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TM2YC's 1001 Movies (Chronological up to page 25/post 481)

TM2YC

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Annie Hall (1977)
Director: Woody Allen
Country: United States
Length: 93 minutes
Type: Romantic Comedy, Drama

I shouldn't have left it so long before seeing this classic, one from the top-35 of the AFI's 100 greatest movies. It's a beautiful romantic-comedy, a razor sharp satire of middle-class New York life, a gag-filled laugh-a-thon but also a mature, intellectual and unsensational examination of the changing fortunes in a relationship. Woody Allen freely shifts between reality, fantasy, voice-overs and dream sequences but it all feels so cohesive and focused. My biggest chuckle of many, many laughs was probably the deadpan line "I'm into leather". I thought there was a proto-'Seinfeld' flavour to it (but more spiky), with jokes about going to the cinema on a date to see 'The Sorrow and The Pity', instead of 'Schindler's List'.





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Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Country: Mexico / United States
Length: 112 minutes
Type: Western, Noir

'Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia' is gritty, grimy, occasionally nasty but often beautiful road-movie, melding the Western and Noir genres in a modern Mexican setting. Warren Oates plays Bennie a shambolic, flea-bitten American piano player who spots an opportunity for an easy payday when a crime lord proclaims "Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia!" because Bennie secretly knows that Garcia is already dead, so he "simply" needs to dig up the body. Of course he's dealing with very dangerous men, so what Bennie sees as a nice picnic trip with his girlfriend turns increasingly violent and chaotic. Oates portrays a man consumed by desperation and inner moral conflict. Several scenes are arguably very misogynist but it does have a final message that no amount of money is worth more than the love and respect of a good woman and concludes with a woman triumphing over the powerful man who had mistreated her.

I'm glad I've finally seen the punchline to 50-years of jokes on the Radio 4 comedy panel show 'I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue'. e.g. Hairdressers Film Club: "Bring Me the Head and Shoulders of Alfredo Garcia" :LOL:


The main theme is beautiful:

 

mnkykungfu

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^Man, check out that poster! The grime on the fingers.... I need to see this.
 

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Playtime (1967)
Director: Jacques Tati
Country: France
Length: 124 minutes
Type: Comedy

I tried watching 'Playtime' about 10-years ago when it first hit blu-ray, I was enticed by it being 70mm in HD and it did look stunning but I got bored with it inside half an hour. After seeing a couple of other Jacques Tati films and growing to like his subtle style of humour and his alter ego 'Monsieur Hulot', I gave 'Playtime' a second go. The first part does start off slow and I'm not sure a man sitting on chairs is all that funny but the layers of comedy and callbacks build up across the film to outright manic levels by the end. The businessman rhythmically fussing with his clothes, Hulot mistaking a reflection for reality and Nuns with flapping hats were early highlights. Most of the 2nd half takes place at the opening night of a badly designed, unfinished, modernist restaurant, inundated with customers. This extended sequence was total genius, I loved every second. The chaotic disasters increasingly run out of control until the restaurant acquires a kind of bohemian anarchic equilibrium. The patrons and the staff learn to adapt to the disfunction, swapping their tattered clothes one by one and pretending a broken glass door pane still exists through mime. The huge town-sized production unfortunately bankrupted Tati, despite him employing obvious cardboard cut-outs to populate background extras and cars, although I'm unsure if that isn't also a satirical comment on "artificial" modern city life. I will definitely be watching 'Playtime' again and will certainly spot a thousand more little gags I missed this time.


