Club Obi Wan

Okay! So the new documentary, Timeless Heroes, has several behind the scenes shots in it, and in one, we finally learn where Indy has the Browning Hi Power stashed the whole time! In a shoulder holster under his left arm! I figured it would be smart to kick off the chat about that, with some pics I took and let's see what people do in regards to making this new found item? I'm going to contact a few mates who have experience to see if we can work out if this is an item already made or if it was made for the film, but my bet is on British, and war related...Clearly sized for the Browning...Have at it! Here are the pics too...

Mahoooosive thanks go to Dr. Jones Jr. for the find here, he noticed and posted it on the Indy V forum below...Well done mate! Great find!

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Having gone through the film one more time looking for shoulder holsters only, I can see only one, possible one, with the big German who wears Indy's grey hat in Cairo... After Indy chats with Belloq he leaves, and the German at that point has an automatic, and is seen to move his hand to the left side under his jacket where the holster would be. The next scene after that, he's fiddling with it, so I suspect that IS a shoulder holster, but that we can have NO way to see the details or if it even matches Indy's earlier in the movie...

I started looking at him because he used the hat, clearly from the flight, from Indy so there's a fair chance he also had other items that worked ok for Ford, such as the holster, but not much luck there...

Incidentally, there is a small sight of the Browning's butt-bulge (awww) through Indy's jacket, in the Raven, at 26 minutes into the movie..He pushes off the bar, and walks toward Marion, and you can see a square shape at his left chest area, where the holster would fit...It's most clear in the video, in 4K but I can supply a photo if needed too! (harder to see)

Anyway....That's the only leads I've worked out so far.

This shot, brightened a load, shows the bulge I’m meaning.. left chest, in front of the shirt pocket there.. I suspect that’s the browning handle..


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It looks like it has a connection to the belt off the bottom of the holster.

Hollowpond wrote:It looks like it has a connection to the belt off the bottom of the holster.

Yeah, over both shoulders and connected to the web belt I believe! It doesn’t look like the gun belt, although it is close! I suspect the gun belt would move up a touch too much to be practical in drawing? But it’s connected to one of them, for sure..


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IVE SAID IT, IVE SAID IT, IVE SAID IT all these years. Indy has two guns!!

Like we have spoken about offline Ben. Its so awesome to finally get more meat on this bone!! Awesome post bud!

This just goes to show to stick with what you believe!

Here you can see the gun change!







And Indy doing alittle switcharoo while this guy from Die Hard is keeping him busy.



Indy pulls out the second gun!


And voila!

Exactly! The switch is so much easier to make sense of with the shoulder holster being a factor! Maybe it was the satchel, but he’s not using it in this scene, maybe it’s in his trouser band? Like the boat scene later? But we can see with the shoulder holster how easy it is to switch, and why in that one second he has the browning hi power available..

So easy now!


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I actually do think he has the shoulder rig on as you can see his jacket being more open after he pulled out th HP.

Holt wrote:I actually do think he has the shoulder rig on as you can see his jacket being more open after he pulled out th HP.

Yeah, after this? There’s NO doubt.. Agreed.. he’s clearly carrying it with Marion, and he’s clearly hiding it with the zip up there, and then the speed of his draw indicates it’s there when he’s shooting the Nepalese gunman too..

It’s there, no doubt…


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Thanks for the shoutout Fifthchamber!

I'm excited for the cosplay possibilities as well as learning whatever the fine folks here are able to dig up

That looks pretty sweet. I would have been nice to have seen this as part of his gear. The ship scenes would have looked awesome with it on. He clearly uses guns in DoD. It would have been cool to see the shoulder hoster since wearing a gun on your belt wouldn't have been practical in 69.

Holt wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 6:56 am IVE SAID IT, IVE SAID IT, IVE SAID IT all these years. Indy has two guns!!

Like we have spoken about offline Ben. Its so awesome to finally get more meat on this bone!! Awesome post bud!

This just goes to show to stick with what you believe!

Eric, we’ve known there were two guns on Indy for 40 years. We just didn’t know exactly where the Browning came from, as a shoulder holster made more sense, but no one could produce a shred of evidence until THESE screen shots just became available. At the time he was spoken to, the prop master said he THOUGHT they used one, but had no record of it one way or another. They kept AWFUL records back then.

We state that in our main page write up which has been available for years now.

