The Adventurers

If I were to subscribe to the notion of 'guilty pleasures', then this film would fall into the category. As a teenager, I enjoyed reading Harold Robbins well written trash novels. After seeing "The Carpetbaggers" and several other adaptations, I'd have to say "The Adventurers" is the closest in spirit to Robbins original. This is in part because it was made in the 'Post-Code' era (after 1968) and is very explicit regarding the sex and violence. The trailer was narrated by Rod Serling and the tag line was 'Nothing has been left out of The Adventurers' which was true.

Although they updated the story by a decade (so they could include sixties' pop imagery), it follows the novel closely. Many criticize BenKim's performance but his deadpan libertine is similar to Mastroianni's in "La Dolce Vita" and appropriate for the story. The rest of the cast is fun with Borgnine hamming it up and Candace Bergen sexy. Thommy Bergen was the star of "Elvira Madigan" a few years earlier and Rosanno Brazi the lead in "South Pacific". The production value is excellent and the action scenes well done with Lewis Gilbert's famous flying bodies that he utilized in "You Only Live Twice". Anne Coates was the editor and she repeated her sound overlaps she introduced in "Lawrence of Arabia". The cinematography and music were also top notch. The original prints were in Technicolor and Panavision. Some four track magnetic stereo copies were made along with a 70mm blow up print in Eastmancolor.

The original cut ran twenty minutes longer. The cut sequences can be assertained by reading "The Making of the Adventurers" paperback book. The film was released with an R rating and re-issued in a PG version with the nudity cut but violence intact. The video version is the standard 170 minute version but not the Preview cut. The premiere was quite unusual. They showed it on a new supersonic jet to the cast and press as it circles Los Angeles! A 16mm promo film was made of the event and is floating around collector circles. The astonished look on Ernest Borgnine's face and he enters the plane for the 'premiere' is amusing.

The film was not a bomb as is usually stated and grossed ten million which was quite good for 1970. Unfortunately, it cost the same amount although I'm sure Paramount is in the black with the network showings and videocasette release.

This type of film is an acquired taste but it's one of the best of this genre. I think it's a hoot full of unintentional laughs and great action and imaginative sex scenes.

Richard W. Haines

This film is under appreciated and rather than a mess, is a profundly complex comment on the cycle of revolution in a quest for legalism and constitutionalism.

The character Dax Xenos mirrors the life of the revolutionary son and sometime exile Octavio Paz of Mexico; though the late Snr Paz became a man of letters; rather than a temporary gigolo to gain money for a business and to restore the values of his father to his homeland!

I bought it on video and it was so long it was on two tapes! So a lot of fast forwarding was needed for the countless war scenes. But it was worth the wait to get to the high sixties segments, the overall best being (for the plot totally unnecessary) the fashion shows! But oh, it was the films´ highlight. Super camp fashion numbers out of the blue but totally appropriate for a high gloss sixties movie. It was released 1970, I wonder if it all seemed a little out of date even then?

Loads of stars, even lesser like an early Jaclyn Smith and the underrated underused Angela Scoular (of On Her Majesties Secret Service). But the best is Candice Bergen. SO stunningly beautiful the screen almost melted and she did some fine acting even if she thought she hadn´t. She played a lesbian again and she ends up bitter and chain-smoking. (Hollywood logic).

Bekim Fehmiu (Black Sunday) is Dax The wealthy playboy son of an assassinated South American diplomat who discovers that his father(Fernando Rey,Frog Number 1) was murdered on orders of the corrupt president (Alan Badel) a man who was his father's confidant and who, in fact, his father had helped put into power. He returns from living the playboy jet-set life in Europe to lead a revolution against the government. This is an overly long film at two hours and fifty five minutes! it is entertaining but some of the scenes could easily have been edited out! it's based on a novel by Harold Robbins, Ernest Borgnine has little to do literary! all he does is stand about at the beck and call of his charge! It's Directed by former two time James Bond director Lewis Gilbert, the action scenes are amazing if this was produced today it would feature CGI for the battle/crowd scenes, It is a dated picture due to the fashions and unrealistic blood! which looks like red paint.

