Costume Design by: Anthony Powell ( notable efforts: The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969), Travels with My Aunt (1972), Papillon (1973), Sorcerer (1977), Death on the Nile (1978), Tess (1979), Evil Under the Sun (1982), Pirates (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Hook (1991), 101 Dalmatians (1996), 102 Dalmatians (2000) )
A family adventure that will frighten all the family! This very lurid and unfortunately quite racist entry in the
Indiana Jones series didn't just ramp up the violence but also the glamour, as it starts right off the bat with a wonderfully glitzy cabaret sequence where the singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) performs the
infamous 'Anything Goes' song to a parade of backup dancers. Willie sports an almost iconic asymmetrically designed red and gold sequined dress, that was made of genuine 1920s/1930s beads, that even has each glove be the corresponding colour of the side of dress its on!
There is also a funny story with this costume; due to its expensive construction, only one was made and was used in all the scenes - including the outdoor scenes shot in Sri Lanka where an elephant started to eat the dress! Anthony Powell himself had to perform emergency repair work on the dress and fill out insurance forms; the reason for its damage was 'eaten by elephant'.
In the intro and outro of the song, Willie is flanked by a group of dancers in short pink and gold striped dresses with red jewelled trim, worn with translucent plastic rice hats.
The middle of the sequence meanwhile has a second group of dancers all wearing jackets, shorts and top hats made up of silver and black sequins.
The bulk of the film's action is set in India, where a mysterious cult has been revived in 'Pankot Palace', which has a blithely racist comedic sequence showing its inhabitants eating gross garbage instead of food. This sequence has Willie sport a lovely Indian style dress with gold, peach and green trim around the collar, sleeves and skirt, worn with a veil as well - sadly this dress isn't really seen clearly on-screen, being mostly closeups or at a distance.
Pankot is ruled by a young maharajah who wears this lovely
achkan jacket made of a reddish fabric with silver trim, worn with a turban and copious amounts of jewellery.
As per the film's inspirations being racist films like
Gunga Din, Pankot's cult happens to be the Thuggee (a group that most likely never existed and was made up by the British colonial regime...now there was a group of bloodthirsty savages worshipping a
godless heathen belief system), and as such Willie is made to be sacrificed whilst wearing this admittedly very pretty white dress, which looks to be a little inspired by the cliched belly dancer image.
The young maharajah that runs Pankot is also part of the Thuggee cult, and as such has his own cultist attire consisting of a silver and black skirt and sash, worn with a black turban that is also adorned with jewels.
Lastly is the leader of the Thuggee cult, Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) and his underlings dressed in garments that are a mishmash of Eastern religious garb and kitschy 'Satanic' and 'occult' imagery. Mola wears a red and black sari-like garment that is worn with an ominous headdress made of a cow skull with a shrunken head stuck on it - for better or worse, it is a striking image. His underlings meanwhile just wear skirts and turbans, but the turbans have head-shaped sculptures on the top of them, which together with the skull-like facepaint is the most striking aspect.
