And there are some real gems among the featurettes, such as the screen test that has Tom Selleck as Indy and Sean Young in the Karen Allen role — in costume — doing the barroom scene. (Spielberg and George Lucas also relate the story of Harrison Ford landing the role by default; Selleck had to drop out when his option for the "Magnum P.I." series was picked up by CBS.)

Spielberg and Lucas also explain how the Paramount logo fading into a mountain scene came to open each film.

There's just something about these movies that makes them remarkably watchable again and again.

A few weeks ago, when I was preparing to interview John Rhys-Davies for the story on this page, I started up "Raiders" — just to see a couple of Rhys-Davies' scenes — and I ended up watching the entire movie!

If I've seen it less than 30 times I'd be surprised, but I still watched it again — and thoroughly enjoyed it.

As newspaper ads for the Avalon Theater used to say, good movies, like good books, never grow old.

Continuing the metaphor, "Raiders" is also a movie that you just can't put down.

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E-MAIL: hicks@desnews.com