Masks of Evil is another movie-length Young Indy film that comprises two TV episodes, Istanbul, September 1918 and Transylvania, January 1918 but because it needs the second episode to fall, chronologically speaking, after the first story, it’s now known as, Transylvania, September 1918.
Broadly, this is a good mash-up. While the stories – as usual – have nothing to do with one another, they’re both quite enjoyable in their own way. Istanbul, September 1918 is another episode in the series taking itself seriously. Indy is running a group of spies and, so long as you can put aside that a 19 year old is running a group of much older – and presumably far more experienced – intelligence operatives, the story to hand is compelling. It flows along quite naturally as a double-agent in the ranks starts assassinating the other agents while Indy desperately tries to get the future founding father of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, interested in a peace agreement separate to Germany.
You might notice that we’re 10 months on from Morocco, November 1917 which is where we last left our hero, moping over a fifty-something woman he barely knew, and is absolutely the largest jump in time we’ve had since we got to the Sean Patrick Flanery era. This is suggestive of other stories planned, but never filmed, for the series. Without them we’re left to wonder how long he’s been working out of Istanbul. Presumably some months at least, given his cover story and the general storyline at hand.
So before I continue, Flanery’s accent in Istanbul, September 1918 needs a paragraph all its own. Posing as a neutral Swedish journalist, Nils Anderson, Flanery rips into a sort of semi-comedy ABBA accent. Peter Sellers, he is not when it comes to doing accents. I’m reminded of the ‘Syrian’ accent he bravely attempted in Tales of Innocence which sounded more like it was coming via downtown Mumbai.
Again, this episode takes itself quite seriously and although an engagement for Indy and a love story – of sorts – feels like a slight deviation from a pure spy adventure (it seems to be written into every writer’s contract for this series that if Indy meets a pretty girl he must fall in love with bonus points if he proposes marriage), even that has a pay-off in the end and frankly I have little to complain about.
Transylvania, September 1918 is a different kettle of fish and if I was to begin by saying, “It’s the one where Indy meets Dracula…” you’d be forgiven for thinking this must be where the series jumps the shark and the story is terrible. Here’s the thing, however: despite what I just said, it’s pretty good.
The story begins with Indy being seconded to American intelligence and working with legend of the service called Colonel Waters. This conversation begins with a pissing match over how many languages they each know, but with none of the fun or playfulness of when Indy had a similar conversation with Vicky back in Love’s Sweet Song. The briefing Indy and Waters get on their mission reminds me of the Raiders of the Lost Ark scene where the government officials talk to Indy and Marcus Brody in a huge, but empty, room about recovering the Ark of the Covenant. I can’t believe it’s not a deliberate callback.
All of this is very solid, and their transition into the Austro-Hungarian empire (the border being shown as undefended as “the war will end soon”), and then up into Transylvania is very cool, swapping vehicles and clothes with other operatives along the way. All very good spycraft of the era, represented well.
The mission – to see what’s going on with Mattias Targo; a Romanian separatist general – is one that multiple operatives have failed (with various body parts being mailed back to the allies), so the threat feels quite real. When Indy and Colonel Waters meet up with some local talent and all five start hiking through the wilderness, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this episode is no different, and just as serious, as Istanbul, September 1918. There’s literally nothing to suggest what’s going to come next.
Arriving at a castle, we have a quick gag where Indy scales the castle wall, crashing over the parapet into the courtyard beyond while the rest of the party simply find “the front door”, but after that the episode becomes pure 1970s Hammer Horror. There’s bodies impaled in the courtyard. There’s rooms catching on fire. There’s ball lightning. There’s a room raining blood. There’s a spontaneous human combustion. There’s spooky laughter. When Mattias Targo shows up, he’s looking like the historical Vlad Tepes and shows Indy and friends to a dining hall where their apparently dead operatives are all enjoying a meal with goblets of blood to wash it down. When one of them gets shot in the chest he just laughs it off and is seemingly indestructible. Sound bonkers enough for you? It is, but the cast plays it absolutely straight – which is the key to this kind of thing – and as a result it feels totally believable ‘in-universe’ at least.
I get that Transylvania, September 1918 will still have some viewers shaking their head, but it does enough for me that I can run with it. Certainly it’s no more supernatural than the Ark of the Covenant destroying a group of Nazis in Raiders. So it feels on-point for Indiana Jones – but perhaps not the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles? As a result, I’ll mark this down, slightly, to an 8.5/10 so it’s not in my top tier of episodes, but it’s close. So very close. The two episodes are a fun, well-written time. Give them a try.