20 Things You Didn't Know About Raiders Of The Lost Ark

When Indy and Marion enter the Well of the Souls, they are greeted by, like, ALL the snakes. Or so it seems. Most of the snakes... aren't snakes. After rounding up serpents from every pet store in London for this scene, Steven Spielberg still wanted more. He came up with the genius (or stupid) idea of getting a bunch of water hoses and chucking them into the scene.

Now, since hoses can't exactly slither around, the next step was to get an animal which moves around and looks like a snake but isn't dangerous. If you look closely, you will see that most of the serpents in this scene are snakes; they are legless lizards. You can tell which is which since, unlike snakes, these non-venomous creatures have eyelids, a non-forked tongue, and external ear holes.

Now, there were a few real snakes in the scene, (one of which bit a crew-member). In the shot where Indy comes face-to-face with a very real venomous cobra, a glass sheet was put in front of him to ensure his safety. The reflection of the glass can clearly be seen and was digitally removed when the film was re-released in 2003.