YOUNG INDIANA JONES AND THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUES (1993)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
George Lucas's "Young Indiana Jones" TV series was short on action and thrills and long on exposition and story. Lucas's intent was to have a younger Indy involved in historical spectacles and meeting all kinds of historical figures. Lenin was one, Teddy Roosevelt another, and of course Pancho Villa. I was never a huge fan of the show but I admired the attention to historical detail even if it occasionally robbed the series of much action or adventure. Talky is one way to put it since the serialesque attitude of the Indiana Jones movies was clearly missing. There were two-hour "Young Indiana Jones" movies and one of the best was "Mystery of the Blues," aired in March of 1993. Of particular significance in this special was the appearance of the one and only iconic Indiana Jones - Harrison Ford himself.
The Ford aspect is interesting because he sports a salt-and-pepper beard (this is only because of the simultaneous shooting of his thriller masterpiece, "The Fugitive") and his appearance bookends the blues plotline of the show as he recounts the days of Sidney Bechet and Al Capone. Ford is an older Indy, 50 years old to be precise, being chased in Wyoming in 1950 by some bad guys who are wanting a sacred Native American pipe. Indy and a Native American named Grey Cloud (Saginaw Grant) are shown in a car chase that is thrilling in a snow-bound Wyoming with treacherous roads. The chase is not elaborate nor does it contain much in the way of stunts but it gives you goosebumps seeing Ford as Indy with his wit and the gleam in his eye lashed ever so firmly ("Good driving," says Grey Cloud. Indy quips, "Not my first time you know!") Eventually the duo walk during a hazardous blizzard to an empty log cabin.
The rest of the film has Sean Patrick Flanery as the younger Indy working as a busboy at Colosimo's restaurant in Chicago in 1920. Sidney Bechet (Jeffrey Wright, who is amazingly good) plays jazz and Indy thinks he can play too, specifically his soprano sax. The kid needs practice and annoys his roommate, future federal agent Eliot Ness (Frederick Weller). Indy and Eliot are also friends with future author Ernest Hemingway (Jay Underwood), a contrivance that just annoys me. Does every person that Young Indy knows have to be famous or of historical relevance? Nevertheless, "Mystery of the Blues" confronts racism, jazz, Prohibition-era gangsters, a brief discussion of World War I, a floozie or two, a well-choreographed car chase and an equally absurd and improbable finale that wraps everything up a little too neatly.
"Mystery of the Blues" is essentially oodles of fun and you gain a lot of historical value from it but it is overstuffed and little too preachy. Flanery still seems to be uncomfortable with his role and lacks any of the trademarks of the character that Ford would make his own - I just don't see how Flanery could ever grow into the resourceful archaeologist adventurer of the 1930's and beyond. Still, the film is entertaining and a good time for the whole family. One wonders, though, if that opening teaser with Ford could have been expanded into a whole 2-hour adventure of its own and if Lucas had even considered it at some point (he was thinking about aliens at that time and discussing a fourth Indy flick with Ford, who wanted nothing to do with aliens - a fun fact that "Crystal Skull" detractors might love).
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