Monty Python's Terry Jones talks with passion about the film:

 

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Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Director: Roman Polanski
Country: United States
Length: 136 minutes
Type: Psychological Horror

The problem with watching 'Rosemary's Baby' 50-years too late is that everything has been copied from it and in some cases the devil-worshipping/anti-Christ Horror has been improved upon (e.g. 'The Omen' and 'The Exorcist'). I knew where the story was heading and was wondering why it took Mia Farrow 2-hours to catch up. Maybe in 1968 this concept was very novel so Roman Polanski had to lay some of it on thick, where as today you'd have to be subtle with the clues for a jaded Horror movie viewer not to guess. I think it could be edited in such a way as to play up the baby-sacrificing threat that Rosemary fears much more stronger and to remove any hint of "devil spawn" 'til the end, so we get hit with the twist at the same time as Rosemary. I liked that it never even once (IIRC) does that thing where your protagonist walks out of a scene, then the other character's facial expression changes in a suspicious or evil way. We experience exactly what Rosemary experiences in that respect. Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer play Rosemary's satanic elderly neighbours with such charm and polite loveability, they make you think "Devil worshipping can't be that bad?". Krzysztof Komeda and Farrow's lullaby theme music is so creepy.




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Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Director: Sidney Lumet
Country: United States
Length: 125 minutes
Type: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Now I've seen all five of John Cazale's movies, all were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and three won the award, what an amazing and too short career. I'd never heard of the true story behind this bank heist movie but apparently the film stuck very close to the unbelievable facts. Al Pacino and Cazale play two unfortunate robbers giving a masterclass in how to not hold up a bank. It's a two-hour heart-attack of a thriller with some interesting things to say about 70s anti-authoritarian sentiment, what it was like for a transgender couple at the time and still has surprisingly relevant observations on US policing. You're definitely meant to be on the side of the hapless robbers, rather than the law but it was more difficult to gauge if some of the scenes were supposed to be funny to a 1975 audience because they're not funny in 2021, they're tragic and sympathetic.

 

mnkykungfu

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The problem with watching 'Rosemary's Baby' 50-years too late is that everything has been copied from it and ... improved upon....I knew where the story was heading and was wondering why it took Mia Farrow 2-hours to catch up.
Yeah, everything you said is so true. I had this same experience when I first watched it maybe 20 years ago. Well made, but the pacing just feels so slow and it's rather dull as it makes no effort to hint there should be mistrust or tension. I think for much of the run time, you're meant to think Farrow is over-reacting and "being hysterical"...but in '68 that was an easy conclusion to jump to. Nowadays, we (I hope) give women a lot more credit and need a film to nudge us in that direction more. We instead KNOW that we're seeing a movie because something is hinky, and the film playing coy about that is just a drag and makes us devalue the protagonist for being thick.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
... it was more difficult to gauge if some of the scenes were supposed to be funny to a 1975 audience because they're not funny in 2021, they're tragic and sympathetic.
Great points again. About that last one: I've heard older critics/celebs talking about watching this in the theater, and they all reported it was a real... I shouldn't say "crowd pleaser" exactly, but it got big reactions from the audience. I think a lot of bits were very much that misplaced, othering sense of humor that pervaded into the '90s. The film is both sympathetic towards people, while also taking shots at things they do or say that it considers funny. I think the Western sense of humor about "punching down" has (mostly) changed so the scenes play differently now.
Side note: ever seen Killing Zoe?
 

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Side note: ever seen Killing Zoe?

No, I remember the poster image though. A heist movie with something to do with Tarantino wasn't it?
 

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^I saw it before Dog Day, only realized in retrospect it was influenced by/playing off that film. My friends and I loved it as teens, but I should rewatch it. It was produced by QT and directed by his would-be protege.
 

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Once Upon a Time in China (1991)
Director: Tsui Hark
Country: Hong Kong
Length: 134 minutes
Type: Kung Fu

