The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark

by Derek Taylor

Tells how Raiders was filmed and includes interviews with the actors, director, producers, stunt people, and technicians

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Adventure

183 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 12, 1981

About the author

Derek Taylor was an English journalist, writer and publicist. He is best known for his work as press officer for the Beatles and the Beach Boys.

Reviews

[Craig]

This is a very interesting account of how the film was made, full of little tidbits and minutiae and trivia that make re-watching the film after finishing the book a necessity to pick out some of the little flourishes and curlicues. Taylor incorporates information about the roles that everyone from the top to the bottom played in the production of the movie. It's not usual type of fare, but I found it enhanced my appreciation of the finished product quite a bit.

[Mark]

First published in 1981, paperback format with a batch (32 pages) of “spectacular behind-the-scenes photos”, this is a real old school making-of, the kind that’s almost as much a memoir as anything else. Derek Taylor writes well and he really is our guide, explaining the situation, the script as he sees it, the troubles with the locations and the pace of the film-making. He chats with various actors and they all seem lovely - Harrison Ford remembers him from the Monterey pop festival, Karen Allen goes for a walk, Ron Lacey befriends holidaymakers at the hotel where they’re staying - and the crew all come across well. Spielberg and Lucas are as unguarded in interview as I think I’ve ever read and Taylor devotes chapter interviews to Howard Kazanjian and Frank Marshall, Harrison Ford, Tom Smith (the make-up man), David Tomblin, Terry Leonard, Martin Grace and Wendy Leach (the stunt doubles), , Karen Allen, Roy Charman (the sound man), Kit West and Douglas Slocombe. He also interviews Richard Edlund at ILM but clearly doesn’t understand anything he’s told, though he faithfully reports it and it’s fascinating. A wonderful guide to the way film-making was (Kit West talks about creating black smoke cheaply by buying tyres “for pennies” and setting fire to them, different times for environmental concerns), this is a terrific read, a huge crew with one aim who seemed to get on very well together and, as we know, produced a fantastic film. This might not be to everyone’s tastes but, for me, it's streets ahead of those big glossy books featuring people sitting around computers or standing in front of green screens and I’d very much recommend it.

[Rich Hoffman]

This is another one of my personal treasures from my childhood. Not a single day goes by that I do not put my eyes upon its cover. Once or twice a week I open it up and run my fingers through its pages. It's the best book that came from one of the best films in the history of motion pictures.

[Benjamin McKenzie-Sutter]

“The whole human action could have been shot at Elstree with bits and pieces of desert blue-screened in by ILM at their leisure.
But if it did come to that, then moviemaking as we all have come to know and love it is over. No more deserts or mountains, or deep wicked jungles, no more raging rivers or cruel seas? Oh no! There will always be pointers and their helpers striving to bring their passions to our larger attention, so it probably won't come to that.”

- this passage resonated with me deeply, kinda puts the truly incredible art of filmmaking into a brand new perspective.