'The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones' TV Movie Review: 'Adventures in the Secret Service'

Pros: Fairly effective marriage of two separate Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episodes

Cons: Feels a tad uneven, and the mood is downbeat. 

In the middle of the 1991-92 TV season (March 1992, to be precise), ABC and George Lucas's Lucasfilm Limited attempted a daring experiment; to give viewers a mixture of educational material - primarily focusing on early 20th Century history - and entertainment (edutainment for short) in a series titled The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.
 
Like Lucasfilm's 2008-2013 Cartoon Network animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was an anthology; instead of being a linear narrative which starts in 1908 and ends in 1923, the series jumped around the timeline and alternated episodes with preteen Indy (played by Corey Carrier) and teen/young adult Indiana/Henri Defense/Henry Jones, Jr. (Sean Patrick Flannery). 

Each episode was "framed" with prologues and epilogues set in the series' "present day" and starring George Hall as "Old Indy", a 90-something retiree who still wore his trademark fedora but also sported an eye patch just like famed film director John Ford (who, incidentally, is one of the historical figures who makes a major appearance in the Young Indy straight to video "movie" Hollywood Follies). 

Because the three Indiana Jones features then in existence were still relatively fresh in the public's eye and fans were constantly asking director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas if there would be a fourth movie, ABC and Lucasfilm had high hopes that The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles would have healthy ratings.  Indeed, Lucas had story ideas for 70 episodes altogether, some of which would introduce characters such as Rene Belloq and Abner Ravenwood, who were either seen or prominently mentioned in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
 
The series earned decent but not spectacular ratings during its first season, but ABC decided that it was too expensive to keep on the air with lowering ratings, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles limped off the air with just 31 aired episodes, not even half of Lucas' hoped-for 70-show-run. (Sadly, not even a once-in-a-blue moon TV appearance by Harrison Ford as 50-year-old Indy could save the series from cancellation.)

Over the years, Lucasfilm managed to keep the young Indy series in video's equivalent of life support. In the late 1990s, Paramount Home Video re-released the Chronicles in tandem with re-issues of the feature films, going as far giving the Harrison Ford flicks "chapter numbers" on the boxes' spines to make them fit into the series' timeline.

Additionally, Lucas and his creative team made five "feature-length" TV movies for the Family Channel and a few straight-to-home-video re-edits, including 2000's Adventures in the Secret Service.
 
Adventures in the Secret Service

Also known as The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Adventures in the Secret Service

Written by Frank Darabont (Austria 1917) and Gavin Scott (Petrograd 1917), based on stories by George Lucas

Directed by Vic Armstrong (Austria segment) and Simon Wincer (Petrograd segment)

Formats Available: VHS as The Adventures of Indiana Jones: Adventures in the Secret Service (2000)

DVD: Disc 6 of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Two - The War Years
 
In Chapter 13 of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Capt. Henri Defense, better known as either Henry Jones, Jr. or Indiana Jones (Sean Patrick Flannery), is still a fledgling agent for the French Intelligence Service, having transferred there from the well-meaning but somewhat less effective Belgian espionage division.

(After a harrowing tour of duty in the Belgian Congo, Indy, now a captain in the Belgian Army, and his friend Remy Bauduoin [Rony Coutteure] have had enough of life in the front lines and decided to become intelligence agents, thinking that cloak-and-dagger missions and unofficial diplomacy will speed up the end of the war and stop the slaughter in Europe and elsewhere.  In Chapter 12, Attack of the Hawkmen, Indy's first mission as a spy doesn't go too well, but his superiors in French Intelligence still see there's some potential in this sometimes reckless American youth.)

After a narrow escape from enemy territory, Indy is debriefed by his commanding officer, Colonel Dupree (Victor Spinetti), who is torn between dismissing "Captain Defense" from his intelligence service and keeping him on because his raw talent and ability to speak over 20 languages can be useful.
 
Colonel Dupree: Our agents in Germany confirm there was a gigantic plane at the base in Ahlhorn which was destroyed in some mysterious fire. Due to you, Defense?

 Indiana Jones: Yes sir, but... that was actually an accident, sir.  
 
Indy thinks that Dupree is probably going to dismiss him, especially when the colonel looks at him with a semi-exasperated expression and asks rhetorically, "Defense, what am I going to do with you? Let's consider your future over a drink."

