Indiana Jones Wiki
Register
Advertisement

"You lost today, kid, but that doesn't mean you have to like it."
―Garth to Indiana Jones[src]

Garth, also known as "Fedora", was the leader of a gang of hired treasure hunters who retrieved the Cross of Coronado from a canyon site in Utah in 1912 for the antiquities collector Panama Hat.

Biography[]

Encounter with Indiana Jones[]

"Coronado's dead, and so are all his grandchildren!"
―Garth[src]

Dressed in a leather jacket and brown fedora for a looting excavation in Utah in 1912, Garth and his grave robbing gang were unaware that they were being observed by two young boy scouts named Indiana Jones and Herman Mueller. While Garth's back was turned, Jones sent Herman to get help then stole the Cross of Coronado, racing away on horseback.[1]

Cross of Coronado

Garth 'recovered' the Cross of Coronado in Utah.

Garth and his men drove after Jones in cars, and followed on foot when the boy transferred to the top of a passing circus train from the Dunn & Duffy Combined Circus. The man in the fedora confronted Jones who backed away and fell through the roof of the lion car. Garth helped Jones escape the dangerous situation but after the scout declared that the artifact should be in a museum he retreated into Doctor Fantasy's Magic Caboose. Garth directed his men to make sure Jones couldn't double back and entered the coach in time to see Jones hide inside a magic box. Knowing he had the boy trapped, Garth urged him to come out when the box suddenly collapsed with no-one inside. Garth rushed to the back of the train to see Jones flee home. He cursed in frustration but allowed himself a small grin as he watched the kid escape.[1]

Fedoras

Garth consoles the young Jones for failing.

Eventually, Garth and his gang approached the Jones residence and recovered the salvaged artifact for his client Panama Hat with the assistance of the local sheriff. However, Garth admired young Jones' attempt to claim it, for which he gave the boy some words of encouragement, along with his hat, which he placed on Jones' head before walking out the door.[1]

Legacy[]

"I never knew his name. This hat was his. I think he took a shine to me after we went 'round. He gave me some good advice, and this hat, as a consolation prize."
―Indiana Jones, on Garth.[src]

Indiana Jones drew a sketch of Garth shortly after he left his house for his journal. Among his notes, Jones described Garth's attire and physical traits, and accepted that he didn't like losing to him that day. He also wondered whether or not Garth was some sort of adventure-seeker for hire given his association with Panama Hat, concluding that his father would not have liked him.[2]

Following his experience and confrontation with Garth and his gang, Indy drew a comic book relating his attempt to retrieve the Cross of Coronado. During his early days at the Sorbonne, Jones gave it to his then-friend René Emile Belloq, who ended up becoming one of his rivals. By 1938, the comic was uncovered by Belloq's son, who had found it among his deceased father's old possessions.[3]

Indy would go on to become attached to the fedora Garth gave to him, refusing to leave it behind even in danger of death[4] or buying a new hat.[5] In 1943, during World War II, after nearly losing his fedora in a plane crash off the coast of Haiti, Jones told his friend George McHale the story of how he acquired his fedora when he was a boy scout and discovered Garth robbing the Cross of Coronado, assuring Mac that Garth taught him that you can't always win and you must wait until another day, something in which he was right, as he eventually recovered the Cross off the coast of Portugal.[6]

Personality and traits[]

"Toss up the whip!"
―Garth urging Indiana Jones to toss him the whip to pull him to safety[src]

Described as "some sort of adventure-seeker for hire",[2] Garth was a grave robber who held little for the historical value of the Cross of Coronado he found with his gang in 1912, choosing to sell it to a private collector rather than giving it to a museum, excusing his actions because Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and all his descendants were dead, therefore the Cross no longer belonged to anyone.[1]

However, Garth sympathized with the young Indiana Jones who got into trouble with a lion after he had taken the Cross from the gang. Garth urged the boy to throw the bullwhip to him so he could be pulled to safety. When Jones lost the Cross back to the gang, Garth stayed behind to pass on his fedora and provide him with some words of encouragement.[1]

Behind the scenes[]

FedoraTrain

Richard Young played Fedora in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Garth/Fedora was played by Richard Young in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.[1] A few months after the film's premiere, Young reprised the role in a live performance for the Steven Spielberg-produced opening show of the 1989 National Boy Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia.

"Fedora" is the name of the character given in the script and credits.[7] While the subtitles on both the 2003 and 2008 editions of the Last Crusade DVD acknowledge the Fedora name spoken by Roscoe,[8] Ryder Windham's 2008 junior novelization of the film (as does the Spanish dub of Last Crusade) gives his name as Garth.[9] This may have been an error brought about through using Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Original Movie Script, the only officially released version of the story in screenplay form, as a source for the adaptation. However, the "Original Movie Script", which uses the Garth name, isn't a copy of the original screenplay at all but a transcript of the film retroactively mocked up to look like a screenplay.[10] That the Inside the World of Indiana Jones article at Lucasfilm.com notes that "in a handful of other sources, he is sometimes referred to as "Garth"", this may be an indication that Lucasfilm Ltd. doesn't see the name as definitive.[7]

High definition home and streaming releases of the movie have continued to caption the name as Garth.[11][12]

During the development of the film's script, written by Jeffrey Boam, Fedora was originally going to be the central antagonist of the prologue sequence, before the Panama Hat character was created.[13] Early drafts also alluded to him being Abner Ravenwood, Indiana's future mentor.[14] However, all references to this identity have been removed from the final cut, although he still appears more prominently than the other hunters with close-ups.[1]

Additionally, Fedora ended up being the only one who sympathized with the young Indy unlike his companions, prompting them to save the young Jones when he was in danger of being killed by a lion at the Dunn & Duffy Combined Circus train. Foreshadowing the film's climax where Indy implores Elsa Schneider to save herself, in the storyboards for the prologue, Fedora was depicted urging Jones to leave the Cross of Coronado behind so he can be pulled to safety.[15]

Fedora seems to reappear in Wolfgang Hohlbein's German novel Indiana Jones und das Verschwundene Volk (Indiana Jones and the Lost People) where he is known to Indiana Jones as "Jake". The context of Jones remembering him as the leader of a gang hunting down the Cross of Coronado who left a lasting impression all but states that he is the Fedora of Last Crusade; however, the man is introduced in the book as a "halbblut" which translates to Half Breed.[16] Steve Perry's novel Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead, set after Verschwundene Volk, would thus appear contradict the Hohlbein's book through Jones mentioning that he never got to know the man's name.[6]

In LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, Fedora and his men chase both Indy and Herman onto the train after discovering them at the canyon site. After the defeat of his men, Fedora manages to reach the magic car but after realizing that the scouts have escaped, he surrenders, so he never regains the Cross of Coronado nor gives Indy his hat.[17] Although the Young Indy sequence is omitted from the sequel, Fedora still appears in a photograph while Marcus Brody speaks with Indy and, in this version, Sallah about their mission to recover the Cross of Coronado.[18]

There were plans by Hasbro in 2009 for an action figure of Garth and an Adventure Heroes set with action figures of the Young Indiana Jones and Garth, but the toyline was cancelled before these could be made.[19][20]

Appearances[]

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

Advertisement