This notorious howler can be called many things: long, tasteless, idiotic, even dull to some folks, but it can never be called cheap. This is an expensive and often, visually, quite impressive saga with many glorious scenic views and jaw-dropping interior locations. The story concerns Fehmiu who, as a boy, witnessed the savage slaughter of his mother and sister at the hands of soldiers in his native country of Corteguay. His father (Rey), a revolutionary, assists new leader Badel in rising to power and taking over the nation, but pays the price when his family is slain. Cut to a dozen or so years later and Fehmiu is an idle, polo-playing ladies man in Rome who has practically forgotten about the events in Corteguay. However, when new events draw his attention, he sets out to earn enough money to exact revenge and begin yet a new regime in the endlessly war-torn country. What better way to earn dough than to rent himself out as a gigolo to rich American wives such as de Havilland?! That's actually only step one in his plan. He uses the money to help build a fashion house (!) with his dethroned, Russian-royal schoolmate Berggren. When even that takes too long, he sets his sites on pretty American heiress Bergen, but once again he falls off the track of his ultimate goal until he finds that he has more to fight for than just his homeland. His childhood sweetheart Taylor-Young displays to him what he needs in order to reignite his fighting spirit and rebuild Corteguay. This is a sprawling story from an even more sprawling book (a hunk of Fehmiu's life is skipped over and two of his marriages aren't even shown!), but it could have been whittled down just a little if the opening scenes had been streamlined and some of the battle sequences shortened a bit. As it stands, viewers tuning in for the actions scenes are bored by the soap opera histrionics while lovers of camp and over-the-top melodrama are bored by all the explosions and gunplay. However, for those willing to wait out the bad for the good (no matter which is which), there are a few things here worth seeing. The cinematography of the film is magnificent. The scenery, the production design, the lighting, the decor and the costumes are all eye-catching. The battle scenes are well-done and the amount of extras used is staggering to behold. Long before CGI came along, someone had to wrangle the thousands of people present in the various scenes shown here and it pays off magnificently. As for the acting... Fehmiu is legendarily bad. He has a few effective moments, but is nowhere near multidimensional enough to carry a role like this in a film like this! Considered by many to be an attractive and virile (if wooden) leading man, he is something of a hatchet face with a lean, well-defined body. The character is never completely likable, but is made even less so by having such an uncharismatic person in the lead. He has two love scenes that are riotous. One by a pool surrounded by statues and another in a steamy, exotic greenhouse. Bergen is very uneven. Her early scenes are a bit awkward, her middle scenes better, but her later ones are hysterically awful as she inexplicably affects a bizarre accent and wanders around as if lobotomized. She is undeniably lovely, however, most of the time. Borgnine, who plays Fehmiu's personal bodyguard and friend, is ludicrous in sound and appearance at first, but, fortunately, improves greatly as the film wears on. De Havilland does what is probably the closest thing she ever had to a nude scene with only a sheet thrown over one shoulder as she romances Fehmiu. She manages to get through the movie relatively unscathed, as does Brazzi in a smallish role as one of Rey's Roman contacts (though in one scene Brazzi has the dubious honor of having to traipse through a house full of strategically naked young people!) Taylor-Young is handed a fairly colorless role, but is able to bring a little heart and appeal to it. One hilarious camp highlight is Fehmiu associate Aznavour's secret den of iniquity which truly must be seen to be believed. Another sequence not to be missed by any fan of 60's culture is the preposterous, ludicrous and thoroughly irresistible fashion show (complete with it's "plethora" of seven outfits!) As the planet's funkiest song radiates across a flashing dance floor, the models thrash around in a wide array of styles which seem unlikely to be of a particular collection. Cinema fashion shows are always a riot because the style is antiquated sometimes as early as the film's release date and this one is high in the pantheon of rancidness and wondrousness. Reporting on the clothes is "Teen Magazine reporter" Smith in one of her very earliest roles. It's long, it's tacky, it's wacky and it's empty-headed, but it's also stylish, attractive, intriguing and quite a treat for fans of all-star casts and hopeless kitsch.