Of course, Dupree knows exactly what he's going to do with Indy; he is sending the young captain and rookie spy to escort two members of the Austrian royal family, Sixtus (Benedict Taylor) and Xavier (Matthew Wait) on a secret diplomatic mission to Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Austria, whose declaration of war on Serbia in July of 1914 was the catalyst for the beginning of World War I, has been a loyal ally of the larger and more powerful German Empire for over three years, but the death of the aged Emperor Franz Josef, heavy losses at the battlefronts and the Allies' improved chances of victory have caused the new ruler, Emperor Karl I (Patrick Ryecart)  to consider signing a separate peace with Britain, France and possibly Russia and pulling out of the war.

There are, of course, many obstacles, the biggest being the possibility of Kaiser Wilhelm II's ire being incurred if Karl I renounces the Austro-Hungarian Empire's alliance with Germany.  There's also the obstinacy of Karl's foreign minister, Count Ottokar Graf Czernin (Christopher Lee), who seems to be more sympathetic to Germany and the alliance than he is to Karl's idealism and desire for peace.

Indy doesn't like Sixtus and Xavier at first; he sees them as foppish playboys pretending to be officers, and he believes their behavior in the early stages of the operation is going to get them all killed.  As time passes and the two royals prove that there is more to them than meets the eye, Indy gains a lot of respect for his fellow conspirators, especially when they are faced with the threat of being captured by a menacing German spy-catcher known as The Prussian (Joss Ackland).

After a somewhat unfulfilling mission in Austria, Indy is next assigned to France's embassy in Petrograd, the capital of the now very unstable Russia.  Czar Nicholas II has abdicated his throne, and the fledgling Provisional Government led by Alexander Kerensky is under a lot of pressure from a small but very vocal and militant revolutionary faction known as the Bolsheviks.

Once in Petrograd, Indy is assigned by the French Ambassador (Jean Pierre Cassel) to infiltrate a group of young Bolsheviks, who are idealistic followers of V.I. Lenin (Roger Sloman) and believe, among other Communist precepts, in his simple but effective slogan "Peace! Bread! Land!"

The Allies are afraid that Russia will pull out of the war if Kerensky is overthrown by Lenin's ultra left party, and they hope that their intelligence estimates about the Bolsheviks' lack of support among the populace are right.

However, if Indy's observations about his young Russian friends (Julia Stemberger, Gary Olsen, Beata Pozniak and Ravil Isyanov) are accurate enough, these estimates are more the result of wishful thinking than they are a reflection of reality on the ground. 

So when Lenin vanishes on a "holiday" to Finland and rowdy red-banner waving agitators begin to mass in the streets of Petrograd on a cold October day in 1917, Indy starts to have a bad feeling about things....

My Take:  Though sold on home video (VHS and DVD) as a feature-length "movie" re-edited for Lucasfilm by T.M. Christopher as a personal request by George Lucas, Adventures in the Secret Service is one of those "chapters" that feels a bit uneven because it's made up of two separate one-hour episodes from the original TV series.

The first half (Vienna 1917) was written by Frank Darabont, who is one of the best writers chosen to work on the Young Indy series but is more recognized for his three adaptations of Stephen King works (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and The Mist).  Darabont's script -  including, I'm sure, the bridging material shot in 1996 to make this episode jive with the Petrograd half - mixes action, suspense, humor and "edutainment" very nicely and gives Indy fans a glimpse into how the future archaeologist started developing his action-hero skills and acquired his sometimes cynical attitude about life outside academia.

Interestingly, this half is directed by Vic Armstrong, one of the world's most in-demand stunt workers/stunt coordinators, whose affiliation with the Indiana Jones franchise includes performances as Harrison Ford's double in the first three feature films.  He obviously learned quite a few tricks of the trade in his collaborations with Steven Spielberg and other filmmakers, so the pacing of his "half" is brisk and the narrative is kept taut, even though history buffs will not be surprised by the ending.

The Petrograd half, which was written by Gavin Scott (Small Soldiers) and directed by Simon Wincer, is not bad, but it is one of the more depressing episodes of the series.  It has its light moments, such as when Indy's Bolshevik friends explain what Communism is all about (at least in theory) by slicing the young spy's birthday cake and dividing it the "capitalist way" and then the "socialist way."

Also, Indy's interaction with the "historical guest star" (Lenin) is, by the logic of the episode, more passive than his encounters with other famous persons of the early 20th Century.  Here, "Capt. Defense" observes Lenin from a distance, having been invited to a Party rally by one of his young Red friends.

What makes this episode a bit depressing is that - unless you're too young to remember that there was once a Soviet Union and that the U.S. engaged in a military-political rivalry with that country (the Cold War) for 46 years - you know exactly where Scott and Wincer are going with their story, even though Indy's French superiors don't.