Locations
Steven Spielberg rejected shooting in la Alhambra because the monument was “too visually familiar for us to attempt to use it as a location supposedly somewhere else”.
During the shooting of ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ in Guadix, in the scene where Marcus start running through the streets in Iskenderun, you can see a local, with his hat, his sash and his jacket, that may slip into the shooting. The same character appears in the scene where Sallah and Marcus met and started a fight with two Nazis. The local is among the group of Arabs who gathered around them. The strange thing is that nobody notices him.
Perhaps because it was partly shot in the provinces of Almeria and Granada, ‘Indiana Jones and the last crusade’ is the instalment of the saga with the biggest audience in our country’s cinemas, 4.2 million viewers.
Steven Spielberg and the location team of ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ chose the locations to shoot the film from the air, traveling by helicopter throughout the province. In one of the location days, lunchtime was getting closer and the helicopter landed in the parking lot of the “Parador Nacional de Mojácar”, to the amazement of everyone there, who saw the arrival and ate together with the American director and his team.
If ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ presented for the first time the father of the hero, played by Sean Connery, the series ‘The young Indiana Jones’, shot three years later (1991) showed the adolescence of the character, played by Sean Patrick Flannery. Interestingly, this series, aired in Spain by Antena 3 in 1993, was also filmed in the province of Almeria.
In the famous scene of ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ in which Sean Connery scares some seagulls to hit a Nazi plane, pigeons, which are less aggressive and easier to domesticate, were used.
During the shooting of ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ at Guadix Station, the Cinematography Director, Douglas Slocombe, repeatedly changed some elements of the set to adapt the scene to the sunlight changes.
In the shooting of ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ in Almería, every extra of the 175 who took part in the film earned 8,000 pesetas (48 euros) per shooting day. This tax beard the following costs: 5,000 pesetas (30€) appeared as mandatory in the contract, adding other concepts (1,000 pesetas – 6€- as ‘plus for the costume’: to dress in an unusual way; 800 pesetas (4,8€) for playing with the head shaved…).
Throughout his career, Sean Connery returned three times to the beach of Monsul (Almeria), because in this environment scenes of ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’, ‘Shalako’ and ‘El viento y el Lion’ were filmed.
The parking of the Hotel Parador in Mojácar (Almería) was used as an airport runway for a plane in some scenes in ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’.
Although filmed in Almeria, the antimilitarist melodrama ‘The hill’ is an unpublished film in Spain.
Almeria wasn’t in the shooting plans for ‘Never Say Never Again’, but after shooting in the Bahamas there were some scenes left to shoot, and it was Sean Connery himself who recommended the team to come and shoot in Andalusia.
During the filming of ‘007. Never say never again’, the martial arts instructor, Steven Seagal, who was unknown at the time, broke Sean Connery’s wrist in one of the trainings.
A cinema gallant in love with Andalusia
Sean Connery (Edinburgh, 1930) is one of those actors who are part of the history of cinema. Globally known for playing James Bond in seven films, between 1962 and 1983, the Scottish actor has shot in Andalusia several times, embodying agent 007 in one of them. The performer, considered at the time ‘the sexiest man alive’, worked in several productions filmed in Andalusia and has always recognized to be in love with our region, to the point of having a house in Marbella for many years.
“The only place I knew that could guarantee us good weather was Almeria, because nowadays it’s very expensive to take a big team anywhere, just to sit and wait till the sun comes out”.
