Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 American action adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Jeffrey Boam, based on a story by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes.

After the criticism that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) received, Spielberg chose to make a more lighthearted film for the next installment, as well as bringing back several elements from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Beneath the library where Henry was last seen, Indy and Elsa discover a catacomb containing an inscribed shield which reveals that the path to the Grail begins in Alexandretta.

Malikyan had impressed Spielberg with his performance in Midnight Express (1978) and would have auditioned for the role of Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark had a traffic jam not delayed his meeting with the director.

Eddison was a stage and television veteran only appearing in a few films since the 1930s (including a supporting role in Peter Ustinov's 1948 comedy Vice Versa).

Wrestler and stuntman Pat Roach, who played three roles in the previous two films, made a short cameo as the Nazi who accompanies Vogel to the Zeppelin.

[16] After the mixed critical and public reaction to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg decided to complete the trilogy to fulfill his promise to Lucas, with the intent to invoke the film with the spirit and tone of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[17] Temple of Doom writers Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz chose not to return due to both having other commitments and feeling satisfied with their work in the second film.

[15] Lucas initially suggested making the film "a haunted mansion movie", for which Romancing the Stone writer Diane Thomas wrote a script.

Other characters include a cannibalistic African tribe; Nazi Sergeant Gutterbuhg, who has a mechanical arm; Betsy, a stowaway student who is suicidally in love with Indiana; and a pirate leader named Kezure (described as a Toshiro Mifune-type), who dies eating a peach because he is not pure of heart.

[5] Location scouting commenced in Africa but Spielberg and Lucas abandoned Monkey King because of its negative depiction of African natives,[19] and because the script was too unrealistic.

[21] Spielberg, Marshall and Kennedy interrupted the shoot to make a plea to the Parliament of the United Kingdom to support the economically "depressed" British studios.

[23] The following day, filming in England wrapped at the Royal Masonic School in Rickmansworth, which doubled for Indiana's college (as it had in Raiders of the Lost Ark).

The closing shot of Indiana, Henry, Sallah and Brody riding into the sunset was filmed in Amarillo, Texas in early 1989 by the second unit, directed by Frank Marshall.

[28] Gibbs built the tank over the framework of a 28-short-ton (25 t) excavator and added 7-short-ton (6.4 t) tracks that were driven by two automatic hydraulic pumps, each connected to a Range Rover V8 engine.

When Spielberg decided he wanted it to move, the prop was sent to John Carl Buechler in Los Angeles, who resculpted it over three days to blink, snarl, snort and wiggle its ears.

The Nazi costumes were genuine and were found in Eastern Europe by Powell's co-designer Joanna Johnston, to whom he gave research pictures and drawings for reference.

Gibbs used two Swiss Pilatus P-2 air force training planes standing in as pursuing Luftwaffe Arado Ar 96s for the Zeppelin biplane escape sequence.

[citation needed] Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) built an 8-foot (2.4 m) foam model of the Zeppelin to complement shots of Ford and Connery climbing into the Gotha Go 145C biplane.

Ford and Connery were filmed against bluescreen; the sequence required their car to have a dirty windscreen, but to make the integration easier this was removed and later composited into the shot.

Inflatable pads were applied to Julian Glover's forehead and cheeks by Nick Dudman that made his eyes seem to recede during the character's initial decomposition, as well as a mechanical wig that grew his hair.

[29] Burtt wanted an echoing gunshot for Donovan wounding Henry, so he fired a .357 Magnum in Skywalker Ranch's underground car park, just as Lucas drove in.

Writing for The New York Times, Caryn James felt the combination in these films reflected New Age concerns, where the worship of God was equated to searching for fathers.

James felt that neither Indiana nor his father is preoccupied with finding the Grail or defeating the Nazis, but that, rather, both seek professional respect for one another in their boys' own adventure.

[43] Behind Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Raiders, The Last Crusade is the third-highest grossing Indiana Jones film in the United States and Canada, though it is also behind Temple of Doom when adjusting for inflation.

The site's critics consensus reads, "Lighter and more comedic than its predecessor, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade returns the series to the brisk serial adventure of Raiders, while adding a dynamite double act between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.

[59] Jay Boyar of the Orlando Sentinel said that while the film "lacks the novelty of Raiders, and the breathless pacing of Temple of Doom, it was an entertaining capper to the trilogy.

[13] "Though it seems to have the manner of some magically reconstituted B-movie of an earlier era, The Last Crusade is an endearing original," Canby wrote, calling the revelation that Jones had a father who was not proud of him to be a "comic surprise".

[11] According to Dark Horse Comics author Lee Marrs, Lucasfilm considered for a while to make a continuation to the film series starring Phoenix as a younger Jones, but these plans were dropped after his untimely death.

[81] In 2012, the satirical news site The Pan-Arabia Enquirer ran a mock story claiming that the board had officially renamed Petra "That Place from Indiana Jones" to reflect how the world more commonly refers to it.