Bullwhip-cracking adventurer Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) searches for treasure in Raiders of the Lost Ark, part of The Adventures of Indiana Jones DVD set.

The best example of the limited life expectancy of fame is pioneer matinee idol Douglas Fairbanks. His first phenomenal hit was the 1915 western The Lamb, and his last movie was the costume spectacle The Private Life of Don Juan, released just five years before his death in 1939.

Some 60 years later, Fairbanks has become a forgotten relic of old Hollywood. This despite the fact that no actor's picture appeared in newspapers as often as his -- what with his famous actress wife, Mary Pickford, helping keep the flashbulbs popping -- and that his son, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., continued the matinee idol tradition with lead roles in popular films like Gunga Din, The Corsican Brothers and Sinbad the Sailor as well as numerous adventure serials.

If a famous face like Fairbanks can fade away in two generations, how long will it take for Harrison Ford -- best known as the bullwhip-cracking adventurer Indiana Jones, modern day Hollywood's re-creation of a matinee idol -- to become forgotten?

The tool capable of preserving Ford's Indiana Jones image, something unavailable to Fairbanks at the time of his death, is the DVD -- and there are few DVD releases as plush as the new four-disc set The Adventures of Indiana Jones.

All three Indiana Jones movies -- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), still the best of the three; Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), a by-the-numbers retread of the first film; and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), a familiar tale boosted by the appearance of Sean Connery as Jones' father -- are making their DVD debuts. All three are digitally re-mastered for improved sound and picture quality. A bonus disc contains more than three hours of documentary footage and behind-the-scenes features.

The films look shiny and new despite their revisionist storylines. If you accept the premise that there's nothing original left in movies, the Indiana Jones trilogy is prime evidence. They're warm, fuzzy, nostalgic boys' adventures, set apart by Ford's playful performance as the irascible hero who doesn't suffer fools or villains well.

My highlight scene from all three films occurs early in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Jones enters a Nepal bar in search of a bronze medallion held by Marion (Karen Allen), the bar's tough-as-nails owner and an old girlfriend. She greets Jones with a punch to his jaw, forcing him to come back later for the medallion. When the film's Nazi villains show up moments later demanding the medallion, Jones and Marion battle their way to victory while the tavern burns to the ground.

"At least you haven't forgotten how to show a lady a good time," Marion yells to Jones. They're now partners, and the film benefits from the sarcastic love they shower on each other.

Jones is the trademark hero of the series, but if Marion were part of the next two adventures the films would have been better 10 times over.

Action speaks louder than words in the Indiana Jones movies, just like the classic Republic serials that director Steven Spielberg and writer/producer George Lucas set out to emulate. Their Herculean task was to match the cliffhanger excitement of countless Saturday afternoons with three feature films released over eight years.

Like the long-ago serials G Men vs. the Black Dragon, The Tiger Woman and The Purple Monster Strikes, the globetrotting adventures of Indiana Jones revolved around special effects and daredevil stunts. Jones and his various companions faced perilous traps filled with spikes, snakes, rats and poison gas.

A pit of molten lava, a favorite matinee trap, makes its appearance in Temple of Doom. An escape from a Nazi zeppelin turns into a biplane dogfight in Last Crusade. A climactic chase between a horse and a truck was the highlight of Raiders of the Lost Ark. By the third film, Jones was riding his horse against a rolling tank.

Ford -- despite his appearances in numerous other films, including the popular Jack Ryan espionage adventures Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games -- remains best known as matinee hero Indiana Jones despite the fact that there are no longer matinee serials. Like Fairbanks, who played the Musketeer D'Artagnan in numerous films, Ford's repetition (a fourth Indiana Jones movie is rumored) helps cement his connection to the adventurer archeologist.

The lone surprise is that Ford has the matinee adventure genre all to himself despite the success of the Indiana Jones movies. Leading man Antonio Banderas revived the Zorro character, but only for one film, The Mask of Zorro in 1998. The Three Musketeers has been made into a film more than 20 times, but none of the recent remakes made an impressionable impact. Female archeologist Lara Croft is a video game character brought to life by Angelina Jolie in two Tomb Raider film adventures. As a no-nonsense collections specialist sent to retrieve a smart aleck con man, The Rock prioritizes laughs over action in the current jungle adventure The Rundown, a film that's too cynical to be compared to classic matinee serials.

The overflowing DVD bonus features emphasize the films' elaborate special effects, extravagant stunts and ingenious sound effects, since special effects are the hallmark of contemporary moviemaking. Numerous interviews with engineers and stunt artists are entertaining but somewhat misguided.

Like Fairbanks, Ford boasts a hero's charisma, equal to the larger-than-life adventures around him. Ultimately, that's what is preserved on DVD. ©