On my first viewing I found all the competing factions, large cast of characters and the political and geographic context hard to fully digest as it whizzed past. After having seen all six films in the series, I felt better prepared to revisit and simply enjoy a Jet Li/Tsui Hark, Wong Fei-hung adventure. However, on this second watch the over complicated plotting didn't frustrate from being confusing, it frustrated because I wanted to spend the whole film with the characters I grew to love over the franchise; Wong Fei-hung and "13th Aunt". It feels like they are barely in 50% of this first movie. When they are on screen, their hesitant romance is utterly charming, "13th Aunt"'s confidence is as endearing as Wong's shyness is around her, plus of course Jet Li's fight scenes are incredible (with Hung Yan-yan as his stunt double). It's difficult to pick a favourite fight sequence, like Wong trying to prevent a fight from preceding in an English restaurant by fighting everyone, or the ridiculously complicated ladder/warehouse finale but perhaps it's got to be the expertly choreographed umbrella fight in the teahouse. Most of the subplots do eventually tie up as the story builds into the last act, giving the film an exponentially increasing excitement. Kai is one apprentice too many, Porky Wing, Bucktooth-So and Foon are very distinctive and have their own important parts to play in the plot/themes but I can't remember what Kai's role in the film was and I just watched it. Like the Bond theme, it's always a thrill to hear 'Under the General's Orders' but like the Bond theme, it's not used enough! I enjoy singing/shouting "Gwong!" along with the song because it's the only bit I can remember (I think it means "Honour"?). I watched with the Cantonese Stereo track on the Eureka! blu-ray.



Then I listened to the old Bey Logan and Mark King commentary from the out-of-print 'Hong Kong Legends' DVD. Due to Logan being embroiled in various allegations it's not been included on the newer releases of the film. It's a fascinating oddity because HK film expert and enthusiast Logan is paired with American actor/stuntman King (he appeared in 'Once Upon a Time in China' and many other HK movies) who is unashamedly "honest" about hating Hong Kong action movies. He loved working on them, is happy to be paid to do a commentary for one but has no interest in ever watching them (even his own films). So it's amusing to hear Logan desperately trying to "get blood out of a stone" from King about a movie he's never watched. There is also some interesting context about the place of Tsui Hark's film in the long history of Wong Fei-hung movies.

 

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^haha that commentary sounds like a glorious trainwreck. Wow, I had always misremembered "Oh! Hei! Oh sui man chung long!" as the the theme song from Shaolin Temple, thanks for the reminder. Iconic track. OUATIC is a series that was always diminishing returns for me, but this first one is titanic, and I love the 2nd film as well. I've been sorting through someone's Letterboxd list of over 2,500 (!) Asian films and trying to put together a watchlist of older Chinese/HK ones. I'm fairly up on my Kung Fu greats (still some holes) but I've always struggled to get into Wuxia. I feel like the Wong Fei Hung stories, and this series in particular, really split the difference.
 

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OUATIC is a series that was always diminishing returns for me, but this first one is titanic, and I love the 2nd film as well.

I've always struggled to get into Wuxia. I feel like the Wong Fei Hung stories, and this series in particular, really split the difference.

I liked 2 more than 1. 3 is alright but had far too much of that Wuxia flying about instead proper fighting and far too much lion dancing. The other three are a mixed bag. I'd be curious to see the TV show if it ever gets restored like the films. Then we could get some TV-to-movie edits of that one.



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The Cloud-Capped Star (1960)
Director: Ritwik Ghatak
Country: India
Length: 127 minutes
Type: Drama

The "The Cloud-Capped Star" of the title ('Meghe Dhaka Tara') refers to Nita, the selfless daughter of a middle class family in reduced circumstances and her sacrifices for the rest of the family. Supriya Choudhury plays her so tragically and Anil Chatterjee is also powerful as her singer brother, the one member of the family who truly seems to care about Nita, or at least feels shame and responsibility for her suffering. Director Ritwik Ghatak employs exquisite deep-focus photography and highly innovative (for 1960) non-diagetic sound to express and accentuate inner feelings. Such as, train whistles, boiling kettles, alarms and the sound of a whip, metaphorically flagellating the unfortunate protagonist. It's a fairly well worn technique now e.g. the train noise as Michael prepares to commit his first murder in 'The Godfather'. The music and singing are haunting and beautiful. The scene where a desolate Nita wonders out into the night with the rain lashing down, with the moody lighting, music and soundFX in full effect is really something. All that being said, it does get a bit slow in places across 2-hours. Make sure you watch the Criterion 2K restoration to soak up all the detail.


