A Gestapo agent served under the command of Colonel Ernst Vogel during the search for the Holy Grail in 1938 with the task to accompany Vogel to a a zeppelin in order of apprehend Indiana Jones and his father.
Biography[]
In 1938, a Gestapo agent accompanied Colonel Ernst Vogel aboard the D-138 zeppelin in search of Indiana Jones and his father Henry Walton Jones, Senior. While the Gestapo looked elsewhere, Vogel was quickly dumped out of the zeppelin by Jones, landing in a pile of luggage.[1]
Unlike Vogel, who was left cursing among the collection of suitcases, the Gestapo agent remained on board searching for the Joneses. He ran into the American archaeologist upon opening a door whilst Jones was disguised as a steward, so Jones knocked him unconscious, then proceeding to leave the room with his father to look for a means to escape upon realizing that the Zeppelin was turning around back to Germany under Nazi orders.[2]
Shortly afterwards, the agent, having recovered, spotted Jones and his father and followed them, accompanied by a retired (and drunken) World War I pilot and a Zeppelin crewman. The pilot and Gestapo tried to follow the Joneses in a biplane after the crewman almost died from a fall off the scaffold and the Joneses left in another biplane. However, the agent was too heavy and he sank partway through the bottom of the plane and the distracted pilot uncoupled the aircraft without starting the engine, an act which sent the pair plummeting to their deaths into a mountain below.[2]
Personality and traits[]
Despite his bulky appearance, the Gestapo agent didn't impose much respect, with almost none of the passengers aboard the D-138 bothering to take seriously his request of joining him in detaining the American "spies" aboard.[2]
Behind the scenes[]
The Gestapo was portrayed by the late actor and professional wrestler Pat Roach in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.[1] Roach had previously portrayed the Giant Sherpa and the German Mechanic in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Chief Guard in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.[3][4]
The agent confronts a disguised Indiana Jones on the Zeppelin.
During the development of the film's script, written by Jeffrey Boam, the character was identified as the "Second Gestapo Agent" as he was originally to be accompanied by another agent who fulfilled what became Colonel Ernst Vogel's role in the finished Zeppelin scenes.[5]
The Gestapo appears in the film in a reduced capacity as the man accompanying Vogel on the ground, attempting to halt the departure of the Zeppelin.[1] Unused footage of the disguised Indiana Jones knocking the character out was included in The Stunts of Indiana Jones home video featurette. The sequence in which the Gestapo is killed alongside the World War One Ace was cut from the final version of because director Steven Spielberg considered it too long,[6] even though the models of their characters in the plane are pictured in From Star Wars to Indiana Jones: The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives.[7] However, the Joneses briefly reacting to the aircraft going down can be seen in the film before their attention is diverted by the arrival of the Luftwaffe fighter planes.[1]
While removed from the finished film,[1] the subplot of the Gestapo and his pilot remains in Rob MacGregor's novelization and Marvel Comics' comic book adaptation.[2][8] However, the Gestapo actually survives in Les Martin's 1989 junior novelization, where he only appears when he looks for the Joneses aboard the zeppelin and tries to shoot them at a passageway, only to be stopped by the Zeppelin Crewman out of fear he might incinerate the zeppelin with one bullet.[9] By contrast, likely due to being released not alongside the film upon its release, Ryder Windham's 2008 junior novelization has the Gestapo's role just like in the film, arriving to the zeppelin with Vogel and then vanishing without a trace.[10]
Indiana Jones Masterpieces #34 - "Familiar Guys...?"
For the 2008 release of the Indiana Jones Masterpieces trading card series, illustrator Ken Steacy included artwork which was designed to depict a Pat Roach character from each of the first three films surrounding a captive Indiana Jones. While the German Mechanic from Raiders and the Chief Guard from Temple of Doom are present, the representation from Last Crusade does not match that of the Gestapo agent but of a machine gun-wielding Nazi in an Schutzstaffel uniform closer in likeness to that of the Principal SS Officer at Castle played by Luke Hanson.[11] Whether this is an artistic choice or an error on Steacy's part is unclear.
Appearances[]
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade novel (First appearance)
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade junior novel (2008)
Sources[]
- From Star Wars to Indiana Jones: The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives
- The Stunts of Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones Masterpieces (Card: Familiar Guys...?) (Possible appearance)
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade novel
- ↑ Raiders of the Lost Ark
- ↑ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- ↑ The Complete Making of Indiana Jones
- ↑ The Stunts of Indiana Jones
- ↑ From Star Wars to Indiana Jones: The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives
- ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic
- ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade junior novel (1989)
- ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade junior novel (2008)
- ↑ Indiana Jones Masterpieces