The Adventurer - Dedicated Follower of Fashion

When an adventure/action television show is very good , like "The Avengers" or "Mission: Impossible" or more recent shows such as "24", then they work wonderfully for the audience and last for years and earn a place in the hearts of fans the world over.

Alas, there is that other type of show: "The Adventurer" was apparently that other type of show, the bad adventure show. The lame howler of a show; the why-the -hell-I'm-I-watching-this(?) adventure show; the "take-it-away-I'm feeling-sick-acccckk!" adventure show. Gene Barry (aka "Bat Masterson" "Burke's Law", "Amos Burke: Secret Agent", that rich guy on "The Name of the Game" , et al.) is Gene Bradley, movie star turned special agent in this half-hour (?!) action show, made in Britain in 1972-73. The video shows how much can go wrong.

I don't think I ever saw "The Adventurer". It apparently only ran for two episodes in the USA in syndication, according to a website which reviews the DVD release of this show. It was that "good" folks. But in a way I have seen this show: this type of show at least--bad shows from those days like "Supertrain" or "A Man Called Sloane" or "Cool Million" that came and went so fast you hardly remember anythng but the main actors and the title of the series.

Here's a bit of a review from "modculture.com" to give you the flavor of the enterprise, in a review of similar shows done by Sir Lew Grade's ITC Television.

"The least successful of these ('but fondly remembered') was The Adventurer, the story of one Gene Bradley, a millionaire playboy actor with a canny sideline in counter espionage. Played by middle aged Gene Barry, he works under the auspices of a Mr Parminter (played by Barry Morse) and with the sometime aid of Catherine Schell’s Diane. It’s just one heady, non stop juggernaut of fondue parties, filming schedules, cocktail lounges and bird pulling exploits with.-oh yes-a bit of added sub-Bond malarkey to liven things up. "



"Fondue parties and cocktail lounges!" Whoooo--doggies! I must get the whole series on DVD or perish in the trying! Alas again, Barry does look a bit too long in the tooth and too flabby to be convincing as some swinging super agent--who still has young women hanging on him like he's a chocolate covered George Clooney.
Gene was a good actor in his day, but sadly he's overage here. It's rather like watching Roger Moore creak his joints through the last couple James Bond movies he did. And the fight scenes in these clips show how little care was put into staging them.


I don't really remember seeing this show, as I said, but it had to exist and this is one of the funniest remixes of a dramatic show I've seen posted on You Tube, so I present it for you.
The music is, of course, by The Kinks and if you look closely around 0:56 of the video I'd swear Our Hero Gene is actually beating up Neil Diamond! Say it isn't so, Gene!