ARCHAEOLOGICAL ADVENTURE

When the man with the hat unexpectedly appears in a dingy dive somewhere in Nepal, feisty proprietor Marion Ravenwood hardly seems surprised.

"Indiana Jones," she says, a caustic edge creeping into her voice. "I always knew some day you'd come walking back through my door. I never doubted that. Something made it inevitable."

Yes, globe-trotting archaeologist Indiana Jones, whom we first met in 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark," has been gone a long time. Almost two decades, if you count from the time he rode off into the sunset in 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

Indy-watchers everywhere presumed "Last Crusade" was the last hurrah of a blockbuster '80s movie trilogy.

Starting today, however, Indy's 21st-century return is indeed inevitable as he invades an estimated 4,000 North American movie theaters with his latest death-defying venture, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

Harrison Ford once again embodies the intrepid title character. (Even at 65, he still can crack a bullwhip with the best of 'em.) Also returning: director Stephen Spielberg and executive producer George Lucas, who dreamed up Indy while awaiting the box-office fate of another cinematic project, a minor trifle titled "Star Wars."

The new "Indiana Jones" movie, set in the '50s, also marks "Raiders" co-star Karen Allen's comeback as once-and-future Indy flame Marion. "Transformers" teenthrob Shia LaBeouf, meanwhile, plays Indy's rebellious sidekick (and maybe more) when the ol' professor's called back into action to counter Soviet agents (led by Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett) who are hot on the trail of mystical Amazonian artifacts known as crystal skulls.

Yet that archaeological expedition's nothing compared to the one we're about to take: back to the remote and exotic realm of 1981, when "Raiders of the Lost Ark" first burst onto the silver screen and made Indiana Jones a favorite of awestruck audiences.

"It was such a different world" in those days, muses Jeremy Devine, marketing vice president for Rave Theatres, which operates Town Square's 18-screen digital multiplex. Home video "was in its infancy," along with "merchandising and marketing" campaigns that plaster images of Indy everywhere, from supermarket aisles to fast-food drive-throughs, to remind us he's back.

But back in 1981, nobody was paying much attention to that movie with some "Star Wars" guy playing a pre-World War II treasure hunter. Especially when most movie insiders expected a more familiar hero -- make that superhero -- to dominate the summer box office.

Las Vegan Ed Mintz, who heads the CinemaScore audience survey firm, asked Los Angeles moviegoers that summer what movie they most eagerly anticipated. Their top pick: "Superman II," with Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel.

A New York Times summer preview quoted Mintz's survey, which indicated "almost no awareness" of the World War II-era treasure hunt "Raiders of the Lost Ark," Mintz noted. Not at that point, anyway.

The week that "Raiders" opened (June 12, 1981, in a little more than a thousand theaters, most of them single-screen), you could buy a loaf of bread for about 50 cents and mail a letter for 18 cents.

But some things never change: a Review-Journal headline stated "Motorists to find Nevada gasoline prices have risen," above an Associated Press story that began this way: "Motorists planning to spend their vacations meandering down Nevada's highways this summer had also better plan to pay more for gasoline." How much more? Pump prices that week ranged from $1.34 to $1.48.

An answering machine cost about $200; a microwave oven was almost $300, according to advertisements that ran in the Review-Journal. And homes in Woodland Hills Estates, located at Washington Avenue and Valley View Boulevard, started at $89,700. (If you bought one, your mortgage interest would be 131/4 percent.)

A movie ticket, meanwhile, would set you back $5.50 -- or $3 for a matinee.

When you wanted to see a particular movie in Las Vegas, you went to a specific theater, because there was no such thing as a split run, recalls longtime Las Vegan Pat Neal, who in those days managed the now-demolished Red Rock 11 on West Charleston Boulevard, one of the few multiplexes in existence at the time.

"Raiders of the Lost Ark" opened at the long-gone, 900-seat Fox Charleston, located inside the Charleston Plaza mall on East Charleston Boulevard.

But on the night Sean Jones met Indiana Jones at the Fox, he wasn't there to see "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Not intentionally, anyway.

