Here come Harrison (in fine form) and 'Indiana Jones'

By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY

Indiana Jones fanatics are about to get the ultimate Valentine's Day gift: the first trailer of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which hits airwaves and the Internet Thursday.

The trailer, which marks the first time fans get new scenes of Harrison Ford as the intrepid archaeologist, will air on ABC's Good Morning America (between 8 and 9 a.m. ET/PT) before moving to IndianaJones.com, Yahoo and theaters.

The ad for the film, due May 22, is the latest maneuver in a stingy marketing campaign meant to create new fans as well as rekindle interest among older ones in a franchise that left theaters 19 years ago.

Director Steven Spielberg and executive producer George Lucas have kept nearly all elements of the movie, from plot points to set locales, under wraps.

But Ford is willing to answer at least one of the foremost questions on fans' minds: How much of a swashbuckler can Indiana Jones still be as a senior citizen?

"My body is fine," Ford, 65, says with a laugh. "It really was not an issue."

Ford says that he has kept in shape partly because "I've been anticipating and hoping we'd have one for the past 15 years."

He says the same is true for getting back into the mind-set of a bullwhip-cracking adventurer fond of fedoras and leather jackets.

"I more or less kept the character warm in my head," says Ford, whose next film is the immigration drama Crossing Over, due June 13. "Although we hadn't made one in 18 years, every moment I spent in that (expletive) suit, I remembered."

Script and scheduling conflicts kept the movie out of theaters for nearly two decades; the last episode was 1989's The Last Crusade.

Crystal will be set during the height of the Cold War in 1957, with Jones on the hunt for South American relics with supernatural powers. But Ford believes fans have always been as drawn to the spirit of the franchise as the plot.

"It's a very special kind of audience film," he says. "The film style is more in phase with the late 1950s than 2007."

Which means elaborate sets and stunts. While there will still be plenty of computer-generated effects, Ford says that Crystal is one of the most physical films he has done.

"I probably did more in this film than I did in the ones previous because there have been advances in the area of stunt technology," he says. "I was nothing but happy to get back to that kind of filmmaking."