"Raiders of the Lost Ark is the only film in which Indy carries two pistols, though exactly where he keeps the second one throughout the film is unknown. Indy's alternate handgun in Raiders was the Browning."

We then had to assume it came out of the bag since that confirmation couldn’t be made.

You can find these debates on Indyfan back in the 90’s!

VERY pleased this FINALLY came to light! GREAT work!!!

Regards! Michaelson

Luckily custom made shoulder holsters are one of my specialities - aiming to have first prototype replica ready around mid-week.

Now that's what I'm talking about...

makeitjones wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 11:36 am Luckily custom made shoulder holsters are one of my specialities - aiming to have first prototype replica ready around mid-week.

Very much looking forward to this! Would you be open to making one that would hold a 1911/ Colt .45 ?

Glad to see a thread dedicated to this, as it deserves one. It's an exciting development. Looking forward to seeing where this takes us.

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Dr. Jones, Jr. wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 12:39 pm

Very much looking forward to this! Would you be open to making one that would hold a 1911/ Colt .45 ?

Template I'm working on will hold Hi Power & 1911.

makeitjones wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 1:57 pm

Dr. Jones, Jr. wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 12:39 pm

Very much looking forward to this! Would you be open to making one that would hold a 1911/ Colt .45 ?

Template I'm working on will hold Hi Power & 1911.

Fantastic!

Its been looking at us this whole time. I love it

Thanks for posting the pics fifthchamber! I was just now trying to take some while pausing the movie. I borrowed yours for a fb post.

I don’t see anything at that arrow, but a shirt collar.


Regards,

Indiana Jeff

I see the shoulder strap!

You can see the shoulder strap is more brown than the jacket collar.

First you see the shirt collar, then the browner toned strap, then a small white line (which is the shirt) then the jacket collar.

That line below his ear looks like light reflecting off the inside of the jacket collar.


Regards,

Indiana Jeff

Wow. Just wow. We’ve been geeking out over this movie for over 40 years, studying, recreating props and costumes…. then a bomb drops from an obscure, unknown photo that not only solves a mystery but fires up the fans!

Kokopelli wrote:Wow. Just wow. We’ve been geeking out over this movie for over 40 years, studying, recreating props and costumes…. then a bomb drops from an obscure, unknown photo that not only solves a mystery but fires up the fans!

Worst part, is wasn’t even a photo, it was BTS video from the movie they showed the documentary…. Where the heck has THIS footage been??


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makeitjones wrote:Luckily custom made shoulder holsters are one of my specialities - aiming to have first prototype replica ready around mid-week.

Very interested.

And yeah, Holt, agreed! Now we KNOW what to look for it does pop a little clearer! There’s no doubt that’s what it is on the left shoulder there!


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I'm working on a prototype to sell on my Etsy page. Looking to use some WW2 Browning holsters as reference for the hidden details. I think I found some that already look super close

Thanks to Pedro, I've acquired a lot more frames. Will post once I download and sort through.

Mike wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 11:53 pm Thanks to Pedro, I've acquired a lot more frames. Will post once I download and sort through.

My pleasure.

The Indiana Jones Picture Gallery Project

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https://www.instagram.com/theijpgproject/

Amazing to see this, after all this time.

Raven shoulder holster update

For context, there are various styles of vertical carry shoulder holster rigs for pistols – I think we are looking at two possible types here:

1: the classic ‘yoke’ – the lower part of the shoulder rig that the holster is attached to is a Y shape. At least one side of the yoke is usually attached to the upper shoulder section of the rig with leather lacing

2: the Bianchi style ‘dog-ear’ holster. This has two crossed ears at the holster top with slots in. The shoulder section weaves through those slots.

So what can we see:

The holster, shoulder rig and back part of the arm strap are in a similar medium dark brown colour. A light coloured strap can be seen under Ford’s right armpit against the shirt as he swings right arm in a punch. Most likely elasticated as that really helps when putting the rig on and off.

The bottom of the holster has a leather tie down cord attached to a belt loop or the webbing belt.

The holster is longer than would be needed for a Browning Hi Power so isn’t necessarily a Hi Power holster. Colt 1911 holsters will usually hold Hi Powers okay – and wasn’t original plan for back up pistol to be a 1911 before issues with cycling blanks ruled it out?

The front part of the shoulder rig is quite broad – dog ears tend to be narrower and can’t see an obvious slotting of the shoulder strap through it. But that could just mean it’s not a standard dog ear design.