The cinematography looks gorgeous: https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Cloud-Capped-Star-Blu-ray/235496/#Screenshots
 

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I liked 2 more than 1.
I'd have to rewatch... we lose a Yuen Biao but we gain a Donnie Yen. But yeah, they're both great.
3 is alright but had far too much of that Wuxia flying about instead proper fighting and far too much lion dancing.
There's a noticeable drop here, yeah. No more Yuen Woo-Ping doing action directing, instead Yuen Bun comes in and he's all about the wirework. I did love the lion dancing, but yeah, it was no substitute for the fights.
The other three are a mixed bag. I'd be curious to see the TV show if it ever gets restored like the films. Then we could get some TV-to-movie edits of that one.
#4 is the absolute low point for me. I shut it off the first time and returned all my rental tapes (I had gotten the whole series). Complete recasting, no YWP, no Tsui Hark, instead they put action director Yuen Bun in charge of the whole film. Ugh.

At least in #5, Rosamund Kwan and Tsui Hark are back. But we're still stuck with Zhao Wenzhuo as Wong Fei Hung, and he's no Jet Li.

Once Upon a Time in China and America is friggin great. It's my 3rd favorite. The story is weak, sure, and usually story is really important to me. But the bar is automatically lower on martial arts films. More importantly, Sammo Hung is in the director's seat, and setting up some amazing choreography! Jet Li is back with Kwan, and it's just a joyous way to cap off the series. I'd honestly tell everyone to just skip 4+5 and end it with this one.
 

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^ Agreed on every point (except the lion dancing ;) ). I'd have had a bigger smile left on my face if the series had ended with a wedding but the ring will have to do.



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Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
Director: Woody Allen
Country: United States
Length: 104 minutes
Type: Drama-Comedy

'Crimes and Misdemeanors' has two quite separate plots running at the same time, which only interact in a small way at the end. Cutting what is essentially two short films into one long film shouldn't work but I enjoyed every second and the way they are put together flows so well. In one half Martin Landau plays a successful and wealthy Doctor contemplating having his erratic ex-mistress bumped off, while troubled by recollections of his religious upbringing. The other lighter half features Woody Allen as a middling documentary maker besotted by the Producer of an awful media puff-piece they're both working on just for the cash. The existential darkness of the Landau scenes are offset by the charming possible-romance of Allen's scenes, further buoyed up by him taking his character's niece (and us the viewer) on trips to lovely old Hollywood movies. I loved the way Alan Alda's character uses a Dictaphone to note down barely disguised criticisms of people right in front of them.

 

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Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Country: United States / United Kingdom
Length: 115 minutes
Type: Action, Adventure

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas applied the winning James Bond action/adventure formula to the old-timey serials of their youth, combined with up-to-date FX, modern blockbuster wit, gritty stunts, tasteful direction and so created something fresh, probably never bettered and arguably superior to any actual Bond movies. For example, instead of the villains leaving James to die in "an easily escapable situation", Indy is given seemingly insurmountable problems. So when you see the villains go from crowing about entombing Indy in the 'Well of Souls', only for him to survive the snakes, bust out by smashing a giant statue through a wall, kill Pat Roach, blow up their plane, save Marion, grab a horse, board their truck at full speed, commander the controls, then be the one chasing them to their utter amazement (while his theme music plays) makes such a sweet reversal of fortunes... and he's not even finished with the heroics! That sequence is a whole 20-minutes of the movie, every ounce of drama is wrung out of the situation. There are lots of little moments, lines, artful shots, set decorations and touches of humour that I'd quite forgotten about. I guess sometimes you've watched a movie you love so many (many) times that you've stopped really paying attention. The editing (by Michael Kahn) is a marvel, he allows dialogue scenes to play out slowly and carefully, then at other points chops out big segments of the action, completely confident that the viewer will know what happened in the gaps. He does the same thing in 'Jurassic Park', like when the Raptors break into the offices, except we never see it. In some ways 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' defies the rules of engaging filmmaking. It has a hero that has no effect on the outcome of the plot, who fails to possess at least two MacGuffins, who never actually personally defeats his enemies and who is literally tied up and inactive during the finale, plus the film features long scenes of pure exposition that are somehow utterly riveting. Maybe those rules do matter but when you're 34-year old Steven Spielberg, they just don't apply to you. My favourite bit is still when Indy exchanges a triumphant salute with the cheering tramp-steamer crew as 'The Raiders March' plays.

