Indiana Jones' Crew Kept Antivenom Serum Handy On Raiders Of The Lost Ark

Steven Spielberg's 1981 adventure film "Raiders of the Lost Ark," a sequel (canonically speaking) to "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles," features a scene wherein Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) locates an ancient underground chamber, the Well of Souls, said to be the last resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. He and a compatriot lower themselves into the chamber and find that, many years before, it had become a nest for cobras and other poisonous snakes. Indiana Jones, it so happens, is wracked by ophidiophobia, so walking around in a slithering mass of reptiles is not easy for him. Luckily, he is able to retrieve the Ark.

Eventually, however, the Ark is stolen by an ambitious rival archeologist, and Indiana Jones and his would-be paramour Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) are sealed inside the snake-infested chamber. Indiana and Marion wave torches at the snakes and frantically brainstorm a possible way out. The snakes are getting more aggressive, and the torches are going out. It's just one of the many tense cliffhanger moments in "Raiders," a film made to look like adventure serials of the 1930s and 1940s. 

According to the website California Herps, a herpetology site, the snakes were a combination of real animals and rubber snakes. The site is also baffled as to why the snakes are all hanging out in the open instead of slithering to hide the way snakes usually do. Also, what do they eat down there? The herpetologist figured they were magical snakes who didn't require food. 

In the 2003 documentary "Indiana Jones: Making the Trilogy," producer Frank Marshall revealed that the snakes really frightened a lot of the crew and that they had antivenom on standby, just in case a cobra should get aggressive. 

Actor John Rhys-Davies revealed that he was always unhappy working around snakes, having been afraid of them his whole life. Marshall, too, revealed that he had to work through some of his own fears in order to get the cute li'l cobras to the set. "I found that I was able to clear up a lot of my phobias working on these movies," Marshall said. He never liked snakes. It seems, though, the reptile expert he hired for the shoot knew that the snakes were actually not poisonous. That gave the crew more ease in hucking the animals around the set and arranging them for a shot. Of course, even with thousands of animals, they didn't cover the ground the way Spielberg wanted. One can imagine the director pounding his fist and yelling "I need more snakes!" 

In set footage from 1979, one can hear Spielberg asking for about 7,000 additional snakes to the 2,000 he already had. Marshall revealed that the philosophy on set was essentially "Whatever you say, Steven." Marshall rallied, got several more snake experts on the set, and the floor was eventually covered. Now provided with the snakes he needed, Spielberg admitted that their mass slithering made him a little nauseated. The snakes weren't poisonous, but they would still bite. The film's first assistant director David Tomblin got bitten. It didn't let go. Don't worry. Both Tomblin and the snake were okay. 

But then the cobras arrived. Those ones were poisonous. Marshall recalled the shifted attitude on set, saying:

"The day that the cobras arrived, everything changed. Everybody was very serious about the cobras being there. We had antivenom serum, we had a lot of protection for the handlers. And even the actors were very respectful of these snakes. Because they were deadly."

It's a pretty well-known piece of trivia that Harrison Ford and the hooded cobra were separated by a pane of glass. Indiana Jones falls on the floor, and a real cobra opens its hood and threatens him. Ford had no fear of the snake, but Indiana Jones sure did. Producer Kathleen Kennedy was on set for the cobra scene and recalled a sobering moment when the hooded cobra attacked. She said that the cobra whipped its head sideways and sprayed the entire pane of glass with venom. That kind of action will certainly humble a film crew. 

Spielberg himself recalls being frustrated that the snakes, seeking warmth, would bundle up next to the on-set torches ... after the script specified that snakes recoil from fire. Amusing on-set footage shows the director holding a snake and talking right to its face. Spielberg said:

"You don't like fire, or you do like fire? ... You love fire? In the script, you're supposed to hate fire! Why do you like fire?! You're ruining my movie!"

Luckily, the prima donna snakes were on their best behavior after that, and Spielberg got to film the scene the way he wanted. 

Notably, the scene included several boa constrictors, which are snakes native to the Americas. The scene, however, is set in northern Africa. Either an enterprising explorer exported the snakes a long time ago, or Steven Spielberg didn't really care about the specific animal populations of local biomes. It's more likely the latter.