20 Things You Somehow Missed In Raiders Of The Lost Ark
10. The Fly In Paul Freeman's Mouth
This has to be the oddest entry on this list.
In the sequence in which Indy threatens to destroy the Ark of the Covenant with a Panzerfaust, Belloq challenges him to destroy the very history that he has spent his life searching for, suspecting (correctly) that the American cannot do it. Whilst filming this scene on location in Tunisia, a fly landed on Freeman's mouth and crawled inside. Ever the professional, Freeman did not falter in his performance one bit. However, we never see the fly emerge from Freeman's mouth.
Freeman has admitted that one question that he is invariably asked by Indiana Jones fans is whether he swallowed the fly. Confirming that he did not, Freeman has explained that the fly crawled back out of his mouth moments later, but Spielberg liked the effect of Belloq seeming to swallow the fly so much that he cut a few frames of film to make it appear as though Belloq had a thing for consuming them.
Why, oh why, did Belloq swallow that fly?