Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Steven Spielberg’s second entry is a prequel set in 1935, and its production circumstances explain the darkness. India refused permission to shoot there once officials read the script, objecting to the portrayal of the Thuggee and demanding final cut. The production relocated to Sri Lanka around Kandy, with Macau standing in for Shanghai. Kate Capshaw was picked from a videotaped audition against more than a hundred and twenty candidates. Ke Huy Quan turned up at an open call in Los Angeles Chinatown not for himself but to support his older brother, and the casting director asked whether he would like to read as well. The most durable outcome sits outside the frame. After parents complained, Spielberg rang Jack Valenti at the MPAA asking for a grade between PG and R. PG-13 came out of that call, and Red Dawn carried it first in August 1984. The shape is unusually front-loaded. The Shanghai opening packs a musical number, a poisoning, a chase and a plane crash into its first stretch, and the long middle that follows never approaches that density again. Right for a viewer who accepts a child being whipped and a heart torn out inside a family adventure. Wrong for anyone the trailer already annoyed by Willie Scott’s screaming used as a comic instrument.