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Steven Spielberg's third action-packed entry in the Indiana Jones trilogy evokes the cliffhanger Saturday matinee serials
of yesteryear. Its 1938 and Indy (Harrison Ford) receives word that his archaeologist dad, Professor Henry Jones (Sean Connery),
has disappeared while on a quest for the Holy Grail. Indy embarks on a search for both his dad and the much-coveted artifact.
THE LAST CRUSADE has a unique twist to the series traditional opening-sequence cliffhanger. Actor River Phoenix plays an adolescent
Indy who, while on a field trip with his Boy Scout troop, finds adventure on a circus train. Spielberg wanted to make the
film about a father-and-son relationship, and Connery was his first choice to play Indys dad. The selection was perfect, considering
Spielberg and producer George Lucas first came up with the idea of the series as a rival to the James Bond movies in which
Connery had starred. Before shooting THE LAST CRUSADE, Spielberg was planning on directing RAIN MAN with Dustin Hoffman and
Tom Cruise but gave up the project to fulfill his contractual obligation with Lucas to make a third Indiana Jones movie.
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