Karen Allen portrays Marion Ravenwood in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Karen Allen, star of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," says that she had to fight for the Marion Ravenwood she saw on the screen.
IndieWire asked her to change a scene in which she would have to seduce her way to freedom from a Nazi camp.
She stated that she believed there were times when her character was a "true damsel" in distress.
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IndieWire spoke to Karen Allen, star of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", about how she had to request to alter a scene in which she would have to seduce herself out of Nazi camp.
Allen was Marion Ravenwood, the daughter of an Archaeologist. She is brought on Jones's (Harrison Fords) mission to find the Ark of the Covenant.
Allen spoke with IndieWire to discuss the creation of the iconic character for the film's 40th anniversary. She explained that Ravenwood was the first character she wanted to play because it had the "best introductions" she had ever seen.
Allen was not pleased with her scenes in the movie. In the interview, she mentioned one scene in which Ravenwood tried to outsmart Ren Belloq ("Paul Freeman") to escape capture in a Nazi camp. Freeman was seduced by Allen in the original script. This did not go well with both her and Freeman. Allen stated that Steven Spielberg was the director of all four movies "Indiana Jones", and was open to changing this.
She recalled that Spielberg basically said to her, "Well, if your ideas are better, you can show me. We'll shoot it." We came up with the idea that I wore this dress to conceal the knife they had given me. It's all about escape. It's not about seduction being stopped. That was the original intent. It was about her trying trick him or to lull her into believing that he would seduce her. Then she was going turn the tables.
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Harrison Ford played Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Allen said that her character was often left behind in certain scenes of the story. Mencia Lucas, an Academy Award-winning editor who edited "Raiders of the Lost Ark," shared that the ending of the movie in which Ravenwood and Jones meet again was almost cut because Spielberg didn't think it was important enough to film.
Allen stated in an interview with IndieWire that there were times when the brilliant, intelligent, and talented boys' club had left her in the dust at certain points in the story. They made her a very independent, resourceful, and strong woman. Sometimes they did this for comic effect, or unconscious. But it sometimes felt like she was a damsel in distress at times.
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