Here’s my prototype Yoke version – holds the 1911 and HP: Working on dog ear version now – likely approach is to join to shoulder rig in same way as yoke then same rig can be used on either version.

Will be updating my Instagram with more pictures as work progresses - www.instagram.com/makeitjones/

That was fast work. They look like what we see in the stills, great job.

Having my collection of 200+ custom holster templates to hand certainly helps speed things up!

I wonder though if Indy's was leather around both shoulders though. Here's some key frames from what Pedro sent me. If you look at the second frame, the strap on his right shoulder looks darker than a white cloth strap.

A couple more showing the right strap....

Yes - the end part of the bottom of the arm strap where it joins the shoulder rig is leather but the part going around the right arm is light coloured - most likely elasticated tape: So on my prototype there is leather on the bottom end of the elastic arm strap and that goes through the adjustment buckle section that attaches to the shoulder rig.

Question is - is the top section also leather at start, then elastic in middle section, then leather at the other end, or elastic for all of top part (over shoulder and around arm) and just leather at bottom end.

I'm leaning towards the leather, elastic, leather option. Some elastic makes it much easier to take off and put on.

And then white elastic that got dirty or light grey elastic??

I think there may be leather going behind his collar to the elastic.

Yeah - I'm seeing it too. One more detail pinned down.

Indy's rig reminds me of War Daddy's holster in Fury. Different from a standard tanker holster that would sit more on the chest than the way War Daddy's sits under the arm.






Regards,

Indiana Jeff

I agree, I think it's a practical holster, not a concealment one, so is aimed at holding the Browning in a location that's easier to reach, sturdily, and allowing a smooth draw if needed...The prototype done by David I think is at least, as close as we'll get to understanding the shape, barring a new find....I look forward to seeing what he does! I also think the yoke shape works best, it looks like two solid and wide pieces of leather there, under the arm, not the dog-ear type, which would also mean less "bits" to snag on the Browning? Perhaps? But I look forward to seeing the second prototype too!

I made some new discoveries tonight!! I'll reveal them once I get my prototype made, it'll be easier to explain then. Stay tuned!

Here's my real world test of the type 1 prototype - very comfortable to wear. Can see where the shoulder rig needs a few tweaks to arm strap placement but overall not bad for a first crack at it. Managed to keep the gut stunk in for most of the shots.

Very interested to see if anyone has found more detail on the original!

Larger pictures on my instagram - www.instagram.com/makeitjones/

Awesome work!!

I think that's a great start, makeitjones! Well done!

Still, I'm not convinced the entire rig isn't leather. I agree with Jeff that what we're seeing in the photos is similar Don's rig in Fury. I'm far from an expert, but most shoulder holsters I've seen from this period were composed almost entirely of thin leather straps. I've seen canvas or cotton webbing used in the Indy era, but never elastic.

In the photos where Ford's chest is turned towards us and he's throwing the punch, I agree that the strap on his right shoulder does appear to be a different color than the left. But I think it could still be the same leather, simply catching the light differently on his right shoulder than it does on his left. It may not be leather, but I don't think the photos are conclusive enough to rule it out. If it's not leather, my money's on some kind of canvas or cotton webbing. In the shots where his back is to us, I think we would see elastic on the lower strap if it were there (as we can clearly see in the photos of makeitjones's prototype posted above). We can see most of Ford's upper back in those photos and the leather wraps pretty far around the right side of his ribcage, under the shoulder. If it transitions from leather to elastic, I'm not seeing it in those pics.

I know elastic technically dates back to the 1800's, but it was not commonly used on items like this until the 1960's as far as I know. It would be especially odd to see during wartime, when rubber was in high demand for other requirements. Would this costume department have selected a shoulder holster with an elastic strap? While not every piece of Indy's gear was period accurate (the bag being the most obvious example), it's clear that an attempt was made to stay within a certain era (between the two World Wars) and a specific aesthetic. Why would they take such a leap forward in the materials used and choose elastic for Indy's shoulder holster? I suppose it depends on whether or not they ever intended for the rig to be seen in the film.

Just my two cents, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

I'd bet they went with whatever the prop house had kicking round in 1980 that fit the pistol.

Elastic makes a world of difference to ease of use with a shoulder holster arm strap - whatever the lighting brown leather would still look pretty brown.