A Gestapo agent served under the command of Colonel Ernst Vogel during the search of the Holy Grail in 1938 with the task to accompany Vogel to a Zeppelin in order of arrest Indiana Jones and his father.
Biography[]
In 1938, a Gestapo agent accompanied Colonel Ernst Vogel aboard the D-138 in search of Indiana Jones and his father. Vogel was thrown out of the Zeppelin by Jones, but the Gestapo agent remained on board searching for the Joneses. He ran into the archaeologist whilst Jones was disguised as a steward, and Jones knocked him unconscious.
When the Zeppelin turned around and began its return to Germany under the orders of the Nazis, 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 second biplane, after the crewman almost died from a fall from the scaffold. 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.
Behind the scenes[]
The Gestapo was played 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.[2][3]
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 Vogel's role in the finished Zeppelin scenes.[4]
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 Last Crusade because director Steven Spielberg considered it too long.[5] However, the sequence remains in Rob MacGregor's novelization and Marvel Comics' comic book adaptation,[6][7] while the models of their characters in the plane are pictured in From Star Wars to Indiana Jones: The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives.[8] 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]
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.[9] 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
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 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- ↑ Raiders of the Lost Ark
- ↑ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- ↑ The Complete Making of Indiana Jones
- ↑ The Stunts of Indiana Jones
- ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade novel
- ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic
- ↑ From Star Wars to Indiana Jones: The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives
- ↑ Indiana Jones Masterpieces