Sallah

One of the key things to being an action hero is you can't do it alone.  Han Solo has Chewbacca, the Lone Ranger has Tonto, and Indiana Jones has Sallah.  Without Sallah, Indy would have never found the German dig site or had enough help to get the Ark out of the Well of Souls.  When he needed help in retrieving the Holy Grail who did Indy call?  Not Ghostbusters.  He called Sallah.

For kids playing in the school yard everybody wanted to be Indy, but there could only be one.  And a Sallah.  Everybody else was on the German's side.

We recently reviewed the Adventure Heroes version of Sallah.  This time we are looking at the regular figure version.

In his digging outfit, Sallah is a pretty non-descript guy.  He's got a robe, a little vest, and a turban on his head.  I would imagine this only helps him keep from attracting too much attention from his German bosses.  Overall, this figure fits the bill fairly well.

Sallah looks as he did in the Well of Souls.  The face is not bad as far as most of the rest of Raiders figures go.  He's actually almost recognizable as John Rhys-Davies.  I think there are two things with his face that would help just a tad.  One, the over painted eyes present in a number of the Indy figures.  'nuff said.  Two, his nose is just a tad off.  It looks just a little too wide to me.

 The execution of the body is pretty good.  The figure has a good flow to it.  The top of the robe is open just the right amount.  The vest is folded over on the left side.  This is a nice touch, as Sallah's vest did this on screen.  I like it because he doesn't look like he just stepped out of costume trailer. 

The shoes sticking out of the bottom of the robe appear to be right.  I've always wondered though, why is he wearing shoes?  Most of the robed characters in the movie are wearing sandals.  Anyway the bottom of the robe is one piece generic robe.  You have to think all those Jedi over the years have given ample robe sculpting practice to Hasbro's artisans.  There's a bit of texture to the whole outfit, which really finishes it off nice.

This is one of those figures I almost wish would have had a touch of soft goods.  The scarf portion of his turban would have been nice as a soft goods piece, just to recreate the opening of the Well of Souls.  Second, the bottom of the robe pretty much eliminates any useful articulation below the waist.  

As I said about, below the waist movement is hampered by the robe.  Above the waist he's consistent with the articulation found in the rest of the line.  Shoulders, elbows, wrists, ball jointed head, they're all here.

Sallah comes with two generic, but usable accessories.  A shovel and a torch.  The shovel is everything you'd expect.  brown hand silver head.  The torch is a good approximation of the ones he and Indy used in the Well of Souls.  The pieces is molded in a translucent yellow with some orange paint on the end.  It's looks okay.  I would have thought an orange wash or streaks would have looked more realistic, though.  It's certainly not the worst attempt at fire I've ever seen on an action figure.

For a relic Sallah comes with a terra cotta horse.  I'm assuming from the Emperor's Tomb Video game.  I could tell you for sure, but I never got that game to run right on my PC.  It's an okay little piece of plastic.  It reminds me more of the "Brady Bunch" than Indy, though.  I'd have expected Sallah to come with something Egyptian.  A burial mask, mummy's hand, or scarab, something.