The Adventurers

I liked this movie when I first saw it in the UK. It was R rated and deserved to be. Definitely for mature audiences. Don't know why it was released as PG rated in US. Lost some of its mature content and bite as a result.

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 It was released 1970, I wonder if it all seemed a little out of date even then?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's acting career has not flourished in America; nor should it have. This man couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag. He should never have been selected to play the lead in a film of this magnitude. Dax Xenos was a powerful role and he blew it badly. On another front, I was surprised at the amount of nudity in the film, given it's vintage (1970). There is also a lot of violence. The basic yarn is about an exiled playboy (Dax Xenos) from the poor Central American country of Corteguay. The country is in constant turmoil since it is run by despots. Our playboy ultimately becomes involved in a revolution. Also starring are Candice Bergen, Ernest Borgnine, Olivia DeHavilland and Leigh Taylor-Young. The story line is plausible and well-written. The rest of the cast all give decent performances. But due to the star's poor performance, I gave this film only a 4.

A real treat...if you're a masochist. Bekim Fehmiu is "Dax," the son of a counter-revolutionary from a fictional South American country who beds loose women, rich women, elderly women, and so on. All done in the name of keeping his homeland free from tyranny. In addition to Fehmiu, whose career seems to have evaporated, THE ADVENTURERS features the likes of Candice Bergen, Charles Aznavour, Olivia De Havilland, and Fernando Rey, all at their very worst. Ernest Borgnine, with jet-black hair and frito-bandito accent, plays Dax's bodyguard. Every lurid cliché in the book is assembled for this trashy adaptation of the Harold Robbins novel: murder, rape, assassination, lesbianism, miscarriage, adultery.

I took my wife to see this one at the drive-in when it came out. I was only making $85 a week at the time, so three bucks to see a movie meant a lot. We left the theater about half way through this mess. Even the World News clips that they showed at intermission were better. My wife really loved the Robbins' novel, but had to admit that Wally Cox would have made a better Dax than the yahoo they had playing the part. The only reason we stayed half way through was because I wanted to see John Ireland...I reached for popcorn and missed his appearance in the film. This one is over-long, badly acted and bloody, extremely bloody considering when it came out. I was REALLY mad because I passed up "Vanishing Point"(1970) to see this klunker.

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.