Recap / Young Indiana Jones And The Mystery Of The Blues

Buddy, you don't know how to stay out of trouble.

Mystery of the Blues is a feature-length TV movie, first broadcast on 13th March 1993 as part of the second season of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ^note  although it was split into two parts, entitled "Chicago, April 1920" and "Chicago, May 1920", for broadcast in the United Kingdom . Following the re-editing of the whole series into feature-length episodes, it's the twentieth instalment of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, although this one remains virtually identical to the original broadcast Young Indiana Jones Chronicles version. Notably, it is the only Young Indiana Jones episode to have Harrison Ford reprise his role as Indiana Jones; here, he's framing the story in the Bookends which are set in 1950.

Indy is at the University of Chicago and working as a part-time waiter in the spring of 1920. He is taught the basics of jazz by Sidney Bechet and then becomes involved in a murder investigation with his college roommate Eliot Ness and freelance reporter Ernest Hemingway. The framing device sees a middle-aged Indy (played, as stated above, by Harrison Ford) recounting the events of thirty years ago while sheltering from a snowstorm in Wyoming with his friend Grey Cloud.

This episode contains examples of:

• Actor Allusion: During the opening and closing sequences with Harrison Ford, the "Raiders March" (a.k.a. the Indiana Jones theme) is incorporated into the incidental music — the only time it's used in any of the Young Indiana Jones episodes.
• And Starring: Two in this one - "And Harrison Ford" comes immediately after "Starring Sean Patrick Flanery" in the opening credits, while Ray Serra (Colosimo) gets the "and" after the rest of the cast has been named.
• Artistic Licence – History: A couple of minor examples.
  • At the time of the events of this episode, Ernest Hemingway was actually living in Toronto, where he was a reporter for the Toronto Star.
  • Although Eliot Ness did study at the University of Chicago, he was not a student there in 1920 as he was just 17 at the time. His statement about his father being an officer of the Bureau of Investigation (as the FBI was called at the time), which attracts some unwanted attention when Indy drags him along to the Royal Garden jazz bar, is also inaccurate — in Real Life, his father was a baker.
• Band Episode: Indy's into jazz, and wants to jam with the house band of the restaurant he works at as a waiter. By the end of the (first half of the) episode, he gets to play a song with the band at the Royal Garden.
• Been There, Shaped History: Played with; in Real Life, the murder of Chicago crime boss "Big Jim" Colosimo was never solved, although many have long suspected that Al Capone either did it personally or was behind it. Here, the mystery of who killed Colosimo is solved by Indiana Jones, Ernest Hemingway and Eliot Ness (the murder was orchestrated by Capone and John Torrio), only for the case to be thrown out by Chicago's corrupt police chief.
• Bittersweet Ending: The investigation comes to nothing as Chief Garrity destroys the evidence implicating Torrio and Capone, allowing them to take over the Chicago crime scene; a depressed Indy plays the blues. In 1950, though, his saxophone-playing enables him to get the better of the bad guys by playing a low note which causes an avalanche, burying them.
• Brief Accent Imitation: Eliot pulls one of these — doing some sort of Southern yokel accent — in order to call the harbour master and find out which warehouse the shipments of bootleg liquor is going to (claiming to be the guy who's meant to collect it but he's spilt his dinner on the order form). To the surprise of Indy and Ernie, it works.
• The Bus Came Back: Ernest Hemingway, last encountered in Tales of Innocence, returns ^note  although if you go by the Anachronic Order in which the original Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episodes were broadcast, this is actually his first appearance, as this episode was broadcast a month before "Northern Italy, June 1918" . He's a freelance reporter looking for a story, and hopes that the Colosimo murder will be his big break.
• Call-Back: The baddie who's after the Native pipe in the framing sequence wears glasses and is dressed in a black hat and overcoat - similar to Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  • Also, this is not the first time Indy has worked as a waiter.
