Watch the following scene and ask yourself: “What is Marion holding to her head (and why)?”
Like most people, I have seen this movie a gazillion times and have naturally thought that she is holding shot glasses to her head.
But for some reason, the performance has confused me over the years. I could never understand -- "why is she holding shot glasses to her head? Her pose indicates some sort of emotional strife, so if anything she would just be holding her hands up to her head, not glasses."
Nevertheless, the scene moves on and it works. No harm done.
But then, low and behold, I recently read a version of the screenplay and there is a scene that happens right before this one -- between the customers leaving and Indy arriving — where Marion goes outside and balls up snowballs in her hands. Why does she do this?
Lawrence Kasdan's scene description says it explicitly:
Now…watch it again, without sound. Here it is, enlarged.
She is in fact holding snowballs in each hand. You can see drops of water fly off her screen right hand when she flings them down. And later in the scene (not present here), her shirt is wet from the melted snow that has dropped onto her blouse.
This recent discovery blows me away, for three reasons.
First, I love the character trait alone. The fact that Kasdan wrote a hangover cure into the script is pure brilliance.
Second, I’m intrigued by the production mystery. Clearly, Karen Allen and the art department we’re both informed of the hangover cure and told to use snowballs for her performance. But then what happened? Did they not shoot the other scene? Or did they decide that they simply didn’t need to shoot it?
And this brings me to what I love most…how the scene’s omission was solved for. To explain further, try to forget that you’ve seen this movie a thousand times and imagine you are a fly on the wall in the mixing phase of this film.
Everyone is here: Spielberg, Lucas, Michael Kahn (picture editor), and Ben Burt (sound designer/mixer). The film is up on screen and Burt and Kahn are discussing a “problem” with the sound effects for the moment, which peaks Spielberg’s interest.
Spielberg: “What’s the problem?”
Kahn: “We don’t have the scene before this. We never see her make snowballs.”
Lucas: “So what? Just put some sound effects on it. We don’t need to see her do it.”
Everyone looks to Burt. He remains silent, then a smirk of confidence comes across his face.
Burt: “Actually, I don’t see snowballs. I see shot glasses.”
Spielberg/Lucas/Kahn: “Shot glasses?!”
Burt: “Yeah. She just drank a guy under the table and has cleared the bar of shot glasses. She’s holding shot glasses.”
Kahn: “But Larry said they’re snowballs. Besides, we can SEE that they are snowballs.”
Burt. “No you cant.”
Kahn. “Yes, I can.”
Burt: “No you cant."
Burt adjusts the mix, and presses play.
The clip plays back, and now everyone in the room — the director, the producer, and the editor, all “see” shot glasses fly from Karen Allen’s hands.
Well done Mr. Burt. Well done.
And thank you Mr. Kasdan. Thank you.