Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – This is the third cinematic episode of the Indiana Jones sagas, in which the fearless archeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) goes out to find and rescue his no less celebrated father, Dr. Henry Jones (Connery) whose traces were lost as he was chasing no less a prize than the Holy Grail. Once again, just like in his initial screen appearance, Indiana Jones has to beat the Nazi agents who threaten to get hold of the Grail first and make nasty use of its magical powers. Like the two previous films of the series, the director is once again Steven Spielberg, who, thanks to the enormous box-office success he scored with them, became one of the richest men in the world.
Sean Connery – 1930 – 2020
Sean Connery, one of the most impressive film stars in the second half of the last century, was born ninety years ago in a small Scottish town, to a cleaning lady and a father who was a factory worker and a lorry driver. Unlike most of the illustrious stars of the British cinema, all of them graduated from the fanciest drama schools and trained on the most demanding theatre stages before reaching the movie screen, Connery’s modest roots first lead him a variety of careers including milkman, lorry driver, laborer, model at the Edinburgh Academy of Arts, coffin polisher and bodybuilder. He joined the Royal Navy for a short while but was discharged for medical reasons. At the ripe old age of 23 he had to choose between becoming a professional footballer or an actor, and in what he referred to as one of the most intelligent decisions, he chose the movies. For a while, he climbed the long staircase to fame in insignificant productions, picked by casting directors for his masculine, sexy presence and gravely, heavily accented Scottish accent. The most decisive step in his career was the meeting in 1961 with Albert Broccoli, a producer who was about to launch the first in a series of films based on the spy stories of a former British secret agent, Ian Fleming. Despite the heavy competition for the role of the debonair, suave, and tougher than nails MI5 superspy James Bond, Connery got the part and for six more times (the last one in the less than memorable “Never say never again”) he a full-fledged became a movie legend, identified to such an extent with the part he played that finally, exhausted by the limited acting range it offered him, he chose to retire from Her Majesty’s Secret Service and move into a remarkable career as an actor, whose presence in front to the camera often seemed to steal the thunder from all his partners, including the most famous ones. To wit, his one and only Oscar was for his performance in “The Untouchables” (1987), in which he outshone such luminaries as Kevin Costner, Robert de Niro and Andy Garcia. Among the many notable parts he played, “The Man who would be King” (1975), “Robin and Marian” (1976), “A Bridge too Far” (1977), “The name of the Rose” (1986), “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989), and “The Hunt for the Red October” (1990).