Indiana Jones and the row with the Russians

Published on Friday 23 May 2008 23:04

IN HIS globe-trotting advenutres he has clashed with the Nazis, controlled the power of biblical artefacts and brought about the downfall of ancient cults.

But now Indiana Jones is facing perhaps his most formidable opponents – the Russian Communist Party.

Members of the party have condemned the latest film featuring the famous archaeologist, – released in the UK yesterday – as crude anti-Soviet propaganda that distorts history and have called for it to be banned from Russian screens.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull sees Harrison Ford again donning Jones's fedora in 1957 to compete with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, in finding a crystal skull that is endowed with mystical powers.

Viktor Perov, a Communist Party member in St Petersburg, said: "What galls is how together with the United States we defeated Hitler, and how we sympathised when Osama Bin Laden hit them. But they go ahead and scare kids with Communists. These people have no shame."

Another party member, Andrei Gindos, added: "Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett (are] second-rate actors, serving as the running dogs of the CIA.

"We need to deprive these people of the right of entering the country."

Though the ranks of the once all-powerful Communist Party have dwindled since Soviet times, its members see themselves as the defenders of the achievements of the old Soviet Union.

Other communists said the generation born after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union were being fed revisionist, Hollywood history.

They advocated banning the Indiana Jones film outright to prevent "ideological sabotage".

"Our movie-goers are teenagers who are completely unaware of what happened in 1957," said Sergei Malinkovich, head of the St Peterburg Communist Party.

"They will go to the cinema and will be sure that, in 1957, we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war.

"It's rubbish … In 1957 the communists did not run with crystal skulls throughout the US. Why should we agree to that sort of lie and let the West trick our youth?"

Vladimir Mukhin, another local Communist Party member, said he would ask the culture ministry to ban the film for its "anti-Soviet propaganda".

The film, the fourth in the hugely successful Indiana Jones series, went on release in Russian cinemas on Thursday.

Russian media said it was being shown on 808 screens, the widest-ever release for a Hollywood movie.