It’s notable, now that we’ve arrived at the 1995 telemovie, Young Indiana Jones and the Attack of the Hawkmen, that we’ve had two Young Indy adventures with titles that “sound like” – but pre-date – the Star Wars prequels. I’m referring to The Phantom Train of Doom (The Phantom Menace) and now Attack of the Hawkmen (Attack of the Clones). Just a fun thing I noticed as I sat down to write this review.
Alas, there’s no Young Indy adventure with Revenge in the title. Perhaps if they’d got another season?
As this was a telemovie from the start, there’s no individual titles to speak of being mashed together, although there are clearly two stories in play. The first is, “Young Indy flies with the Lafayette Escadrille for a couple of weeks and meets the Red Baron…” and then around the halfway mark, the episode becomes, “Young Indy is sent into Germany to convince Anthony Fokker to defect to the French and sees the Red Baron again…” Two separate adventures, with the connective tissue of the Red Baron.
Broadly, I like the story. At times, both parts lean a little more into the jokey, almost slapstick, kind of Young Indy adventures that emerge from time to time. Trenches of Hell or Oganga, The Giver and Taker of Life, this is not. But it’s not bad, either. If you can dial down the desire to see a more grounded and serious take on the character – which is always my personal preference – then the adventures are perfectly fine. Indeed, the back half of the second story – once Indy is in a German uniform disguise and infiltrating an airbase – becomes quite a fun and tense little piece, with some bloody huge explosions.
How Indy gets into these situations in the first place is another of those great ‘hand wave’ moments that happen all through the series. Just as there was a hand wave and, whoosh, Indy and Remy were off to fight in Africa, another hand wave sees them come back to Europe and, as easy as falling off a log, they get themselves into Belgian intelligence, then French intelligence. It’s just one of those things you have to go with, and not think about too much. Similar, I suppose, to Indy constantly meeting famous people.
In the first part of this movie, he’s shot down – while acting as an aerial photographer – by the Red Baron, who promptly invites him to lunch. It’s very cool, of course, and we get all the WW1 tropes of Von Richthofen and his men living in a big chateau and talking with pride about being modern knights and all of that romantic take on the air war of 1914-18, but it’s still another of those moments where you really have to switch off a particular part of your brain and just smile and go with the story.
There’s also a good example in this movie of the way the Young Indy films drop lines (or even sometimes just visuals), here and there which an interested viewer can pursue and learn more about history. In this case, Charles Nungesser – the French ace pilot of the Lafayette Escadrille – is shown as constantly wounded, bandaged up, plaster casts, the whole nine yards. On its own this is a semi-comedic portrayal of Nungesser to include in the episode, as he did indeed have a ridiculous number of injuries during the war. People can go and look that up. But it’s actually a line he says later in the story to Indy about one day flying to America (which Indy thinks is crazy), that might seem a throwaway line for a pilot to make but for anyone who goes digging, Nungesser did actually make an attempt at flying to the US in 1927, but disappeared over the Atlantic. Eventually it would be Charles Lindbergh who pulled off this feat.
Doctor Who fans will be well-served by this movie, with the 3rd Doctor – Jon Pertwee – playing General Von Kramer in the second story, while Marc Warren – Elton Pope in the Doctor Who episode Love & Monsters – plays Baron Von Richthofen in both parts. They even have scenes together, which just seems utterly bizarre, as actors from Classic Who and Modern Who meet up… in an Indiana Jones adventure.
Of the two parts, I was more impressed with the spy mission into Germany to try and turn Anthony Fokker. While it has its jokey moments – notably at the start of the mission as Indy goes from section to section within French intelligence to obtain information and supplies – the overall story is more satisfying than the first part, which is largely just Lafayette Escadrille missions and planes being shot down. The action is exciting, but there’s not much of a story there, or a chance for Indy to use his wits.
A hard movie to score. I think 8/10 would be slightly too generous, so I’m dialling it back to 7.5/10 which puts it in line with some episodes that I think it’s better than… but only marginally. So although I don’t feel quite settled on the score, it’s ‘close enough’ for me to end this review on. See you next time.