This television series' main plot theme is manipulation, action, glamour and excellent car chases.
The interesting thing about THE ADVENTURER, is the number of locations, that is used in this tv series.
It does make effective use of its locations in London, The South Of France, Holland and Belgium.
GENE BARRY (WAR OF THE WORLDS, BURKE'S LAW) is the star of this show, supported by the two stars of SPACE 1999, being BARRY MORSE and CATHERINE SCHELL.
This series was created by Monty Berman and Dennis Spooner, who were the creators of other ITC shows such as THE CHAMPIONS and DEPARTMENT S.
The first eight episodes have two Executive Story Consultants, Dennis Spooner and Marty Roth, but from episode nine onwards the show has only one Executive Story Consultant, being Dennis Spooner.
The star Gene Barry had script approval. Unfortunately the quality of the scripts in the opinion of the cast and crew were awful.
Which ended up with Gene Barry clashing with script editor and co-creator Dennis Spooner.
When they filming abroad they had no scripts available, unfortunately when the scripts did arrive, they arrived late. Which meant everything had to be done in a rush.
No wonder some of the episodes ended up as a botch up job.
This series was on shot 16 mm film, instead of 35mm film. The reason why they did this, was that 16mm was a lot cheaper than the more expensive 35mm film. The trouble with 16mm film is that it is very granny and not as fresh and clean like 35mm film.
So when you watch this series on dvd you will notice the scratches and tears on each of the episodes.
With the episodes that are made and set in England, I noticed the cars that are used a lot in this series are all the latest Vauxhall cars.
With the exception of Gene Bradley, who drives or rides in much more sophisticated cars.
My understanding of the Gene Bradley character is that he is a man who is charming, manipulative and cocky.
He wears lots of suede and denim jackets with big lapels, which was the dominant clothing for men in the early 1970's.
While his pretty assistant Diane played by Catherine Schell is cool, clever and charming.
Barry Morse who plays Gene Bradley's boss Mr Parminter, in some episodes plays his part either lightweight or heavyweight. In fact you get to see two different personalities of his character.
Gene Barry didn't get on well with his two costars, Barry Morse and Catherine Schell. They found him to be arrogant and full of himself.
What is clever of each episode is how the plot builds up into a grand finale.
The fight scenes in every episode are awful, they comical and very slapstick.
The car chases are excellent, the best in a television series of its time.
Filming began on THE ADVENTURER at the start of April 1972. They finished filming it in November that same year, so it took only seven months to make, and it made its debut on ITV at the end of September 1972.
Although Gene Barry plays THE ADVENTURER character with excellent charm, he is unfortunately too old, too slow and overweight to be an action, adventure hero.
This series ended up being dislike by both the public and the newspaper critics.
It has gone into obscurity, despite having well known guests stars in it, such as Ben Kingsley, Jane Asher, Paul Eddington, Donald Huston, Alexander Bastedo, Patrick Mower, Roy Kinnear, Ingrid Pitt, Dennis Price, George Sewell, Sylvia Sims and Peter Vaughan.
For more insight about this television series, you can read my reviews of all twenty six episodes on IMDB.
NOT QUITE ENTERTAINING.
