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Kairouan

OVERVIEW

Site: Kairouan

GPS: 35.676441, 10.099909

Location: Kairouan medina (old city), Kairouan Governorate, central Tunisia

Description: Enduring ancient Arab-Muslim cultural/intellectual center (670 CE)

Filming areas:
plazas (x2)
private properties (x3)
streets/alleys (x13)

Indiana Jones film:
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Set construction start: Early September 1980

Production: 17-20 September 1980

Leads on set:
Harrison Ford / Indiana Jones
Karen Allen / Marion Ravenwood
Paul Freeman / René Belloq
John Rhys-Davies / Sallah Mohammed el-Kahir
Souad Messaoudi / Fayah
Vic Tablian / Monkey Man
Steve Hanson / German Agent
Terry Richards / Cairo Swordsman

Scenes:
59 [Lunch on Sallah’s rooftop terrace; views over Cairo; monkey appears]
61 [Sallah & Indy discuss German dig, map room, medallion, and Ark on terrace]
63 [Indy & Marion enter bazaar with monkey]
64 [Monkey runs to Monkey Man in alley]
64B [Monkey Man spies on Indy & Marion in bazaar]
64C [German agents spot Indy & Marion from balcony, order Arab hitmen to action]
65 [Arabs ambush Indy & Marion; cart rides off with Marion; Indy unleashes whip]
66 [Marion on the run, hits Arab with frying pan, hides in basket]
68 [Chattering monkey reveals Marion’s hiding place]
69 [Indy cuts down last bad Arab, starts to follow Marion]
70 [Arabs carry Marion away in basket; Marion shouts for Indy]
72 [Foot chase down streets and alleys]
74 [Indy pushes through crowded square, dodges gunfire, takes cover; basket heaved into back of truck]
75 [Back of truck filled with munitions]
76 [Truck on the move; Indy shoots driver; truck rolls over and explodes]
77 [Indy drowns his sorrows at Arab bar; German agents escort Indy to Belloq’s table; Sallah’s children save Indy]
78 [Indy, Sallah & children climb into truck in front of Arab bar]
79 [Monkey Man watches, starts motorcycle to follow truck]
79A [Indy & Sallah arrive at Imam’s house; Monkey Man emerges from the shadows] <deleted>
118 [Indy drives truck into Omar’s Garage; Arabs set up bazaar, hide location from German staff car]
Final cut: 19
Deleted: 1

UNESCO: Kairouan medina, founded by the Umayyads in 670 CE as a strategic center point for Islamic conquests in the Maghreb and Andalusia, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988 for its preserved network of ancient walls, gates, minarets, cupolas, winding streets, courtyard houses, and historic mosques. The Mosque of the Three Doors (866 CE)—oldest known mosque in the world with a sculpted facade—appears in the background in four separate scenes.

Name: Kairouan (Arabic: “camp” or “caravan”) sounds similar to Cairo, coincidentally reflecting the Egyptian capital setting adopted for Indiana Jones filming.

Antennas: To mimic 1930s-era cityscape footage from the properties used for Sallah’s terrace and the German/Egyptian hitmen balcony, crew members during a single day organized the removal of over 300 TV antennas from rooftops scattered throughout the medina.

Sallah’s terrace: Crew utilized two separate rooftop areas on a single multi-story residence (located on Rue Salah Soussi) to construct a unified elevated terrace (complete with stairs) for panoramic views over the medina.

Screenplay changes: On the tail end of location shooting, several planned scenes/sequences were shortened (e.g. funeral procession removed from Indy’s street chase), omitted (e.g. German staff car in pursuit of Indy’s truck in Cairo before arriving at Omar’s Square), or deleted (e.g. Imam’s house exterior activity) due to dysentery and heat-fatigue among the cast/crew. These on-the-fly decisions (1) prompted a more compact filming footprint in the medina (with repeat usage of Place J’raba and sections of Avenida Habib Bourguiba) for multiple scenes and (2) produced iconic modified takes such as Indy’s showdown with the Cairo Swordsman.

Arab bar: Crew adopted both the interior and exterior of a popular 1970s-era local coffee shop (Café Hassanet)—now the Hassanet Shoes Gallery with an upper floor carpet shop flanked by two jewelry stores—to shoot footage set at Marhala Bar (name not present in screenplay; derived from set dressing work).