Sallah
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Sallah is a fictional character in the Indiana Jones trilogy. Played by John Rhys-Davies, he appears in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In addition, he also appears in the preshow video in the Disneyland attraction Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye and voices the safety spiels in the attraction.
An old friend of Indiana Jones, Sallah is a portly Arab living in Cairo. While his profession is never explicitly told in the films, Ford's character calls him "the best digger in Egypt", and he does help the Nazis in an archaeological dig, so it can be assumed he is a professional excavator. He has many children and several connections in Cairo, even with the local pirate traders, such as Captain Katanga.
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[edit] Raiders of the Lost Ark
Sallah helps Jones decipher the inscription on the back of Marion Ravenwood's medallion by taking him to an old wise man. They learn that the Nazis are digging in the wrong location for the Ark of the Covenant, so Sallah and Jones infiltrate the Nazi dig and they discover the real location of the Well of Souls, where the Ark is kept. Although he is reluctant, Sallah joins Jones in the snake-infested tomb, and they find and move the Ark to the surface.
However, the Nazis discover the secret dig and capture the Ark and Sallah. They also throw Marion into the tomb with Jones, and seal it shut. Jones and Marion escape, however, and he tells Sallah to secure some transportation back the United States. He makes a deal with the captain of the Bantu Wind, a tramp steamer, for bringing Jones, Marion, and the Ark back to the States.
[edit] Deleted scenes
There are two deleted scenes featuring Sallah. One is an extension of the scene where Sallah loses the rope into the map room, after two Nazi soldiers demand help from him in freeing their truck from the sand. The entire scene also involved several Nazi soldiers demanding to be served water, while Sallah panics and spills water on their uniforms. The scene was supposed to have smoke in the background, but tires used in the scene made it too dark. Spielberg just cut the scene in order to not have to use half a day reshooting it.
The other scene depicted Sallah's fate after Jones and Marion's entrapment in the Well of Souls. The Germans decide to execute Sallah, but a young soldier put in charge of the operation has second thoughts. The scene was cut for length issues.
[edit] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
In Last Crusade, Sallah fails in rescuing Marcus Brody from the Nazis, who captured him for the map that leads to the Holy Grail. Sallah takes Jones and his father, Henry Jones Sr. to the Nazi convoy. He later secures some camels for the trip back home, although Indy told him horses. It's revealed that Sallah has a brother-in-law after the Nazis blow up his brother-in-law's car. He captures camels instead of horses for compensation.
[edit] Deleted scenes
There were two other scenes featuring Sallah cut from the finished film. During the scene where Sallah fends off the German kidnappers, he hits a camel which spits mucus over the Nazis, and another shot with Sallah fighting the Nazis. The other depicts Indy and his father meeting Sallah at the Iskenderun train station. It was deleted because of showing a minor transitional plot element.
| 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 |