• Deadpan Snarker: Ernie, even when faced with the prospect of death. Heck, this is Ernest Hemingway we're talking about here.
  O'Bannion: Roses or Tulips?
  Indy: Sir?
  O'Bannion: It's for a funeral. Which would you prefer, Mr Hemingway?
  Ernie: Well, I'm a sucker for daisies.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: At play when Indy gets told off for playing his saxophone at a "whites only" beach. CJ later relates the story of a race riot that broke out after an incident in which a young black boy who was out swimming got cramp and reached out to a raft carrying a group of white people who, rather than help him, threw stones at him, causing him to drown.
• The Determinator: In different ways, and for different reasons, Indy, Eliot and Ernie all become this in their determination to solve the mystery of who killed Colosimo. Eliot in particular is extremely motivated by his disgust for the obvious corruption on show when the three visit Chief Garrity — implying that for him, this is where his determination for justice (which ultimately saw him take down Capone) began.
• Did Not Think This Through: Eliot forgot to fuel up his Aunt Bessie's car, causing it to run out of petrol at a crucial moment.
• Dirty Cop: John J. Garrity, the Chicago police chief, provides a Real Life example.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: Downplayed, but when Ernie goes to a police station to find out what the cops know about the murder, the homicide detectives are eating doughnuts. Later on, we see a half-eaten doughnut on Chief Garrity's desk when Indy, Ernie and Eliot go to see him with their findings.
• During the War: Indy and CJ briefly discuss their wartime experiences, and become friends as a result.
• Fighting Irish: O'Bannion, an Irish mobster whose front business is a florist. He captures Indy, Eliot and Ernie at the warehouse but ultimately decides they're not worth killing (presumably because he knows that he didn't kill Colosimo, so the boys don't pose a threat to him).
• Foreshadowing: The 1950 framing sequence at the start has Indy and a friend in a car chase, with the chasing mooks firing guns at them; Indy even quips that this isn't the first time this has happened to him. Sure enough, the 1920 story also sees Indy and his friends in a car chase, with the chasing mooks firing guns at them.
• Historical Domain Character: Plenty, to the point where it might be easier to list the characters who are fictional! Indy's room-mate at the University of Chicago is Eliot Ness, and the restaurant where he works is owned by "Big Jim" Colosimo. Playing in the band at the restaurant is Sidney Bechet, who introduces Indy to Louis Armstrong. We also have Ernest Hemingway and Ben Hecht (the latter of whom really was a reporter for the Chicago Daily News at the time) reporting on the murder of Colosimo, with Al Capone (here using the alias "Al Brown") and his associate John Torrio turning out to be responsible for that murder (which they have long been suspected of having done in Real Life, although nothing was ever proved). Also appearing are corrupt Chicago police chief John J. Garrity, Colosimo's widow Dale Winter and Colosimo's ex-wife Victoria Moresco.
• Internal Reveal: Done when Ernie reveals to Indy and Eliot that the man they know as Al Brown is in fact Al Capone, something that viewers familiar with the Real Life events being depicted here may well have guessed thanks to the prominent scar on the guy's face that was noticeable when he interacted with Indy, Eliot and Ernie earlier.
• Intrepid Reporter: Ernie, who's working as a freelance journalist and looking for a big story to make his name, which is what motivates him to join with Indy and Eliot to investigate Colosimo's murder.
• It Will Never Catch On: According to Indy, Colosimo wasn't interested in bootlegging because he thought Prohibition wouldn't last. This is actually Truth in Television, as the real Colosimo was reluctant to get involved in bootlegging, which was probably why his more ambitious associates, notably Al Capone, had him killed.
• Mood Whiplash: As ever with The Young Indiana Jones Adventures; this time, it goes from a gentle story about jazz to a murder mystery, although the setting is the same for both — Prohibition-era Chicago, with a backdrop of organised crime and deep racial divisions.
• The Nicknamer: Most of the black characters, and the white restaurant staff for that matter, address Indy as "Jonesy".
• Noodle Incident: A few.
