Too much to say about this one...
In 1992, Albert Schwietzer was a name I'd heard of but never knew exactly
who he was or what he did. 1 hr. on a warm, spring evening cleared that up
thanks to "Congo - January 1917". Great episode! My favourite parts:
-Indy & Schwietzer playing on the piano together
-Indy being picked up and carried off the boat
-The French soldiers at Port Gentil and Lambarene
-Schwietzer's dialogue about "Reverance for Life"
-Jeremiah Sloat. He was perfect! "Listen t'me Sonny, if ya think yar gonna rig
my boat with them fireworks...yar as crazy as a rat in a tin can!"
"Chronicles" was one of the first shows to be broadcast in stereo and we had
our TV hooked up to the stereo speakers. It used to be fun trying to create the
home-theatre-experience by shutting all the lights, turning down the TV volume
and jacking up the stereo. Watching Indy dodge bullets that were flying from
one side of the room to the other was something I couldn't get enough of.
Plus, all the music was excellent! Not a bad note to be found and hearing the
score so LOUD and crystilline clear never failed to immerse me in each episode.
In "Congo", when "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" began playing, my mother heard
the music, came downstairs and asked what I was watching. She stayed for
the rest of the show and when it was over we watched that part again on tape
just to appease her love for the piece.
Interestingly enough, this scene seems to have been lifted from the film,
"Light in the Jungle" (aka "Out of Darkness" or "Schwietzer"), from 1990.
Malcolm McDowell plays the good doctor and it's worth watching if you can
track it down. In it, you will find a similar sequence with the same music.
My VHS tapes of Young Indy are topped up with documentary clips pertaining
to each episode (like Lucas is doing now). One bit has footage and interviews
with Schwietzer c.1965, just before he died, attempting to criticize him for his
all-white staff and neglect in teaching any medical procedures to natives.
There is an Albert Schwietzer Museum a few hours north of where I'm presently
living which I'd like to visit someday. He was from the disputed French/German
province of Alsace and was born just a few years after the Franco-Prussian War.
This, I suppose, would (technically) make him German but Schwietzer, himself,
was not even sure which country he belonged to which makes his deportation
from Africa all the more ridiculous.
You're a better man than I am, Albert Schwietzer...