 18-20 (and is not affiliated with the longer-running Comic-Con International in San Diego).

"Of course, you have to start with a great movie. But beyond that, you have to look at the porous nature of the dialogue between the fans and the creators. People like Lucas encourage fans to express how they feel, and those exchanges increase the sense of ownership in a series."

The level of Indy fanaticism is embodied in Rob Browning. By day, he works for a large auto manufacturer, but he dedicates nighttime hours to a labor of love: a full-size model of the fictional archaeologist that will be clothed in gear made by the same companies that supplied the filmmakers.

"The real jackets and whips used in the movies can get $30,000 to $50,000 at auction, but generally a few hundred will buy you what you need," says Browning, 40, who quickly launches into other Indy trivia, including the fact that Ford wasn't Lucas' first choice for the role. ("He tried to get Peter Coyote and Tim Matheson. It'd be like seeing Back to the Future without Michael J. Fox.")

Fellow fan Michael Trotochaud, 32, is in the Coast Guard, where he doesn't exactly talk up his Indy love. "I've actually got a $400 hat, a 16 mm print of one of the movies that cost me $700, and then, of course, I've spent a whole lot of time cracking whips," he says with a smile.

Though she hasn't set a manicured nail on a whip to date, Joanie Dodds, 26, is just as enamored of the series, particularly the dark Doom installment.

"My girlfriends and I used to make up names for all the poor little kids enslaved in the mines," she says. "I guess what we loved then and love now is the fact that, in this age of special effects, there was just a simplicity to the drama. There were bats and snakes and falling bridges. And we always wondered what those actors were eating instead of real monkey brains."

Dodds can't wait for the new film. She has a thing for co-star Shia LaBeouf; blog rumor has it that his character could be Dr. Jones' son. "If you talk to him, please give him my number," she says. He might want it: Dodds' latest gig was as a competitor on Tyra Banks' show, America's Next Top Model.

'Indyfans': The movie

On hand to document this meeting of die-hard Indyfans was Brandon Kleyla, 24, also an avowed fan and an actor. (He starred as the young version of Ian McKellen's character in the 1998 film Gods and Monsters.)

Last summer, he decided to make a documentary about the felt-hatted faithful; Indyfans and the Quest for Fortune and Glory premieres later this month at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

"I started doing this just for fun, but I quickly found out that these movies have really gotten to people," Kleyla says. "I've talked to people who became archaeologists because of Indy, people who reunited with their fathers because of Indy and his dad in The Last Crusade. The character just moves people."

Kleyla's own induction into the Indy family began when he was 6 when he repeatedly took in an Indiana Jones attraction at Disney World in his native Florida.

"That set the hook. Then I just couldn't get enough of these movies. I mean, how cool. Indy gets to travel the word, do good, find treasure, all while getting the crap beaten out of him," says Kleyla, whose particular hobby is collecting Indiana Jones toys, most of which predate him

In fact, that ability to take a punch and feel it seems at the core of the character's appeal.

"There are two kinds of guys, James Bond guys and Indiana Jones guys," says Will Graves, 47, who tends bar in a nearby town. "Bond guys are meticulous and precise. But Indy guys are human. They may even bungle things, but in the end, they get the job done."

Graves, a barrel-chested man dressed in full Indy finery, interrupts a spirited a cappella rendition of the John Williams Indiana Jones theme to add that he wears his whip to work.

"I used to crack it to clear the bar at closing, but the manager got a little nervous," he says with a grin. "But I still use it to break up fights. Trust me, people take notice."

Fans get cracking

Just as they're doing right now as Pony Horton sends his $350, 6-foot kangaroo-hide bullwhip snaking through the air. The ensuing "crack" causes the crowd to ooh and ahh.

"A cracked whip is traveling at over 700 mph," says Horton, 49, doing his best to channel Ford's gravelly voice during the demonstration. "That's like having a personal sonic boom in your pocket."

When Indy first hit the screen, Horton immediately bought a cheap bullwhip — arguably the most iconic Indy prop after the brown fedora — and promptly stung himself on the head. In time, he mastered the mostly-lost art of bullwhip cracking.

"I mean, this practice is so obscure now that I thought, 'Hey, great, I can do something that most people can't,' " the actor says.

"Indiana Jones is all about appreciating the mystery of ancient cultures and arts. I don't know if the Ark (of the Covenant) is real, but I want to believe it is."

As for the next film, Horton says he'll be pitching a tent in the ticket line alongside the other faithful. "The last time I did that was (in 1980) for The Empire Strikes Back," he says, nostalgia twinkling in his eyes.

"It's been a long time coming."