Harrison wins vote for reel heroes

January 26th, 2001
This is London
by Richard Simpson

Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones is the greatest movie hero of all time, according to a new poll. Film fans also voted the characters Ford plays in Stars Wars and Blade Runner into the top 50 screen heroes in the poll for magazine Total Film. 

Ford's Indy - as seen in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - beat Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond into second place in the survey of 80,000 film fans.

Gladiator lead character Maximus - played by Australian Russell Crowe - came third. Fans say boulder-dodging, tomb-raiding archaeologist Indiana, who got his first name from creator George Lucas's wife's pet dog, is the archetypal movie hero and made the Spielberg-directed trilogy a modern classic. They reckon he's the guy men wish they could be - brave, reckless and rough, while having a way with women. This, of course, is the common thread with Bond in second place. Sean Connery brought 007 marvellously to the screen in a brutal realisation of Fleming's character. Roger Moore played him safari-suited and suave with a roving eyebrow for the ladies. While more recently Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan brought us more world-weary Bonds - still saving the planet and still bedding the world's most stunning and unavailable (to the rest) women.

Gladiator Crowe comes third as the warrior who defied an emperor. His plus points include leading an army, surviving a run of arena fights, and slaying said evil emperor. One fan asked on his ballot form: "What more do people want?" Other notable mentions in the list of the 50 Greatest Movie Heroes of All Time include Casablanca's Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart in 1942, at 10; Back to the Future's Marty McFly, played by Michael J Fox in 1985, at 23, Police Chief Brody in Jaws, played by Roy Scheider in 1975, at 25, Buzz Lightyear from the 1995 film Toy Story at 29, and Matthew Broderick in the title role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off from 1986, at 49. 

The poll also reveals that movie fans rate Darth Vader from Star Wars as the number one screen villain. The rasping cloaked one, whose costume was filled by Englishman Dave Prowse but voiced by James Earl Jones, is closely followed by Alan Rickman's film-stealing performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and Die Hard villain Hans Gruber - also played by Rickman. Perhaps surprisingly, they beat Anthony Hopkins' chilling portrayal of Dr Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter into fourth place.

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