Recap / Young Indiana Jones And The Phantom Train Of Doom

Are you making this up as you go along?

Phantom Train of Doom is a feature-length TV movie, first broadcast on 5th June 1993 as part of the second season of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Following the re-editing of the whole series into feature-length episodes, it's the tenth instalment of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.

November, 1916. Having transferred from the Western Front to Africa, Indiana Jones (alias "Henri Defense") and Remy Baudouin are both promoted but they quickly get lost trying to join their new unit. Instead, they end up in the company of the 25th Royal Fusiliers, a unit of cranky old men led by Indy's old acquaintance, Frederick Selous — who are about to go on a mission to find and destroy a train that carries an enormous German naval gun which is being used to shell the British positions from inland. After accomplishing their goal, Selous tricks Indy and Remy into joining his unit for another caper involving the capture of the Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the commander of the German forces in East Africa.

This episode contains examples of:

• All There in the Script: This episode was originally written as two separate episodes ("German East Africa, Early November 1916" and "German East Africa, Late November 1916").
• Ambiguous Situation: What nationality is Zoltan? Although the 25th Fusiliers are clearly a British Army unit, they are rather multi-national, with their ranks including an Australian and an American (even though the USA was neutral at the time). Selous refers to Zoltan as "the best clown in Europe" but no more is said of his background ^note  Perry Davey, the actor who played him, is Australian . It is also unclear which King Parks used to be the secretary to — it would either be Edward VII (who died in 1910) or George V; probably the former, given his age, although if that were the case, Selous would have probably introduced him as the former secretary to His late Majesty.
• Artistic Licence – Geography: When they get on the (first) wrong train, Indy and Remy somehow end up passing Mount Kilimanjaro well before they get to Moshi, which is actually directly south of Kilimanjaro — a train going to Moshi from the coast wouldn't go past Kilimanjaro before getting there.
• Balloonacy: Indy and Remy manage to escape from the German camp with an unconscious Lettow-Vorbeck in a hot-air balloon — which, of course, they have no means of controlling. An attempt to get down by throwing a rope to Selous and the others fails because said rope isn't attached to anything.
• The Bus Came Back: Frederick Selous, who had previously encountered Indy in Passion for Life (specifically, the first part, which was originally broadcast as "British East Africa, September 1909"), returns.
• Call-Back: Indy has heard about big artillery guns being mounted on trains before, although this is the first time he's been sent to destroy one. Later, Selous refers to the last time he and Indy met as he prepares to shoot the explosives on the train.
  Selous: I used to be the best shot in Africa, according to you.
• Chased by Angry Natives: Happens to Indy, Remy and Lettow-Vorbeck during their wanderings in the bush.
• Chekhov's Skill: Big Mac's experience as a rodeo rider enables him to throw a lasso to Zoltan when the latter ends up on the wrong part of the uncoupled train. Zoltan's experience as a circus performer enables him to do a tightrope walk in order to rejoin the others.
• Colonel Badass: Lettow-Vorbeck, who was a colonel at the time when this episode is set (he would become a Four-Star Badass when he got promoted the following year).
• Contrived Coincidence: Selous needs someone who knows about trains and can speak German. Off the veldt walks Indy, who has worked on trains before ... and speaks fluent German.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: As Birdy observes when the Germans stop them from just taking the train back to the British lines, they should've cut the telegraph cable to stop the Germans who were on the train from reporting it stolen.
• Crazy Enough to Work: The team steals toilet paper from the Germans because they know that due to the impossibility of getting actual toilet paper, the Germans use discarded military documents like supply orders, etc. This can sometimes provide useful intelligence — and in this instance it actually does, in the form of an order for 40 kilometres of telegraph wire. The team realise that that must be how the train gets its orders; therefore, if they follow the telegraph wire, they can find the train's hidden base.
• The Cynic: Remy spends much of the episode worrying that when he and Indy eventually find their way to the Belgian Army, they'll get shot for desertion.
• Deadpan Snarker: Lettow-Vorbeck, during his brief period as Indy and Remy's prisoner.