The teen and his big brother Ben went to the Fox to see the Richard Pryor comedy "Bustin' Loose," along with numerous Valley High School classmates. When "Bustin' Loose" ended, however, a Paramount Pictures representative announced a special sneak preview of the studio's newest movie: "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

About half the audience booed, Jones remembers, because "they thought the movie was about the (Oakland) Raiders football team." And when the movie began with a '30s jungle scene, a few audience members wondered "where's the football?"

Very soon, however, "the crowd got really quiet" as they experienced one of the most thrilling opening sequences in movie history: Indiana Jones exploring a booby-trapped lair, retrieving a priceless golden idol -- and running for his life.

"That must be the fastest beginning of any movie ever," marvels Ira Josephs, who runs a movie course for the senior learning program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "They must have had a ball making that."

During the Fox preview, in the memorable scene where Indy outwits a sword-twirling adversary by felling him with a single shot, "the first three rows of people stood and cheered," Jones recalls, describing the reaction as "insane."

No wonder Jones told all his Valley High classmates about the great movie he'd just seen, "all about an archaeologist, with spears and boulders," he says. "I was really happy he was named Jones."

Despite the enthusiastic "Raiders" welcome, Mel Brooks' "History of the World, Part I" at the Red Rock actually outgrossed "Raiders" that first week in Las Vegas, Neal remembers. "We were one of the few locations in the country that did."

But "as soon as the word" on "Raiders" spread, he adds, "it went on to run and run and run. It stayed for months."

In part, that's because moviegoers kept going back to see it.

When Sean Jones' mom went shopping, he'd ask her to drop him off at the Fox so he could see "Raiders" a few more times. (In those pre-home video days, it was the only way to watch it again. As the posters warned, "If you don't go to the movies -- you won't see ... 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' ")

"I went at noon and stayed 'til 6 or 7 at night," says Jones, who teaches art and film history at Canyon Springs High School. (The snack bar attendants rewarded Jones' loyal patronage with free popcorn.)

And when then-19-year-old college student Francisco Menendez (who now chairs the UNLV film department) returned to Tacoma, Wash., after a summer in his native El Salvador, his classmates met him at the airport -- and they all went to see "Raiders of the Lost Ark" for a fourth time.

It made perfect sense, Menendez says, considering how Spielberg and Lucas had "changed movies forever" in the '70s, creating "Jaws" and "Star Wars," respectively -- two movies that sparked the trend toward "repeat business," he comments.

"Raiders" added a twist to the repeat formula with a compressed structure resembling a vintage, 12-chapter movie serial, because "every 12 minutes there would be a cliffhanger," Menendez explains. Yet unlike the cheap B-movie quickies that inspired "Raiders," the quality and imagination on display "made it incredibly breathtaking and fun."

Indiana Jones will undoubtedly face many more cliffhangers as he braves "The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" -- and the competition during the 2008 summer movie season.

But the biggest one may be whether any movie -- even this one -- could possibly recapture the original's bewitching hold on audiences.

After all, contemporary kids "have their computers, their iPods, their video games" competing with movies for their time, money and attention, Jones says of his three children, who range in age from 11 to 17. "We had our reading and our record player."

And, with the advent of megaplexes showing blockbusters on multiple screens at multiple locations, nobody has to stand in line to see the summer's hottest movies.

"It's convenience," Neal says with a nostalgic sigh. "There was something mystical about the old way."

UNLV film professor Hart Wegner worries that the new Indiana Jones won't measure up to his memories of the old.

"I don't know how this is going to turn out," he admits. But, after almost 20 years of life with the original -- "the movie is never gone," he says of its continuing popularity on video and on TV -- he's planning to join the opening-day throngs, along with his wife and their 13-year-old daughter, who's seen "Raiders" 15 times.

Neal acknowledges that his excitement about a new Indy adventure may be "just me, trying to relive my past."

But even Jones' Canyon Springs students seem willing to give Indiana Jones 4.0 a chance, he notes, citing one skeptical teen who expressed fears that a globe-trotting adventurer eligible for Social Security was "going to be all old and fat." That is, until his teacher showed him a "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" preview on the Internet, eliciting a positive response.

As Indiana Jones himself would (and did) say, "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."

Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.