Was it 1981?

My first memory of Raiders of the Lost Ark is the poster. It couldn’t have been a regular poster, because I remember it hanging over the archway of the Premiere theatre in Milton, huge and Harrison. Or Han Solo as he was known back then. Han Solo in a hat, with a dirty face and a dirty shirt.

I vividly recall thinking that this must be an “adult” movie. I don’t know what made me think that because surely fedoras and torn shirts were not foreign elements in family/kids movie. But I definitely remember not pushing to see it, not wanting to see it, and not expecting that it would have anything to appeal to an 8-year old. We had just moved to Oakville.

Is Raiders of the Lost Ark a good movie for an 8-year old? Because I definitely recollect that it completely and absolutely blew my lid. Nazis melting. Propeller deaths. Giant boulders. King freakin’ cobras. It’s like that first screening is flash-frozen to my brain – I can actually remember the days leading up to, and immediately after it (there was a school field trip to a farm shortly after, but that’s a story for a different blog.) This is all my way of saying that this was the first time that I saw a movie that, today, would have been labeled PG-13. [In fact, by way of historical notes, it was the sequel, Temple of Doom, which pushed the invention of the PG-13 classification.] It was the first memory I have of seeing a movie that teetered beyond the fantasy worlds of Star Wars, Superman and a zillion pure kid flicks. Though it was all of those things too.

Today, Raiders of the Lost Ark is candy. There’s no better way to describe the sweet taste of going back to it and realizing that not only has it aged well, but it’s in every as perfect as the day I first saw it. That’s not true of a lot of movies that slapped me around in childhood. But those of us who grew up under the shadow of Spielberg and Lucas in their prime, Raiders is a touchstone to a way of watching movies that doesn’t exist anymore. Though I’m always and still looking.