L'immortel

hard to believe I woke up this AM thinking about Barry Sullivan in his role trying to capture 'The Immortal'. 37 years ago and the idea still reverberates. imagine, one person's blood able to smooth the wrinkles out of veteran actor Sullivan's face, make him young again, cure AIDS (more than a decade before we knew about AIDS), cancer, heart disease, and all else. handled differently, as one reviewer suggested in the Sci-Fi genre, this could have been a TV long run gem instead of a variation of 'The Fugitive' and chasing Dr. Richard Kimble. possibilities with the plot were untapped, thus the idea was wasted. perhaps it's time for a rebirth with more courage and bigger budget. the Sci-Fi channel might be the ticket. enjoyed remembering George and his rugged good looks. believe he was married to that beautiful Dove soap lady.

I saw every episode, few as there were. Although I remember few plots, the recurring theme was similar to The Fugitive. Each week, Ben Richards would encounter some good people in desperate straits, and he would help them, despite the threat of capture. Frequently that help involved him giving someone a transfusion.

I suspect this concept would not work in the 1990's.

I tried to watch a friend's Vid of The Immortal tonight. I couldn't. It hurt too much. It was SO much a cliché hunk of nothing soap opera I had to turn it off.

Ben Richards, the brave race car driver who is immune to all of life's diseases. The evil old man Braddock wants to imprison him to vampire his blood so he will stay young forever. Sylvia, the soft focus blonde girlfriend of Ben who can't quite take it all.

The series was even worse than the made for TV movie. How many episodes can you go of Richards almost being captured? I have seen worse, but most of it was made specifically for children. I remember enjoying it when it was first on, but I was an eight year old child then. It seemed interesting and adult then. Now, it's just painfully badly written.

Ben Richards was not a fugitive from the law, as many of the people he encountered assumed by the way he acted, but a fugitive from the human race, he couldn't seek help from authorities because he had something no one else had and everyone wanted, immortality that was also contagious through a blood transfusion from him.

When you get down to it, we are all terminally ill, we just sugar coat the term and call ourselves mortals. But what would any one give to cure themselves of their own terminal illness we call mortality? Capture one man and turn him into a blood donor for the human race? Was Maitland really evil and greedy, or was he just like the rest of us? I think the character of Ben Richards could of been used in many Hollywood movies as the trump card to movies with a sad ending or a movie lacking a twisted plot.

The Big Question I have is there any surviving film footage of this great short lived series?

It had a few actors i like in it. Always loved Christopher George but it really wasn't all that good. The rainbow butcher ep was not bad. Vic Morrow played the SOB cop in it. Made that nice. That was it.