SOURCE: White, Armond. “Keeping up with the Joneses.” Film Comment 25, no. 4 (July-August 1989): 9-11.

In the following review, White elucidates the political themes in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and asserts that the film repudiates the genre conventions of the two earlier Indiana Jones films.

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

—a Hollywood curse

Diviners of popular culture who once celebrated Steven Spielberg for his ingenious extension of the Hollywood film tradition (“A new generation's Howard Hawks”) have deserted him when he needs them most. Spielberg's last three films, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are transitional landmarks in Hollywood's ethos. They attempt to expand the cultural awareness of commercial films, struggling with generic form while improving their political implications. This is nothing less than Hollywood glasnost but reviewers expect aesthetic reform and cultural revision to come from...