It’s often cited as the reason for why many archaeologists entered their field of choice: the romance, drama and excitement of the Indiana Jones film series. Those of us in the archaeology world love to affectionately rag on Indy—he’s really a tomb robber, not an archaeologist!—but many of us would not be in the field that we are in were it not for a certain level of Indiana Jones-inspired spark within us.
A 40-something rogue archaeology professor protagonist, a long-lost love interest, a race against time with a maniacal German regime, and at the center of it all, the quest to find history’s greatest biblical artifact: the ark of the covenant—you’d be forgiven for thinking this is just a description of the 1981 movie that started the Indiana Jones phenomenon. But this is also the plot of a screenplay and unpublished novel written by an employee of our institute’s namesake years earlier in the 1970s—sparking a lawsuit at the time of the movie’s release.
You’ve heard of the movie. Have you heard of some of the intrigue surrounding its release?
Similar Stories
Dr. Robert L. Kuhn was an employee of our namesake—educator, theologian and philanthropist Herbert W. Armstrong—during the 1970s. In July 1977, he submitted a screenplay for “Ark” to International Creative Management (icm) agent Ben Benjamin. The plot centered around a 40-year-old archaeology professor, a long-lost love interest sidekick, a race against time against a dictatorial German regime, and at the center of everything, the quest to find the ark of the covenant in the Middle East.
Granted, there were some differences with the later film we have all come know and love. For example, Kuhn’s screenplay was set in the future, against the backdrop of conflict between the United States, a German-led European Union and a Russian juggernaut, with the discovery of the ark in Jerusalem. Raiders of the Lost Ark, of course, is set in the past—the late 1930s—against the backdrop of conflict with Nazi Germany, with the discovery of the ark in Egypt.
In September 1977, Kuhn reportedly heard back from Benjamin: The screenplay had “enormous commercial potential,” but it was recommended that a novel first be produced in order to establish Kuhn as a known writer. A 900-page manuscript was subsequently delivered to the icm offices in April 1979—yet at this point, unhappily, Kuhn was informed that there was no interest in the story.
Two years later, a more than suspiciously similar film splashed across the silver screen.
A Thickening Plot
Raiders of the Lost Ark was released on June 12, 1981. Directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay written by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman, the collaborative writing of the story reportedly began in January 1978, and the screenplay was completed in December 1979. Following a difficult negotiating period against the film’s proposed $20 million budget, Paramount Pictures ultimately accepted the project, and filming for the production began in June 1980. Following the release, the film took the world by storm, skyrocketing to the top of the list as highest-grossing film of 1981, with a total box office gross of over $212 million ($354 million worldwide). It has been lauded as “one of the greatest films ever made.”
The film was not so warmly received, however, by Kuhn, nor by his former associate and attorney Stanley Rader, to whom Kuhn had sold a share of the screenplay. (Rader was also an employee of Herbert Armstrong; Kuhn, by this point, had parted ways.) Less than a month after the film’s release, a lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles’s Superior Court. From a July 8, 1981, Washington Post newspaper report:
Movie producer George Lucas and others were sued yesterday in Los Angeles by an archeologist who contends that Lucas based his hit film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, on an idea stolen from him. Released only 26 days ago, the film already has grossed more than $46 million.
Joining the archeologist, Robert L. Kuhn, in his civil suit were Stanley R. Rader … and Henry F. Cornwall, who had planned to market the screenplay and novel. Kuhn, Rader and Cornwall are seeking at least $100 million for the value of the story and $10 million in punitive damages. They contend that Kuhn, not Lucas, originated the idea of a movie depicting the fictional 20th century discovery of the biblical lost ark of the covenant.
A similar article describing the lawsuit was featured in the New York Times. The lawsuit alleged that Mr. Lucas—a client of icm—had access to the materials submitted to Mr. Benjamin. “Paramount refused to comment on the suit,” the article noted, although Lucasfilm senior vice president Sidney Ganis spoke for Mr. Lucas, stating that “‘[t]he allegations that we stole Raiders of the Lost Ark from anybody are absolutely, unequivocably [sic] untrue … George was not even a client of icm in 1977’” (Aljean Harmetz, New York Times: “Suit on ‘Ark’ Charges Stealing From a Novel,” July 9, 1981).
The Washington Post quoted an unnamed Lucasfilm spokesman (possibly also Ganis), stating, “We knew very well that ‘Raiders’ is an original story idea by Lucas and Kaufman. There is no doubt in our minds about that” (as quoted from Ann Trebbe’s courtcase listings in the July 8, 1981 paper).
The Associated Press’s Brian Bland noted that “icm … represented Spielberg and had once represented Lucas. Spielberg and Lucas were not immediately available for comment on the suit. Both have said they got the idea from the movie while sitting around a swimming pool in Hawaii in 1977.” Bland quoted Lucas’s attorney as stating: “The charges are ridiculous. Every time you have a successful movie, there’ll be people who come forward who claim it’s theirs.”
From United Press International, quoting plaintiff Rader: “‘I read an article by Mr. Lucas recently titled ‘The Empire Pays Off.’ I suspect in this case the ‘Empire’ should pay off the people who invested so much time and energy in this project’” (“‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ Sued for $100 Million”).
Outcome?
What, then, became of it? Movieweb.com lists Raiders of the Lost Ark as number 7 in its list of “21 Movies That Were Accused of Copyright Infringement.” It briefly summarizes the substance and conclusion of the suit:
In 1981, Stanley Rader and Robert Kuhn filed a lawsuit against Spielberg, George Lucas, and Paramount Pictures, alleging that the film was a rip-off of their screenplay and unpublished novel Ark. They claimed that they had submitted their work to icm, who gave Spielberg and Lucas access to their material, and that they were promised great commercial success. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed by the court.
The result of dismissal is probably unsurprising. Just a coincidentally similar storyline? You be the judge.
On a rather humorous note, the plaintiffs had intended to give a “substantial part of the money” they were seeking “to a foundation which will combat the biblical misinformation given to the public in Raiders of the Lost Ark,” as relayed by Rader in a telephone interview for the New York Times. For the biblically literate, it’s a rather funny dig at the blockbuster. It’s certainly part of the beloved movie that always makes me cringe—Indiana Jones and his professorial friend Marcus Brody explaining, in hushed tones, the biblical powers of the ark to a pair of U.S. government agency dolts. “The Bible speaks of the ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions,” whispers Brody. The Bible, of course, speaks of no such thing—the only thing it “levels” is an idol in a Philistine temple (1 Samuel 5). “The army which carries the ark before it is invincible,” Brody concluded—hence movie-Hitler’s desire to acquire it for his Nazi army, and Indiana Jones’s plight to find it first.
Those with even the least familiarity with the biblical account of the ark know, of course, that precisely the opposite is true. 1 Samuel 4, for example, describes the Israelites’ reliance on the ark to protect their army—something that ends in the sound defeat of their forces, an ensuing massacre, and the loss of the ark to the Philistines. Perhaps the film’s characters should have realized this before embarking on such a desperate odyssey to find and secure the item. Say, the script could even conceivably be better flipped—Jones helping the Nazis to acquire the ark, in order to jeopardize and defeat the Germany army!
Even so, setting to one side the misplaced capabilities of the ark—underwriting, I suppose, no less than the entire premise of the movie—as someone working in the field of archaeology, I am mandated to belittle, yet secretly appreciate and enjoy, the endearing film that inspired a generation of archaeologists—Raiders of the Lost Ark—even if its conception was less than original.
