The Adventurers (1970)
Picture: B- Sound:
B- Extras: D Film: C-
The late author Harold Robbins is best remembered for writing
trashy, but compulsively readable potboilers about the rich and
privileged. His novels of "The
Carpetbaggers" and "The Betsy" were adapted for the big screen
in 1964 and 1978, respectively, and both film versions turned out to be
enormous guilty pleasures. As a result,
I was eager to catch up to the 1970 big-screen version of Robbins' The
Adventurers. Unfortunately, though,
this one is a lot closer to being as bad as most reviews indicate.
A big-budget co-production between Paramount and Avco Embassy
Pictures, The Adventurers came out during a down time for the film
industry. The days of the studio system
and the censoring Hays Codes were over and a new breed of realistic cinema was
just beginning to take off. As a
result, The Adventurers seems caught between the styles of new and
old. On one hand, it's filmed like a
traditional, stilted soap opera. On the
other hand, it features flashes of nudity and graphic violence, which
would have been censored just four or five years earlier.
Still, in different hands, The Adventurers might have been
a guilty pleasure like the others. But as directed by Lewis Gilbert, the film
is overlong, staged without energy and acted without passion. The film's chief liability is that
Yugoslavian actor Bekim Fehmiu is completely forgettable in the lead -- just a
week and a half after watching the movie, I already forget what he looks
like. And who in their right mind cast
the very British sounding and looking Alan Badel as a South American
dictator? Every other character from
the fictional South American country at the center of the film (called
Corteguay) is olive-skinned and speaks with some kind of accent (even
Ernest Borgnine) except Badel, who stands out like a sore thumb.
The Adventurers tells the story of Dax Xenos (Fehmiu),
who flees the troubled Corteguay at a young age after his mother is
raped and murdered by government thugs.
Vowing one day to return for revenge, Dax emigrates to Italy where he
becomes gigolo who romances wealthy older women (like Olivia de Havilland) in
hopes of one day becoming rich and powerful enough to right all the wrongs
done to him. In the meantime, Dax drifts
from one woman to another (including de Havilland, Candice Bergen,
Jaclyn Smith and Leigh Taylor-Young) while Corteguay drifts from one
dictatorship to another. The one theme
that rings true in the film is that third-world countries prone to
revolution often overthrow one totalitarian government for another,
with the latest one eventually proving more brutal than the previous
one.
Only the occasional lurid moments are enough to keep you awake
during the three-hour running time. There are also a few
unintentional howlers, particularly a scene in which Candice Bergen falls
off a swing while some wacky music plays on the soundtrack.
The quality of Paramount's new DVD release of The Adventurers
is a lot better than the film itself.
It's been given a nice transfer in 2.35:1 anamorphic
widescreen, with vivid color and better-than-average sound (Dolby Digital in
both English 5.1 Surround and English Stereo).
Everything looks and sounds quite good for a 35-year-old film. As usual with Paramount catalogue
titles, the extras get low marks because there aren't any. Admittedly, a lot of extras aren’t expected
on a title like The Adventurers, a film most of the cast and crew
would probably just as soon forget.
But a theatrical trailer and or TV spots would have been nice.
- Chuck O'Leary
