Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues is one of the rarer movie-length features that went out as a movie-length feature, back in 1993 during season two of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Despite this, it still feels like two separate stories mashed together; albeit stories with much more in common between them than some of the movie mash-ups that comprise The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.
This is the movie that fans will nod and proclaim, “It’s the one with Harrison Ford in it…” and that’s perfectly true. Unlike all the other movies in the series that have had their introductions with the geriatric version of Indiana Jones (played by George Hall), cut from their start and finish like ‘Old Indy’ never existed, this one keeps its bookends. We’re in Wyoming, 1950. Indy and an Indian mate are on the run in a truck, pursued by some guys who want an Indian relic. They find themselves in a snowed-in cabin. Indy finds a soprano sax which ignites memories of Chicago in 1920, and our story begins there.
Before we get to the story, however, I just want to say how cool it is to see Harrison Ford, several years after he made The Last Crusade, with longer hair, and a beard, playing a version of Indy who is, if you do the math between 1938 and 1950, a full 12 years older than in that film. This places Ford playing an Indy commensurate with his actual age – around 51 – which would be the same age as Indy in 1950, unlike the Indy he played in the movies, where he was always playing younger than his actual age.
Onto the story. The first half – let’s call it Chicago, April 1920 – could be summarised as, Indy is working in an Italian restaurant as a waiter while he studies at the University of Chicago. He’s absolutely obsessed with jazz and tries really hard to ‘talk shop’ with the house band of black jazz musicians. To varying degrees they think he’s a bit of a joke, but slowly he comes to show them that his interest is genuine and gains their trust. The apparent leader of the band, Sidney Bechet (who became famous about 20 years hence), even gives him a soprano sax to play around with after hearing that Indy has some experience with the instrument – something viewers might recall from Tales of Innocence.
The two main themes of this section of the story are, “What is jazz?” including some really clunky lines delivered from Sean Patrick Flanery about aspects of the music, such as syncopation, which come across as really unrealistic dialogue and, “America has a race issue”, the latter of which retreads territory explored with the Paul Robeson scenes in literally the previous movie, Winds of Change. The latter works at times and feels really forced at others. When Indy encounters a white guy berating him for being friendly with the black band members… but said white guy is drinking in an almost all-black speakeasy… I really wonder where the writers minds were at. The sentiment is admirable, but the execution sucks.
To throw a cherry on top, we also have Indy’s university roommate revealed to be Eliot Ness – who would go on to be a government agent trying to bring down Al Capone and enforce Prohibition.
Both sections of the story may be of interest to anyone who has read the original Indiana Jones novels by Rob MacGregor. Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi, for example, came out a couple of years earlier, and features Indy studying at the University of Chicago. You could replace Eliot Ness with Jack Shannon from that novel in some ways. A few books later, Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge sees Indy have a run-in with Al Capone in Chicago through his connection to Shannon. As Al Capone is revealed to be a character in the second half of this movie, you can see how the books and the TV series have some strange – but I think quite coincidental – parallels, due to the historical time and place in general.
So onto the second half of the movie – let’s call it Chicago, May 1920 – and while Indy’s black jazz friends are still in the mix, the story really focuses on the murder of the restaurant’s owner, “Big Jim” Colosimo.
In quite a weird decision to my mind, the writers have Indy hear the – quite clear – gunshots that kill Colosimo, but he seems confused as to what the noise was. After several years fighting in WW1, you’d think he would know a gunshot when he hears it. Why they didn’t have him exclaim, “Gunshots!” and head towards the shooting instead, I have no idea. It would have been more realistic. As the press rolls up to cover the story, who should Indy run into but his old love rival, Ernest Hemingway, last seen in Tales of Innocence (another tie-in to the episode where Indy picked up the soprano saxophone).
This leads to Indy, Ness, and Hemingway (now there’s a trio for the ages), investigating the shooting, unveiling Al Capone hiding in plain sight, and basically solving the case. The twist that a corrupt police chief won’t accept the evidence is neat on the level that the heroes don’t win the day here – even though they did enough to do so – but also cheesy on the level that it seems to push the idea that Ness became even more determined to stamp out crime and be incorruptible thanks to this encounter. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but cheese is the best word that comes to mind. Hemingway, for his part, decides to go to France to write novels, so the encounter is used as a motivation in his career, too.
And the “mystery” of the blues? Yes, it is quite a weird title on the face of things when the music discussed in the movie, 99% of the time is jazz, however, we do have an earlier scene where the band mates tell Indy that even though he’s getting quite good with jazz, he still can’t “feel” the blues to play it correctly and, as a result, don’t let him jam with them that night. But after the events of the film, and being so let down by the authorities, Indy wails out some blues in the end – and there you have it.
So how to rate this? Overall, I think it’s solid. It has a slightly cheesy veneer across the whole film, now that I think about it in hindsight (“Let’s drop Indy in Prohibition Chicago and see how many cliches we can shoehorn in!”), but everyone’s taking things pretty seriously even when there are occasional comic moments, so it’s easy to invest in what’s going on, despite yourself. I’d say an 8/10 for this one. Just.