Elsa Schneider
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Dr. Elsa Schneider is a fictional character who appears in the film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. She is played by Alison Doody.
[edit] The Last Crusade
Schneider is a bright Austrian historian who worked with Indiana Jones' father Henry Jones Sr. to find the location of the Holy Grail. When he is kidnapped, Indiana comes to Venice and meets up with her. Together they discover the hidden catacombs, which disclose more on the location of the Grail. The pair have a fiery fling which ignites into romance. Indiana discovers his father is held at a castle in Austria. He brings Elsa with him, but to his sincere surprise discovers she is a Nazi spy. Elsa seizes the Grail Diary and proceeds to make a stop at Berlin before going off to find the grail with Walter Donovan. Indy escapes his castle captivity and confronts Elsa at the Berlin rally to get the diary back from her. During this exchange, Elsa expresses her private contempt of the Nazis. After their exchange of harsh words, Indy leaves and they don't see each other again until he arrives at the Grail Temple.
Indy is forced to pass through the trials to reach the holy cup after Donovan shoots Henry. Indy finds a room filled with dozens of false grails and only one true grail. Donovan and Elsa enter, and she offers to choose the cup for Donovan. Unbeknownst to him, Elsa purposefully chose the wrong cup for she was angry at Donovan for shooting Indy's dad. Donovan falls for Elsa's deception and he promptly ages to death by drinking the wrong cup that she hands him. Indiana chooses wisely and uses the holy water to heal his father's wounds.
Elsa, however, can't resist her temptation to leave with the artifact and crosses the seal. The temple begins to collapse, and she trips over her tall boots. The impact causes the chalice to slip from her hands. The temple cracks in half where the grail lands and Elsa springs up and hastily dives to recover it, but knocks it onto a small platform on the side of the wall.
She clings to her side of the cliff but slips and almost falls into the abyss. Indy, however, grabs her just in time to save her life. Elsa, though, is overcome with greed and pulls her hand free to try to reach for the grail below her. She can't quite touch it and all the while, her other hand is slipping out of its glove. Elsa ignores Indiana's pleads to save herself and continues to stretch her arm obsessively. She can't take her wide eyes off the cup as she whispers "I can reach it... I can reach it..." As she is about to get a fingertip on it, her glove slips off her sweaty hand and she plummets to her untimely death.
[edit] Background
Elsa is (so far) the only leading female character of an Indiana Jones film to die. This means that Alison Doody will not appear in Indiana Jones 4. She is as well, the only female character to work for the antagonists as well.
| The Indiana Jones series | |
|---|---|
| Films | Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) | The Temple of Doom (1984) |The Last Crusade (1989) | Indiana Jones 4 (2008) |
| Television | The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-1996) |
| Theme Park Attractions | Indiana Jones Adventure (Disneyland, Tokyo Disney Sea) | Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril (Disneyland Paris) |
| Characters | Indiana Jones | Willie Scott | Marion Ravenwood | Elsa Schneider Marcus Brody | Sallah | Short Round | Henry Jones, Sr. |
| Cast | Harrison Ford | Sean Connery | Corey Carrier | Sean Patrick Flanery | George Hall River Phoenix | John Rhys-Davies | Denholm Elliott |
| Crew | George Lucas | Steven Spielberg | Frank Marshall | John Williams |