 

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So when you see the villains go from crowing about entombing Indy in the 'Well of Souls', only for him to survive the snakes, bust out by smashing a giant statue through a wall, kill Pat Roach, blow up their plane, save Marion, grab a horse, board their truck at full speed, commander the controls, then be the one chasing them to their utter amazement (while his theme music plays) makes such a sweet reversal of fortunes...
Uh...SPOILERS!
;)
But can we sidebar for a second about the whole "Indy has no effect on the outcome of the plot" argument?
Man, that one really toasts my chestnuts, I just hate to see it spread around. First off, it's a pretty weak argument (here's a good example why). Secondly, (and I know you love the movie and this isn't your motivation), but it's made for the wrong reasons.

That started as someone saying "look how clever I am because I figured out that your beloved film isn't as good as you think it is!"
and not
"this film does something unconventional and that's why it's just as good as you think it is!"

It's another one of these people trying to poke at something iconic for likes and retweets. And then it caught on and now people just repeat it without argument because it sounds clever. I feel like those of us who know the movies are never about Indy "winning" because he's some conventional good guy can do our part by just not repeating a half-baked internet scream for attention. You want to try to pick a movie apart, go pick on The Last Jedi. :p
 

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Shrug. I've always loved Raiders, and always will. Unapologetically.
 

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I wasn't saying Raiders isn't a "perfect movie", just that Indy "has no effect on the outcome of the plot" and it doesn't matter. A character's lack of agency in a plot, isn't necessarily the reason why a movie sucks (an argument that is often made). To bring Bond up again... Bond has virtually no effect on the plot of 'Goldfinger' (apart from shagging Pussy Galore) but that's still a fantastically entertaining adventure.

It's similar to the "MacGuffin" misunderstanding some people seem to have. Hitchcock was making the point that what people are chasing has no particular importance to a thriller being thrilling, just that they must be chasing something. An Ark of the Covenant, a Maltese Falcon, a Holy Grail, A Shankara stone, a Microfilm etc. That a movie has a "MacGuffin" is not the reason it sucks.

To be honest I can't be bothered to watch that linked video to find out what it has to say. I'm clickbaity video averse.

Indy isn't in the plot = the Nazi's find the Ark, open it and get their faces melted - vs - Indy is in the plot = Indy finds the Ark, the Nazi's get it back, open it and get their faces melted.

^ I've thought a lot about that one and I'm not sure where the gap is in that logic. You could argue that a difference Indy does make is that the American's ultimately get the Ark and benignly put it in a warehouse, instead of it going straight to Hitler and the Nazi high command, them opening it and all being face-melted, which would make Indy responsible for ensuring WW2 happened :LOL: . There is also some doubt as to what Marion would do without Indy there. I believe that Marion would have sold Toht the medallion, if Indy hadn't that very minute tipped her off that a biding war was potentially in the offing. But it's possible she would still have refused to hand it over, resulting in her being tortured a bit and giving up the medallion and going on with her life, or her being murdered by Toht and them finding the medallion on her body. Either way Indy is the cause of her bar burning down and her returning to the USA. So Indy has an effect on Marion but since Marion has no effect on the plot either, that doesn't really count. It's the tug of war between the protagonists and antagonists that make Raiders an exciting adventure. It's those reversals of fortune that make it dramatic.

By the way, one thing I forgot to mention in my review was that... I'd somehow never really connected before that Indy is pictured scribbling things in a little book with a rubber band round the middle, much like his father's Grail Diary. Nice touch!
 