  • Whatever Indy and Grey Cloud did to steal the Native artefact in the 1950 segment prior to the start of the episode.
  • Indy's visit to New Orleans with his parents when he was 12; he saw King Oliver play at Preservation Hall.
• Odd Couple: The outgoing, adventurous Indy and the serious, studious Eliot have this dynamic going on. Things get better when Eliot (who's studying business administration but would rather have done criminology) takes an interest in the murder mystery, after which much of the tension is between Eliot and Ernie.
  Ernie: Where'd you get this cracker?
  Indy: He came with the room.
• Oh, Crap!: Indy has this reaction when Suzie finds out that he has his saxophone with him and more or less forces him to play with the fraternity band. His misgivings about this are well-founded, as his jazz style — "brothel music", the bandleader calls it — does not go down well.
• One-Hit Wonder: In-Universe; Indy's jazz rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" goes down well with the punters at the Royal Garden. It's the only tune he can play.
• Racing the Train: The climax of the chase sequence sees Ernie drive Eliot's Aunt Bessie's car (with Indy clinging to the roof) in front of a moving train, just missing it. The mooks chasing him aren't as lucky.
• Red Herring: Victoria Moresco, Colosimo's ex-wife who had helped him to set up his prostitution business only to be cast aside for a younger woman. Indy eliminates her as a suspect in the murder because he believes her when she says that if she were going to kill her former husband, she'd've killed Dale (his new wife) first.
• Remember the New Guy?: This is the only time we see Grey Cloud, who's evidently been friends with Indy for some time by 1950. Some of the wider Indyverse material, like the novelisation of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (published when the film was released in 1989) and the book Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide (published in 2008), mention that Indy underwent a spirit quest with a Navajo medicine man, so he could have become acquainted with Grey Cloud as a result of this.
• Riddle for the Ages: Why does Indy have a beard in 1950? The Doylist (real-life) explanation is that Harrison Ford had grown a beard for the filming of The Fugitive, and had he shaved it off for this episode, there would not have been time for him to grow it back for the filming of the parts of that movie in which his character has a beard. No Watsonian (in-universe) explanation is forthcoming, although since Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out, it has been theorised that Indy's beard could be a Beard of Sorrow, as it is established in that film that Henry Jones Snr. and Marcus Brody had both died prior to 1957.
• The Roaring '20s: It's 1920 in Chicago, and Indiana Jones is hanging out with some jazz musicians. Meanwhile, Al Capone is orchestrating the murder of a rival mobster.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: At the end, Hecht declares that he's going to ditch journalism and become a playwright — that way, at least he can make sure the good guys win. Similarly, Ernie realises that no newspaper editor will touch his story about who murdered Colosimo and decides he's off to Paris. And Indy quits his job at the restaurant, which is now owned by the guys who he knows had the previous owner killed.
• Shout-Out: A couple.
  • Ernie refers to Eliot as "Sherlock" when he starts to take an interest in the murder investigation.
  • The fact that Indy's companion in the 1950 segments is a Native called Grey Cloud could be a nod to The Frisco Kid, a Western starting Harrison Ford in which one of the supporting characters is a Native chief of that name.
• Stuff Blowing Up: There are a few explosions during the warehouse scene and the subsequent chase.
• Spit Take: Eliot Ness does this in the jazz bar when he drinks the "water" that Indy ordered, only to find that it is in fact gin.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The dynamic between Eliot Ness and Ernest Hemingway, both of whom have joined up with Indiana Jones to solve a murder mystery, has shades of this. The fact that they're approaching the mystery from different angles - Eliot gets involved because he believes in justice, while Ernie's more interested in getting a good story to make his name as a reporter - goes a long way to explaining this.
  Eliot: I got a friend in my chemistry class, he works part time at the morgue. I'm sure he can help us.
  Ernie: Hm, you two must have a lot of laughs...