• Defiant Captive: Margaret Trappe. And Frederick Selous and the rest of the 25th Royal Fusiliers (Indy, of course, has previous form). And later, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck ... who berates Indy for the slapdash nature of the plan to kidnap him, tries to turn the situation (he, Indy and Remy are adrift in a hot-air balloon) to his advantage and starts ordering them around.
  Indy: It's like we kidnapped my father!
• Demolitions Expert: Big Mac.
• Foregone Conclusion: Since Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was never captured by the British, you might be able to guess how the second part pans out.
• Foreshadowing: Remy's temper tantrum after they get captured by the Germans is this with regards to his and Indy's eventual falling-out.
• Gilligan Cut: When Indy and Remy get on the train out of Mombasa, Remy queries if they're on the right one as he can see that Mount Kilimanjaro is on their right, rather than their left (which it should be if they're on the right train, according to the map). Indy points out that if they were on the wrong train, they'd be heading to Moshi. Cut to ... the pair of them walking away from the train next to a big sign that says: "MOSHI".
• Good Luck Charm: After Indy proves an asset on the mission to blow up the Phantom Train, Selous brings Indy along on his next mission (capturing Colonel Von Lettow-Vorbeck) at least in part for this reason.
  Selous: I needed you - you're my good luck!
• Got Volunteered: Indy becomes part of Selous's mission to find the phantom train without realising it. He's not exactly happy about it, which leads to Selous ensuring his participation by pulling rank.
  Indy: Forget it! You can't just shanghai me off on some mission.
  Birdy: You heard what the general said. We're all volunteers.
  Indy: I didn't volunteer!
  Selous: Then I order you to go.
• Great White Hunter: Selous used to be one of these.
• Here We Go Again!: After destroying the train, Indy — this time with Remy in tow — is tricked into joining Selous and the team for another adventure.
• Hidden Depths: Indy says that he used to work shovelling coal on trains — the only time this piece of his background ever gets mentioned.
• Historical Domain Character: Indy encounters Frederick Selous, Jan Smuts, Richard Meinertzhagen, Margaret Trappe and Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Most of the German soldiers are lousy shots. To be fair, though, they're probably not the best troops that German forces in East Africa have to offer, given that they were assigned to guard a train that wasn't expected to be attacked, as opposed to being sent to the frontline.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Frederick Selous, who in Real Life was considered an expert marksman ^note  his own denials about being a crack shot have long been attributed to modesty , blows up the train by firing one bullet at a stick of dynamite from five hundred yards. He later unhorses a German courier (subsequently revealed to be Margaret Trappe) by shooting her saddle.
• Indy Ploy: Discussed as the 25th Royal Fusiliers (and Indy) set off on the mission. Later enacted several times when they have no choice but to improvise; the plan for destroying the train (such as it is) veers from blowing it up in its base to hijacking the train in order to blow it up on the move, then to stealing it, and then back to blowing it up ... by shooting at it from 500 yards away.
  Indy: How do you expect to pull this off? What's the plan?
  Birdy: [scoffs] Youngsters and their plans!
  Indy: What's wrong with plans?
  Selous: Nothing. So long as you're willing to adapt when they don't work out. He who survives is he who thinks on his feet.
  Indy: [sarcastically] Make it up as you go. That's great advice.
• Just Train Wrong: There is not (and never has been) a railway line that directly connects Mombasa (which is in Kenya, formerly British East Africa) to Moshi (which is in Tanzania, formerly German East Africa) — to get to Moshi ^note  which the British captured in March 1916, several months before the events of this episode by train, Indy and Remy would've had to have travelled from Mombasa to Tanga first.
• The Leader: Selous comes across as a cunning and resourceful leader of men. Lettow-Vorbeck later shows why he's a good example of this too, and shares his philosophy with Indy and Remy.
  Lettow-Vorbeck: In any given situation, examine your options, weigh the consequences, and make your decision, keeping in mind the soldier's criteria.
  Indy: Which is?
  Lettow-Vorbeck: A soldier's first duty is to obey orders. His second is to survive. He may fail the second, but never the first.
• Mexican Standoff: In the climax, Indy pulls a gun on Lettow-Vorbeck, Margaret pulls a gun on Indy — and Remy pulls a gun on Margaret. It's resolved by the arrival of the German army, which leads Indy to decide that in order to survive (he having been given no orders to follow), he cannot kill Lettow-Vorbeck. So he lowers his gun, and so does everyone else.
• Mistaken Nationality: Remy objects when Birdy refers to him as a "Frenchie" ... because he's a "Belgie".
