Maid Marion: Karen Allen is thrilled over `Indy' return

Nothing ever seems to change in the stormy love-hate relationship between Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood.

The characters created by Harrison Ford and Karen Allen in 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" are back at it with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," due out May 22.

"As the film begins, they haven't seen each other for a long time, and suddenly, they're thrust back together," Allen told The Associated Press this week. "They kind of pick up from where they left off. A few bumpy roads have passed between them since then that they have to work out with each other."

Allen has always been the fan favorite among the women Indy was forever fighting and making up with in the first three films, with viewers long hoping for the two to reunite.

Director Steven Spielberg's future wife, Kate Capshaw, became the archaeologist's love interest in the second movie, 1984's "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Allen's Marion could not have appeared in that one, since "Temple of Doom" took place earlier than "Raiders," which marked the first time she had seen Indy in a decade.

The next movie, 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," took place after "Raiders," and Allen joked that "I guess I could have been in that one, but they decided to go with Sean Connery," who played Indy's estranged dad.

Alison Doody provided Indy's romantic entanglement in "Last Crusade."

Allen was aware that Ford, Spielberg and producer George Lucas had been wrangling for ages over a fourth "Indiana Jones" movie. But she did not know anything for sure until Spielberg called her early last year.

"There had been a rumor for many, many years that they were trying to find a script everybody was going to be happy with," Allen said. "I would get little bits of information from time to time, usually rumor-mill kind of stuff, but I hadn't heard anything for a long time. I had no idea when they finally got a script that my character was back."

Though Allen was more interested in stage work and serious films, Marion offered a rare chance to play a strong, full-blooded woman in a big Hollywood action flick.

Marion's first moments on screen said it all as she chugged through a drinking contest and gave Indy a greeting he would not soon forget.

"She was a very wonderfully written character," Allen said. "How can you go wrong when you meet a woman in a bar in Nepal and she's drinking men under the table, yelling at large men in Nepalese and ordering them out of the bar, and when she first sets eyes on Indiana Jones, she socks him in the jaw? It's a great introduction to the character, and it's hard to imagine she's not going to win a lot of fans."

And what about the speculation that Indy's new young sidekick, played by Shia LaBeouf, is the love child of Indy and Marion?

"You'll have to wait and see," Allen said.