Two crusty septuagenarians, retired from plebeian careers, Leinen (James Whitmore) and Warner (Jose Ferrer), both enthusiasts of world history, meet each week at Leinen's apartment to fantasize of imaginary adventures with Leinen as Heinrich Schliemann and Warner as Henry Stanley, adventures created by the two from whole cloth as they confront, in their minds, human and other adversaries up in the Himalayas, in the Sahara, Yucatan, Bermuda Triangle, et alia. The pair is connected by friendship and a common interest, but this film is limply directed with blocking and the use of extras handled clumsily, as we watch fantasies of their exploits converted into cinematic action but with a torpid tempo which belies dreams of derring-do shared by the duo, and hardly enhanced by the natural lack of comedic skill from the leads. Warner lives with his son and the latter's family, and a crosscurrent is touched upon relative to the reactions of these others with Warner's vivid visualizations but this, as too with other potential story elements which might have intensified matters, is nudged and then ignored, to the disharmony of the scenario in general. A large crew is assembled for the production, filmed in Arizona, Florida, Minnesota and Missouri, but which withal has a bargain-basement look and feel to it, and the work must remain an unordinary one: presenting a concept which clings to the memory whereas its execution relegates it to oblivion.