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^I know you like the film, it's all good. The "Indy has no effect on the plot" is just a poor argument. The video isn't clickbait, it's a very efficient (and timecode linked) explanation of why the argument breaks down literally as soon as you start watching the film with that in mind. If you don't want to watch, that's fine. It's a lengthy and well thought out explanation, so I'm not going to retype it. But it's out there if anyone wants to know why parroting that observation is meritless.

What's more important is, I think spreading that argument gives people the impression that Raiders is just a frivolous adventure. It tells a younger generation of filmgoers that "Don't worry, this was just a fun blockbuster that your dad likes because of nostalgia". It sells the film short, as if it's not well thought-out. I'm sure that's not the intention of people who love the film, but I think that's the net effect.
 

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Okay, I went and watched it:


The only somewhat valid argument that the guy in the video makes is his assumption that the Nazis might have been incapable of finding Marion Ravenwood on their own, without following Indy to Nepal, despite us the audience already having been told that her father Abner Ravenwood was "mentioned so prominently in a secret Nazi cable" which said the Nazis knew Ravenwood had the head-piece, they knew this before Indy enters the story (because it's this same Nazi cable that results in the US government contacting Indy, a known associate of Abner), plus the Nazis must know Abner is dead, must know he had a daughter, must suspect that she may still have it and considering they have a global intelligence network, be in a much better position to locate her obvious current whereabouts, still in Abner's bar in Nepal than Indy was, a guy who hadn't seen or spoken to Abner or Marion in 10-years (but still magically knows where she is).

Every other point he makes is either completely wrong, or not properly thought out, or misses the point of the whole argument... except of course when he says that it doesn't matter if Indy effects the outcome of the plot, or not, its about enjoying the ride along the way. Agreed :) .
 

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^The video literally has on-screen audio and video examples for each of his points. They are all things I'd thought of before as well. So unless you have a specific detail to point out why it's "completely wrong", I'm going to stick with my argument that people saying "Indy has no effect on the plot" is just working overtime to try to make themselves seem clever.

Now, if the argument is "The Nazis may, eventually, someday, have located Marion on their own. And someday, maybe, she might not have avoided them or seen them coming. And maybe, after digging up the whole desert, they might have found the proper spot (if Hitler had changed his mind about getting tired of waiting for them). And that maybe, someday, the US government might have recovered the ark from the Nazis.... but we don't know for sure because we're just speculating and there's really nothing shown in the film to make us certain that would've happened..." well, that's a strong argument. But not a very catchy one.

Clearly you have your mind made up, so whatevs, this is your thread and I won't bash your opinion. I just find it disappointing that people spread that Indy argument, since it doesn't seem to come from a place of genuine appreciation for the film.
 

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Now, if the argument is "The Nazis may, eventually, someday, have located Marion on their own.

As I said that ^ was the one "somewhat valid argument that the guy in the video makes" (even though them finding her on their own is a virtual certainty as I suggested, plus it's only visually implied that they were actually following Indy (admittedly HEAVILY implied)), everything else follows on from that single point e.g.

maybe, after digging up the whole desert, they might have found the proper spot

No because if they have found Marion, they have the medallion, so they have the staff length, they already have the map room, so they know the proper spot, so they have the well of souls, so they have the ark, so they open the ark, so they die. Which is the same result, Indy doesn't get the ark (because he's not in the imaginary movie we are discussing), it either gets picked up by the US first, or the Nazis get it first and those left with unmelted faces after they open the ark put it in a similar warehouse in Berlin until after they lose WW2, when the US probably gets it anyway. Indy has no say in who gets the ark, wether he's in the movie or not, a higher power is shown to be calling the shots on that one.

So if you want to change it from "Indy has no effect on the outcome of the plot", to "Indy has no conscious effect on the outcome of the plot" (because he didn't know he was being followed) then I suppose I'm okay with it. So in an Indy-less Raiders, a quick insert shot of Toht looking Marion up in the phonebook, is equal to the effect of Indy being in the film.
 
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