The Adventurers

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 It was released 1970, I wonder if it all seemed a little out of date even then?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).

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!

This movie was a tad too long and not trashy enough, but its worth a look if you're in the right mood. The lead actor has no acting ability at all and I was wondering what the movie would be like with Omar Sharif instead. If you're looking for gloss and glitter and all that, see "Where Love has Gone" or "The Betsy", also by Harold Robbins and made into movies. This movie includes a lot of civil war involvement, set in a fictional country. The large cast includes Ernest Borgnine, Candice Bergen and Olivia DeHavilland.

Porfirio Rubirosa was a man of many parts, part time diplomat, part time polo player, part time race car driver, and most definitely full time lover. He's the man on which lead Bekim Fehmiu's part is based. In that lies the tale of The Adventurers.

Harold Robbins up to this point had done reasonably well on the screen with successful adaptions of novels like The Carpetbaggers, Where Love Has Gone, King Creole, etc. But Paramount spent a fortune on this film with a few name players in supporting roles, but came up real short with Yugoslavian actor Bekim Fehmiu in the lead. Sometimes casting an unknown works, the best examples being Peter O'Toole in Lawrence Of Arabia and Errol Flynn in Captain Blood. But here the distinctly uncharismatic Fehmiu just had no chemistry with any of the women he was to wed and/or bed. When you're basing the lead character on a notorious lover of the flesh, that's kind of essential.

Rubirosa in real life had an on again off again relationship with Rafael Trujillo dictator of his native Dominican Republic. Alan Badel plays the Trujillo figure who did not come to as glorious an end as he does here. Badel was certainly as treacherous as Trujillo in real life.

Rubirosa was married 5 times in real life and one of those wives was Barbara Hutton who got around herself pretty good as another of her husbands was Cary Grant. Here her role is played by Candice Bergen who likes a good time, but also wants a family.

The girl from Fehmiu's mythical country of Corteguay is Leigh Taylor-Young. Anna Moffo stands in for fellow opera singer Maria Callas. You'll recognize a few other players on the international scene.

The climax is the revolution against the duplicitous Badel and the battle scenes are staged well, a lot of the film's budget certainly went there.

As for Bekim Fehmiu international stardom was not to be, but it looks like he had a respectable career in his native Yugoslavia.

If you like to stargaze and note some of the names that are present in the cast or if you are devoted to the novels of Harold Robbins then I would recommend The Adventurers. Otherwise it's pretty mediocre.

I had read Harold Robbins' book "The Adventurers" on a cross-country flight when it first came out, and found it to be a bit more enjoyable than his usual trash--somewhat better written, a more interesting story than usual, different types of characters. So when the movie was released, I figured, "Ah, what the hell, I'll check it out." I must say that I enjoyed this film in spite of itself. The dialog is laughably inane, the acting by pretty much the entire cast is abysmal (star Bekim Fehmiu, a Yugoslav heartthrob, only made a few more films before he deservedly disappeared), if you expected Candace Bergen to do her usual embarrassingly inept job you won't be disappointed, Ernest Borgnine hams outrageously, and there are a host of cameos--none of them particularly noteworthy--by everyone from Olivia De Havilland to John Ireland, most of whom probably took the parts in order to get a free trip to Europe. The film does, however, have a few things going for it. One is the luminous Leigh Taylor-Young. She is absolutely exquisite; her part, though essential, doesn't call for a lot of screen time, but every time she does appear on-screen she lights it up. Also, the battle sequences are exciting, well staged and very convincing; they pick up the film's pace tremendously (the action scenes were shot in Colombia and the extras were Colombian soldiers, who knew a thing or two about what happens in battle). A lot of money was spent making this picture and, unlike many big-budget European co-productions made at the time, it shows on the screen. The photography is outstanding, the European scenery is beautiful, the jungle scenes in "Corteguay" (which were also shot in Colombia) are stunning and the costumes and production values are sumptuous. Besides, it IS an interesting story (the son of a man murdered by a corrupt and oppressive government returns to overthrow that government, only to find that the new government he's helped to install is just as corrupt and oppressive).

All things considered, it's not a bad way to spend a couple of hours. The picture got savaged by reviewers when it first came out, but it's really not all that bad. It's somewhat overblown and overheated, but enjoyable nonetheless. Check it out.