"Raiders of the Lost Ark", a 1981 American action-adventure film, was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Lawrence Kasdan, based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. Set in 1936, the film stars Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, a globetrotting archaeologist vying with Nazi German forces to recover the long-lost Ark of the Covenant. It is said to make an army invincible. Teaming up with his tough former romantic interest Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Jones races to stop rival archaeologist Dr. René Belloq (Paul Freeman) from guiding the Nazis to the Ark and its power.

In an important scene in 1936, Jones recovers the Chachapoyan Fertility Idol, more commonly referred to as the Golden Idol, from a booby-trapped Peruvian temple. Jones' rival archaeologist Belloq corners him and steals the idol; Jones escapes in a waiting seaplane. After returning to the USA, Jones is briefed by two US Army Intelligence agents that Nazi German forces are excavating at Tanis, Egypt. In one of the US army telegrams, it mentions Jones' former mentor Abner Ravenwood. Jones deduces that the Nazis are seeking the Ark of the Covenant, which Adolf Hitler believes will make his army invincible. The US agents then recruit Jones to recover the Ark first. South America and Peru are no longer locations to visit, Jones has to go to vast places such as Nepal and Egypt to find the artifact, the Ark.

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