I’ve already spoken at length about the way the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles were butchered for DVD release in my take on My First Adventure, so I won’t labour the point again here, except to say that Passion for Life is another example of one of these “movies” lurching ridiculously in the middle, so that the first half has zero in common with the second half and there’s no point to it being movie-length.
As standalone episodes, as originally shown on TV, we are in effect looking at the installments, British East Africa, September 1909 and Paris, September 1908. The first part of which sees Young Indy looking somewhat younger than when we left him in the second half of My First Adventure. Here, the Jones family and the stalwart Miss Seymour are on safari in Africa, at a campsite headed by former US President, Theodore Roosevelt, who had only left office in March of that year. Indy is quite in awe of Roosevelt and there are some scenes of Miss Seymour essentially ‘fan-girling’ over the ex-President herself. Somewhat odd, given Miss Seymour is extremely British, but funny scenes nevertheless.
Similar to the second half of My First Adventure, where Indy befriended a native boy and fell into trouble, here Indy befriends a Maasai boy – Meto – learning some of his Maa language in the process – and gets into trouble for adventuring off with the boy and losing track of time. This is handled somewhat oddly in the plot as he does it once and is seen faraway from the campsite as the sun sets, and no one at all is concerned for him. It’s only the second time he goes missing on another day this that the plot – and thus the folk at the campsite – suddenly cares where he is after dark. But let’s not go down that rabbit hole.
The guts of the episode relates to environmentalism, the killing of wild animals (in this case, for them to be stuffed and taken to museums in the US), and how species can be hunted to extinction. Roosevelt is after the fringe-eared oryx – a rare breed of antelope – but can’t seem to find any. Indy uses his initiative to learn, via Meto, where some can be found. Cue Roosevelt taking a hunting party out to bag some (which Indy is actually quite OK with), but when it becomes clear that everyone in Roosevelt’s party is going to take a shot and decimate the small number of oryx that has been found, Indy steps in, grabbing the President’s arm and telling him no more after the first couple of oryx go down. At first we think Roosevelt is going to hit the roof, but he understands Indy’s point and some oryx are left alive.
Overall, it’s a simple but very charming tale, with everyone from Meto up to Roosevelt being very watchable on-screen and the location work and soundtrack goes a long way to selling the overall story. It’s only a few times that dodgy CGI effects (essentially cut and pasting animals into the grasslands), starts to look a little weird; similar to the scene of Henry Jones Sr. on the roof of the family home with Indy back in My First Adventure. It’s fair to say that CGI has come an awfully long way since these days.
And then onto the second, unrelated, half of the story. Indy’s in Paris with his parents and Miss Seymour. The former instantly announce they’re going off to see some friends for a few days, leaving Miss Seymour in charge. Following an already established pattern in these stories, just two movies in, Indy falls in with someone who leads him astray and causes him to go missing… just like he went missing from Roosevelt’s camp earlier in the story, and just like he went missing in the second half of My First Adventure and indeed, just like he went missing (albeit with Miss Seymour) in the first half, too.
In this case it’s the artist Norman Rockwell who is apparently getting around Paris as a 14 year old and having a whale of a time. A brief investigation suggests to me that Rockwell wasn’t getting around Paris at this time in his life, but maybe a Rockwell fan can let me know if I’ve missed something. Rockwell and Indy then fall in with Pablo Picasso, depicted as pretty much the right age, and in the right place, for this story’s setting. That’s something, at least. Picasso is also depicted pretty well in terms of his demeanour and a piece of the story revolves around him painting a picture in the style of Edgar Degas which he wants Degas to be tricked into signing as one of his own. As Degas is shown in the story to be essentially blind at this stage of his life, I’m not sure how sensible this is as a storyline (“I convinced a blind man to sign something he couldn’t really see…” anyone?), but it does lead to a neat reversal of fortune and Indy coming into some money in a cute way and the depiction of some wild Parisian parties is well done.
All up, a mixed bag in this movie. The two parts are extremely different to one another… one out in the grasslands of Africa, one in the middle of Paris… one dealing with environmentalism, the other dealing with the way art can change your view of the world… and so on. I’m going to rate it a little above My First Adventure as there are at least two distinct stories here with a beginning, middle, and end, whereas the editing of My First Adventure means you never get a resolution to the first half of the story. Well, not until we get to the sixth of these movies, Spring Break Adventure. But that’s some time off yet! 7/10.