“I witnessed his skill one day when he was shooting little children, filthy and a dirty, digging for the lost Sankara Stone in this huge quarry cavern with very bizarre lighting. Yet when it comes to rolling up his sleeves and getting dirty and down into the nitty gritty of ancient tombs, he can create impressions of foreboding and mystery. He can shoot any woman and put her on the cover of any magazine in the world.

“The reason I like working with Dougie is that he’s a glamour photographer. Slocombe brings a fresh approach to each one, and in an interview with American Cinematographer (quoted by Ain’t It Coo l News) Spielberg was effusive in praise of his cinematographer’s talents: This journey generates a range of emotions and tones: the classic Hollywood musical of the Shanghai sequence, the screwball comedy of the Pankot Palace scenes between Indy and Willie Scott, and the brutal horror of third act in the Thugee’s lair. Temple of Doom takes its heroes a Shanghai nightclub, the peaks of the Himalayas, a desolate Indian village, dense jungles and finally the subterranean hideout of the villainous Thugee cult. The strength of Slocombe’s work rests in his versatility and how he uses it in his application of colour. Temple of Doom is arguably his masterpiece. Slocombe worked on the first three Indiana Jones films, always delivering rich and striking images that helped give the series its unique look. One element of the film that is universally beloved, however, is the cinematography by Douglas Slocombe.

Taking the adventurer into more violent territory than he’d been before or has been since, the film received its share of criticism for perceived racism and misogyny upon release and was somewhat disowned by Steven Spielberg, who said it “contains not an ounce of my personal feeling”. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the darkest and most controversial of the franchise’s four entries.

Indian jones temple of dome