Raiders of the Lost Ark Locations

Locations Manager(s): Bryan Coates, Abdelkrim Baccar, Habib Chaari

Raiders of the Lost Ark Filming Locations:

Various parts of the movie were shot at the Masonic School including the initial meeting with Government people and the Government meeting office at the end.

While the interior scenes for Barnett Lecture Hall were filmed at the Royal Masonic School for Girls, the exterior was actually the Conservatory of Music at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA (80 miles east of San Francisco). [Thanks to Don Nguyen]

The opening scenes were shot in Kauai, Hawaii. Robert Watts (Associate Producer) said "On the bog planet set in The Empire Strikes Back we used a creeping vine that is called 'Old Man's Beard'. When we were done with the bog planet we took all that creeper down and left it up on the backlot of the studio, thinking we might use it again. Well, when we built the Raiders temple set in the studio, we used a lot of that Old Man's Beard again; and not only that, we took some of that English Old Man's Beard all the way to Hawaii and hung it down the mosquito hole. The same stuff that had been on the bog planet and in the studio in England ended its life down that mosquito hole in Hawaii!

The river used in Kauai for Indy's swing was Hulei'a Stream.

The desert scenes were shot in Tunisia, including some locations that had previously been used for Star Wars. Tozeur was used for the 'Tanis' Digs, The truck chase and the Flying Wing base.

Sallah's house was located in Kairouan, Tunisia, which also doubled as 1930's Cairo. It's a real house, but they built a terrace out on the roof so they could see over the city. They also had to take down about 300 television aerials that spoiled the view.

EMI Elstree Studios, near London, England were used for Various sets that were built including Imam's house, the Temple, Map Room and Marion's Bar. The production used all the stages, 1 to 5.

Scenes from Raiders Of The Lost Ark were apparently filmed just up the road from Milton Keynes, England, in a place called New Bradwell [Thanks to Jem Maidment]

The Submarine Pen is the the only surviving German U-Boat pen in La Rochelle, France.

The island at the end of the movie where the ark is opened was actually Marin Island, in San Francisco Bay.

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