• Nerves of Steel: Lettow-Vorbeck shows this when he, Indy and Remy are stranded in the bush ... and he starts ordering the lions around. Better still, it works, and the lions move away. Later subverted, when his advice upon being faced with a whole tribe of hostile warriors is, quite simply: "Run!"
• Old Soldier: Selous, and everyone else in the 25th Royal Fusiliers.
  Selous: You're only as young as you feel.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The 25th Royal Fusiliers are a Real Life example. Those who we see are a group of (rather elderly) volunteer soldiers who all have their own unique specialties and areas of expertise ... and quirks. Frederick Selous, a former big-game hunter, is The Leader. Donald Parks, a former secretary to the King, is the strategist. "Birdy" Soames, an Australian who used to be a light-house keeper, is the naval expert. Bill "Big Mac" MacMillan, a former rodeo rider and sometime mine worker, is the Demolitions Expert. Zoltan, a well-regarded circus clown, is the knife expert. Golo is the Scarily Competent Tracker. Joining them is Indy, an American teenager fighting for Belgium who is volunteered to be their translator and train expert. Remy later joins them as the cook.
• Rank Up: Along with all of the other (white) Belgian soldiers who get sent to Africa, Indy and Remy are automatically promoted to Lieutenant upon arrival.
• Refuge in Audacity: Selous's plan to "infiltrate" the German camp in is ... to pretend to be drunk, and brazenly swagger into the camp drunkenly singing "O Tannenbaum". It never occurs to the Germans to check to make sure he and his companions are actually on their side.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: Golo, as evidenced in his first scene, in which he gets the drop on Indy and Remy without either of them noticing.
• Scenery Porn: So very much. Location filming took place in various locations in Kenya — Mambrui, the Taita Hills and sites near Nairobi such as the Hopcraft Ranch, the Lukenya Hills and the Ngong Hills.
• Smoke Out: When faced with the Germans recapturing the train, Selous orders Indy to provide "a little steam" to create a smokescreen to enable the team to get away.
• Start My Own: How the 25th Royal Fusiliers came to be, as all other units considered its members too old to serve.
  Donald Parks: When war broke out, nobody would have us, so we formed our own.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Guess what happens to the train with the naval gun mounted on it.
• Suicide Mission: Indy describes the mission to destroy the train as such.
• Title Drop: Partially provided by General Smuts.
  Smuts. Finding the thing, that's the tricky part. I've sent men, I've sent aeroplanes, I've had every inch of that railway scoured, and still nothing. I don't know how they're hiding it. It's a phantom train, my friends.
• Toilet Paper Substitute: German troops use old memos and other documents, actual toilet paper being virtually impossible to acquire in World War I East Africa.^note "Documents, memos, invoices... once delivered, it goes straight to the outhouse." Knowing this, Indy and his comrades raid a German latrine for intelligence.
• Translation Convention: Played with. For the phantom train part, the Germans are speaking in German with English subtitles for the benefit of the viewer. For the Lettow-Vorbeck part, said officer is speaking in English although his conversations with Indy are probably in German.
• Where's the Kaboom?: Happens twice — first when the timers fail (forcing the team to hijack the train in order to blow it up), second when the bomb attached to the big gun fails to explode thanks to Indy having carelessly allowed the detonator caps to get wet. Selous is forced to improvise, eventually managing to blow up the train by shooting the stick of dynamite from a distance of around 500 yards with his hunting rifle.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Played for laughs when Remy has to dress as a woman when he, Indy, Selous and the others travel through the bush disguised as a family of Boer settlers. In the background, Big Mac (who, like Remy, is clean-shaven) is similarly attired and seems more amused about it than Remy does. This is subsequently gender-flipped by Margaret Trappe, who's wearing a soldier's uniform.
  Remy: [annoyed] Why couldn't you be the woman?
  Indy: They didn't have my size, alright? And I don't have your figure. [chuckles] Besides, I think we make a good couple.
• Worthy Opponent: Lettow-Vorbeck uses this exact phrase to describe Selous when the two meet. The feeling is clearly mutual.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Indy has this reaction to Selous's antics twice.
  • The first time occurs when he decides to delay their departure from the German camp in order to look for toilet paper. It's later explained that as the Germans can't get regular toilet paper, they use old military papers — meaning that stealing it is actually a form of intelligence-gathering.
  • The second time occurs when he realises that Selous has tricked him and Remy into joining in with an attempt to kidnap Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck.