The Adventurer (1972) episode 26: Somebody Doesn’t Like Me

So 26 episodes, around 50, 620 words and 28 blog posts later, we’ve finally reached the last stop for Gene Bradley, and I find myself in the likely position of having written more about The Adventurer than any other person. I don’t know if I deserve a medal or I deserve being put out of my misery. In all honesty though documenting the whole insane saga of The Adventurer has been tons of fun, and I can only hope these blog posts have managed to reflect that. The Adventurer is a mad, bad world to hide out and get lost in for a couple of weeks, and deserves to be the chief exhibit in the museum of 20th century egomania. Should such a museum ever open, I’d be happy to chip in towards a bronze statue of Gene Bradley.

Although every week has brought with it slight fears and anxieties that this is the week that I’ll dry up and run out of things to say, only a couple of episodes have proved to be such an obstacle. I’ll happily hold my hands up and be the first to admit that with ‘Love Always, Magda’ and ‘Deadlock’ you can tell I was floundering when it came to finding much entertainment value in those dud episodes. For someone prone to writers’ block though, writing up Adventurer episodes has proved remarkably easy. As if by magic hitherto unknown information…the existence of the Adventurer compilation ‘movie’ …the tie-in novelisation…has dropped into my lap, and kept fuelling this long, late night journey into the past…but now it’s early morning and we’ve reached our final destination. I’ll miss ‘em all…Mr Parminter…Diane…Brandon…Vince…or whoever was standing in for Vince that week.

Call it Stockholm syndrome but I’ll even miss Gene. Appalling as the behind the scenes stories get, I can’t really seem to work up any genuine hatred for the man. The lifelong lunacy over other actors’ height…those God-awful trousers…that whiney, room clearing voice that Catherine Schell does such a spot on impersonation of on the DVD extras…it’s all just too amusing a combo. Should anyone be under the illusion that Gene’s behaviour during The Adventurer was merely a brief moment of madness, I suggest you fast forward twenty odd years later to the 1994 revival of Burke’s Law, Aaron Spelling’s attempt to drag Gene into the Baywatch/Beverly Hills, 90210 era. The passing of time did little to diminish Gene’s ego…in one episode Gene accidently becomes a backing dancer in a music video for an Axl Rose type rockstar, in the next episode Gene is showing off his ice skating skills, another sees him KO a karate expert who is at least three times younger than him. Elliott Gould guest stars in one episode, only to have to sit down whenever he and Gene share the screen…old habits die hard. Burke, 90210 (as I like to call the 1994 version of Burke’s Law) has its moments, but it’s not The Adventurer, then again what is? I guess I’ll just have to accept that there is a Gene Bradley sized hole in my life that will never be filled.



It is not all over yet though, we’ve still got one more episode to go, the supremely appropriately entitled ‘Somebody Doesn’t Like Me’. One more episode, and one more trip to The Adventurer’s beloved docklands settings, where low-level criminal Johnny gets himself into serious trouble when he accidently overhears a group of men from the worlds of business and crime plotting to assassinate Gene Bradley. Narrowly escaping death (by hiding under a Chevrolet car) Johnny tries to capitalise on this information by attempting to sell it to Gene via Krista Magnus (Penelope Horner). Gene is rather sweet on Krista, but as she has scammed him before, senses another con and dismisses her claims that a price is on his head. Soon Gene discovers that Krista’s claims aren’t without foundation though, as attempts on his life start coming left, right and centre. “From now on I look twice at any guy with two hands in his pocket” Gene tells Parminter. Gene narrowly avoids death when a few nuts and bolts are removed from 88 Delta, forcing Gene to make an emergency landing. Gene can’t even visit a trendy hair salon without a hitman (Robin ‘Zeta One’ Hawdon) pulling a gun on him.

Drastic measures are called for, so Gene makes the decision to fake his own death by having Gavin pretend to shoot him outside of ATV studios (this series was certainly determined to go out in a blaze of self-publicity). The Adventurer then resurrects the long forgotten ‘Gene, master of disguise’ storyline as Gene goes about disguising himself as his own assassin and attempts to make contact with the men who put the hit out on him.



Words fail me when it comes to describing Gene’s very last disguise in the series. The best I can come up with is to ask you to imagine a mixture of Elvis and Charles Bronson (circa Death Wish 4 or 5), but with a put on raspy voice worthy of an obscene phone caller. Gene is so ‘method’ that he insists on wearing this elaborate get-up even when he is talking over the phone to the man who wants him dead, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the man on the other end of the phone can’t see what he looks like!! As tends to be a puzzling theme running throughout The Adventurer, Gene spends much time prepping and getting into his disguise, then never actually puts it to any practical use. Here Gene arranges a docklands meeting with the men who put the hit out on him, but prefers to hide in the shadows, rasping excuses to them from the darkness “I’ll stay here…I like to keep my eyes on you”. The moment Gene steps into the light, he removes his disguise, thereby negating any reason for him to be in disguise in the first place!!

Somebody Doesn’t Like Me benefits from some top drawer character actors as Gene’s final adversaries in the form of Reginald Marsh and an especially menacing Peter Vaughan. There is also no shortage of action or product placement. As well as the self-congratulatory ATV references, Gene’s silver Chevrolet makes a return from the dead, proving to be as indestructible as the killer in a slasher movie franchise. Somebody Doesn’t Like Me is a far darker Adventurer episode than we’re used to…its landscape is one of wintery nights, brutalist buildings, cheap rooms with dead bodies in them, corrupt businessmen, assassins for hire and with a less than whiter than white heroine in serial con-woman Krista. Britain just doesn’t seem like a nice, friendly place anymore. It is as if The Adventurer saw the writing on the wall for its type of TV action series, foresaw the shift towards the gritty cynicism of The Sweeney, Target, The Professionals, and made an eleventh hour attempt to move with the times.

Quite what qualifies as the very last episode of The Adventurer is the source of some confusion. The 2006 DVD release ends with this episode which does appear to be the last ever filmed. The IMDB, which seemingly has the episodes listed in broadcast order, has ‘The Good Book’ down as the final Adventurer episode, which was presented as the very first episode on the DVD release. While the US Amazon prime service has a different episode running order to both the DVD and the IMDB, and suggests ‘Mr Calloway is a Very Cautious Man’ was Gene Bradley’s grand finale.



Of all the potential final episodes of The Adventurer, ‘Somebody Doesn’t Like Me’ is the one that feels most worthy of that honour. The danger of death that hangs over Gene in this episode, his faked demise half way through, and the last scene in which Gene and Parminter discuss Gene’s obituaries, has about as much an air of finality as the series has to offer. Should it have ended that way? Personally I would have liked to have seen the series go out a la ‘Newhart’, with Amos Burke being woken up in 1960s Los Angeles by a blonde girlfriend and realising that the entirety of The Adventurer had just been a bad dream. That explanation is really the only way The Adventurer makes any sense. It might have gone down a little like this….



“Amos, Amos, wake up” 

“what, huh, hey you’re quite a doll…but honey I’m Gene…the movie star…the multi-millionaire… and since you’re pretty I’ll let you into a little secret…I’m a secret agent as well. You seem confused…you must have seen one of my movies… ‘The Man Who Could See Through Everything’… ‘La Vallee du Funnerre’… I’m Gene Brady…or is it Gene Bradley?” 

“Amos, quit acting all weird on me, you’re Amos Burke, the captain of the Los Angeles police homicide division and a millionaire…remember you go around Los Angeles solving all those kooky murder cases…. And remember you have that adorable little Filipino guy who chaperones you around everywhere in your Rolls Royce” 

“I’m a millionaire and a police captain? Gee, my life’s a funny thing…but it all seemed so real…I was in London…and I was a secret agent, movie star and millionaire ….and I went around all of Europe saving the world from these people who were like…giants!!!...but I dressed really weird…I don’t even want to think about those trousers…it was like I was meant to be a fairy or something”

“Gee, Amos, this Gene Bradley fella, sounds kinda interesting” 

“Yes, but he wasn’t as handsome as me, he certainly wasn’t as tall as me, that’s for sure. I also had an assistant …Vince, that was his name, only…his name seemed to change every other week and he kept getting shorter and shorter as well. Guess there must have been something wrong with him”

“You probably dreamt that on account of that guy you had working for you a couple of weeks back…he was named Vince…remember it really bugged you that he was taller than you…then you discovered he was just wearing those special built up type shoes that make people look taller...and you had him fired because of that” 

“Now that’s starting to make sense, one thing I can’t figure out though is why…wherever I’d go they’d always be these men in front of me…and they were holding these boards up with words on them, and these words were exactly what I was about to say…well not exactly because sometimes I didn’t read them correctly” 



“Gee Amos, those Brits sound an awfully weird bunch, imagine asking you to dress like a fairy” 

“And you know in Britain its considered impolite to refer to a woman as a ‘dame’ the correct term there is ‘bird’. Speaking of which there was this dame there, and she kept throwing men around and hitting them with her handbag” 

“Kinda like Honey West?” 

“Yeah, sorta like Honey, but she was Hungarian…and a giant too!!” 

“Amos, I know you don’t like taking advice from dames, but maybe you should lay off eating cheese at night. I wonder if this could all be because of that offer you got recently…remember that government guy ‘The Man’ wanted you to quit the force and work for the government as a secret agent. Maybe this is like…a warning”

 

“I don’t know ‘Amos Burke-Secret Agent’ has kind of a ring to it, don’t you think?” 

“No, it sounds kinda stupid, Amos. One thing that bothers me, Amos, when you were asleep you kept calling out a woman’s name, and saying things like ‘Parminter, just let me take you in my arms and kiss you’. I mean, do I have reason to be jealous? …what does this Parminter dame look like?”

 “Parminter? He…errr she…looked sort of like Rita Hayworth, but with allot less hair…but really doll-face you got nothing to worry about, you know you’re the only one for me…by the way, just remind me…what’s your name again?” 

Later that day Amos Burke stepped out onto his balcony with a prairie oyster in his hand to settle his nerves. Maybe becoming a secret agent wasn’t such a great idea after all, maybe he should just settle for the simpler things in life, like being a millionaire and a police captain. As Amos Burke surveyed the gorgeous sight of 1960s Los Angeles, he was met with a sense of relief and reassurance that Gene Bradley had just been a figment of his overworked, overactive imagination, and that there was no one in this town who was taller than he was - and that’s Burke’s Law !!!!

The Adventurer (1972) episode 25: Make it a Million

It is hard to know just what you are going to get with each new Adventurer episode. In the last couple of weeks alone we’ve bared witness to a James Bond/Danger Diabolik imitation, a murder mystery, not forgetting an entire episode about chess. Being predictable isn’t an accusation you can throw in this series’ direction. Even having the same people at the helm isn’t a guarantee that the series won’t be veering in totally opposite directions. Whereas in last week’s episode director/actor Barry Morse revealed a far more serious side to the series, ‘Make it a Million’ is an altogether lighter experience. You have to hand it to Barry Morse, at this late stage in the series he’d have been forgiven for phoning it in as both director and actor, but none of the Adventurer episodes he directed suggest that this was the case. Mr Calloway is a Very Cautious Man being as much an outlet for his anger and his politics as Make it a Million is for his good natured and humorous side.

On account of how tonally all over the place The Adventurer had become by this point, I don’t think it would be unfair to draw comparisons to the output of Hammer films at the time. Hammer displaying a similar willingness to try their hands at just about everything during this period. Be it rebooting their Frankenstein series as a comedy, trying to muscle in on the Kung-Fu market, turning out sitcom spin-offs or adding soft-core lesbianism to their vampire movies. Admirably diverse as both The Adventurer and Hammer were, their eclecticism also seems evidence of a lack of direction and identity.

Make it a Million sees Gene returning from shooting a movie in the Himalayas, and looking as run down as you’d expect from someone who’d spent the last couple of weeks roughing it in the abominable snowman’s old stomping ground. Gene is sporting a hat not dissimilar to the one he wore in 1968’s Istanbul Express, where it’s primary purpose was seemingly to make Gene appear taller than his co-star John Saxon. Here a big hat is intended to grant Gene incognito status, since Gene is in too tired a mood to want to meet the fans. A purpose that this guise fails miserably to achieve, since almost everyone he bumps into at the airport recognises him as Gene Bradley. Not only that, but they also appear to be under the impression that Gene has been back in the country for a few weeks, and are looking forward to the soiree he is planning on throwing at his ‘new’ place in Surrey. All of which can mean just one thing, Gene has an impersonator.

We haven’t had a ‘two Genes for the price of one’ plot since ‘Double Exposure’, but whereas in that episode both Genes were working for the same side, here Gene is pitted against his lookalike. Behind the ‘fake Gene’ scheme is two unscrupulous businessmen Charlesworth and Merrick, played by future sitcom stars Paul Eddington (The Good Life, Yes Minister) and Dougie Fisher (the ‘other’ Man about the House). Their plan is to pass their fake Gene (actually a crony of theirs wearing a Gene Bradley mask) off as the real thing in order to get London’s high society to invest in a plan to build a new hi-tech plane. One that is able to land without the aid of an airfield. Quite how that would work in reality is anyone’s guess, but with the scheme seemingly having the Gene Bradley seal of approval, London’s rich and famous are queuing up to throw money at Charlesworth and Merrick. They would have gotten away with it, were it not for that pesky real Gene showing up and throwing a spanner in the works.



All the comedic possibilities of the ‘doppelganger’ premise are pursued. Real Gene impersonating the fake Gene makes a deliberate hash of pitching the scheme to investors, much to the eyeball rolling chagrin of Charlesworth and Merrick. Gene then pretends to having been mickey finned, leaving Charlesworth and Merrick to frantically try and hide his comatosed body from the rest of the party guests. Gene then gets knocked out for real by Parminter, who can’t tell the real Gene from the fake Gene. After being absent for several episodes Gavin (Garrick Hagon) also reappears, complete with a shockingly bad syrup o’fig on his head. Fortunately Gavin can tell the difference between the real Gene and the fake Gene, but only after Gene is able to confirm his identity with the magic words “Munich…Greta…Sauerkraut…and Arlene”. In the process leaving you to wonder just what debauchery has gone on between Gavin, Gene, Greta, Arlene and Sauerkraut ….and whether it has any bearing on why Gavin now wears a wig?



Make it a Million frequently borders on stage farce, complete with a mass brawl at the end which Morse shoots as pure slapstick comedy. All that seems to be missing is someone slipping on a banana skin. Surprisingly the actors who you automatically expect to be providing the comedy here- Paul Eddington and Dougie Fisher – instead play their roles completely straight, while Gene displays an uncharacteristic sense of humour about himself in this episode. “Wish I had a make-up man that good” Gene remarks of his clone. Indicating that he did tend to loosen up a bit, when Barry Morse was calling the directorial shots.

As to the identity of the ‘fake’ Gene Bradley? It’s a reveal that was probably side splitting if you worked in the film industry of the time, and completely lost on anyone who didn’t. When Gene finally unmasks the imposter and peels the face off the fake Gene, the man behind the mask is Alf Joint, a legendary stuntman who spent decades risking life and limb on movie sets by doubling for the likes of Richard Burton and Sean Connery. Casting Alf Joint as a man impersonating a famous star is a very funny in-joke, once you realise that is what Joint really did for a living. Of course it would have been even funnier had either Stuart Damon or Catherine Schell been under the mask (if only to see Gene’s reaction) but considering the amount of anonymous, backbreaking work Joint did over the years, who could really begrudge the man a rare moment in the spotlight.

The Adventurer (1972) episode 24: Mr. Calloway is a Very Cautious Man

After 24 episodes, we know only too well what a cheeky rascal dear Gene can be. So it comes as no surprise then that this episode opens with him playing a prank on his old buddy Mr Parminter by cold calling Parminter and pretending to be a Cockney. The fact that this impersonation is right at the start of this episode means it really catches you off guard and sucker punches you with the mother of all bad accents. Gene actually might be trying to ‘do’ an Australian accent rather than a Cockney one, but I have to confess it is so terrible that I’m at a loss over just what accent Gene was attempting. Whatever the case though, be warned Gene really does out Dick and out Dyke, Dick Van Dyke when it comes to wonky accents.

As to why Gene is messing about with his old china plate Mr Parminter, well it seems Gene has decided to grass himself up. Cunningly adopting a Cockney/Australian accent, he informs Parminter that evidence incriminating ‘that film bloke Gene Bradley’ can be found at a certain London wharf. Under normal circumstances Parminter might have been dismissive about some anonymous caller trash talking Gene, but the magic word in that conversation is ‘wharf’, and my God we all know how much The Adventurer is sweet on shooting at those locations. So, it’s off to yet another stunningly unattractive docklands, where to his horror Parminter discovers that Gene appears to be in the business of shipping arms overseas. A crate bearing Gene’s ‘29, Westminster Mews’ address on it is revealed to contain dozens of machine guns. A discovery that sends the police straight round to Gene’s abode….remarkably really, considering that the number on Gene’s door suggests he actually lives at 20, Westminster Mews rather than number 29.



Incidentally the fictional ‘Westminster Mews’ is in reality Princess Gate Mews in South Kensington. Chez Gene was actually available for rental until recently, although sadly a silver Chevrolet and a bitchy, drunk butler weren’t part of the deal. More details here.

Mr Calloway is a Very Cautious Man was the second of three Adventurer episodes directed by Barry Morse, and like Morse himself comes across as well meaning and socially conscious. Morse the actor becomes a mouthpiece for Morse the director as Mr Parminter strongly rails against the arms trade and the unethical nature of the people who profit from it. As you might expect from an episode that was directed by an actor, Mr Calloway is a Very Cautious Man does have more dramatic weight and interest in character development than your average Adventurer episode. There is Gene’s fall from grace as he is arrested, hauled up in court and then lawyers up, as well as the disillusionment of Mr Parminter himself. The sight of a crestfallen looking Parminter as he briefly makes eye contact with Gene in court is far more emotionally affecting than you’d ever expect an Adventurer episode could be. This is a far more serious Mr Parminter than we’ve come to expect, as he wrestles with a sense of personal betrayal, whilst trying to act as Gene’s consciousness reminding him that “you just put the guns into terrorists’ hands”. I’d wager that this was an issue that Barry Morse really did have strong feelings about. This episode has a real fire in its belly when it comes to condemning arms dealing. Mr Parminter’s passionate disapproval of Gene’s ‘secret life’ being echoed by Gene’s surprisingly ethical defence lawyer Ingrid (Toby Robins) who suggests he should drop the arms shipment into the sea and reminds him that arms dealing is “a business most decent people shy away from”.

Of course, we the audience are slightly clued up on the fact that ‘Gene the arms dealer’ is all an act, but the onscreen characters are left in the dark for a lot longer as Gene goes about reinventing himself as a complete bastard. “I pleaded guilty to being a businessman, to making a profit” complains an unrepentant Gene. As part of his ruthless, uncaring capitalist guise, Gene gets all fashion conscious too. When the arresting officer tells Gene to get his coat, Gene prissily harrumphs “don’t you like this one” then later when he is asked to don dark glasses asks “do these do anything for me?”



Gene’s real motivation for passing himself off as an arms dealer is to entrap real arms dealers, who take the bait and reach out to him during his court case. The scalp that Gene is especially after being that of George Calloway (Freddie Jones) a notoriously elusive arms dealer who has managed to operate for several decades despite having been seen by few people. Laying eyes on Mr Calloway is no easy task, since…. Mr Calloway is a Very Cautious Man (characters say this episode’s title so many times that it effectively doubles as its unofficial catchphrase). Eventually a face to face meeting with Calloway is arranged, but only in the most cloak and dagger circumstances imaginable. Calloway’s contact with the outside world being through the law firm of Stopford and Graham, whilst in order to meet the man himself Gene has to be blindfolded and driven to a rendezvous.



Quite why it takes Mr Parminter so long to figure out that Gene is just pretending to be a bad guy again is anyone’s guess. Especially as Gene had tried the same scheme back in the episode ‘Target’ whose arms dealer villain hid behind a similar front. In ‘Target’ that front was a ‘legit’ business partner, while here it is a law firm. Mr Calloway even echoes the villain of Target, by having a secretary (Nancie Wait) who is played by a cast member of ‘Au Pair Girls’. Nancie Wait’s appearance in this episode taking the number of Au Pair Girls cast members who have appeared in this series up to five. In fact, the only ‘Au Pair Girl’ who didn’t get the call to be in The Adventurer was Me Me Lai, despite Lai being no stranger to ITC shows, having been in two Jason King episodes. Maybe it was the height thing that saw Me Me Lai being ruled out of an Adventurer role. After all, with Gene having now chased the Hungarian giantess off the show an appearance by a Burmese giantess was likely to have gone down like a lead balloon. Not that there is a great deal to envy about Nancie’s role in this episode, which mainly consists of looking confused as various people barge past her on the way to Calloway’s office. Compared to Gabrelle Drake and Astrid Frank, Nancie did rather draw the short straw when it came to Adventurer roles. Although as Nancie amusingly pointed out to me recently she did get paid a chunk of money for playing a secretary in The Adventurer, despite having zero secretarial skills at the time. Skills that she’d later acquire, when she actually became a secretary after giving up acting several years later.



This episode might have a bigger axe to grind about arms dealing than ‘Target’ but it is never at the expense of becoming dull and preachy. You can almost pin-point the precise moment that Morse realised it was time to move off the soapbox and deliver the goods action-wise. Indeed, Gene just seems to decide he was on a hiding to nothing with the arms dealer guise, and blows his cover by beating up Calloway’s heavies then demanding they reveal the whereabouts of Calloway’s hideout. As Parminter is joyously quick to point out “you’re starting to behave like the Gene Bradley I used to know”. Since the gloves are now well and truly off, the rest of the episode pits the now reunited Gene and Mr Parminter against Calloway’s heavies, who attempt to do away with them by fixing the brakes on Gene’s car. Considering the importance that plugging Chevrolets has been to this series, it comes as a shock to see Gene’s silver Stingray being trashed in this episode. A near blasphemous act by this series’ standards that only adds to the creeping sense that the end is nearly nigh for The Adventurer.



This episode’s heart is in the right place, and Mr Calloway is a Very Cautious Man does confirm the idea of Barry Morse being an all-round good egg. If I’m being honest though Mr Calloway is a Very Cautious Man is merely an effective filler episode. It’s far from being the worse the series has to offer, but it is not the type of episode you’d use as a way of getting an Adventurer novice hooked on the series either. Mr Calloway is a Very Cautious Man is also brought down a couple of notches by the distracting fact that on in least two occasions here, Gene’s mouth opens and yet the voice we hear belongs to a completely different person. When Gene tells Calloway “20 per cent in cash, the balance deposited into my Swiss account”, then later tells Parminter “I have to help sometimes…” Gene’s ‘voice’ is provided by a person who isn’t even trying to sound like Gene Barry. Indicating that someone screwed up the audio recording on this episode and Gene wasn’t around to re-dub his voice… either that or Gene is meant to have fallen victim to demonic possession during the course of this episode. Maybe Mr Parminter should have called out Max Von Sydow. It’s tempting to put the diabolically bad ‘is it meant to be Cockney or Australian’ accent Gene was sporting at the start of this episode down to demonic possession too…but c’mon you can’t blame Satan for everything.

The Adventurer (1972) episode 23: Icons are Forever

Did you really think we’d get through an entire ITC series without them using ‘that’ footage of a white jaguar going over a cliff? ITC were very fond of that particular piece of footage and recycled it for about a dozen of their shows. As a result whenever you see a character driving about in a white jag in the likes of The Champions, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) or Jason King, it inevitably means they’ll be going off a cliff at some point. Presumably this stunt was quite expensive to film, using multiple cameras and destroying a vehicle in the process, and ITC were determined to get their money’s worth out of it. Few could argue that they didn’t succeed, one of the earliest appearances of the white jag footage was in a 1966 episode of The Saint, and it was still being trotted out as late as 1984 in an episode of Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense.

For the record, here the white jag footage is used to depict the fate of Julian Hunt, a private investigator and one of two friends whose deaths Gene is determined to avenge. Both have met their end as a result of investigating the Castle Delguedo in Italy (the other, insurance agent Chris Burley was found face down in a river) and since Gene is well acquainted with the Contessa Maria Delguedo (Stephanie Beacham) getting an invite to the Castle Delguedo comes easy to him. Consider that all this backstory is related to us in the first two minutes of this episode, and it should give you an idea of how much plot exposition this show likes to burden its audience with. As well as an excuse to re-use the white jag footage, this pre-credits scene also serves as the obligatory excuse to plug Chevrolet cars, with Gene showing up to Hunt’s funeral in his silver Stingray, while the helicopter that Parminter gate-crashes the funeral with has been seen enough times in this series to raise suspicions of product placement too.



If the title hasn’t already clued you in, this episode finds the series once again getting bitten by the 007 bug and attempting to sell Gene as a small screen answer to Bond…a more accurate title for this episode would be ‘Icons are Forever, because Diamonds have already been taken’. Still, you can see the logic in the series’ cashing in on James Bond, taking into account that this episode was first broadcast in March 1973 and ‘Live and Let Die’ was due out a few months later in July 1973. What with the publics’ appetite wetted for both a new Bond film and a new Bond, the timing for The Adventurer to once again go all 007 on us can’t be faulted. It is unusual to be able to credit an Adventurer episode with being in touch with the times it was made in. There may even be a case for this episode being slightly ahead of its time, due to the Contessa Maria’s latest hobby being Kung-Fu. Icons are Forever’s showcasing of Kung-Fu anticipating the craze for both Kung-Fu movies and martial arts itself that wouldn’t hit Britain till about a year later. Not that Gene is too enamoured by the idea of a woman practicing Kung-Fu and using her uncle’s security staff as sparing partners. “Whatever happened to needlework and knitting” Gene complains to her uncle, Luigi Del Santo Holvera (Noel Hillman) who has turned the Castle Delguedo into a veritable fortress riddled with bugging devices and surveillance equipment, supposedly in order to protect the family’s treasures and art collection.

After a good few episodes in which the whole ‘Secret Agent’ side to Gene’s life has largely been forgotten about it is a little jarring to see him back in full-on bargain basement Bond mode. Dressed in a smart red tuxedo and sporting all manner of fancy gadgets (including an electric shaver that doubles as an anti-bugging device) Gene is also surrounded by a cast who may have conceivably been in running for Bond girl or Bond villain roles at some point, but had to settle for appearing in The Adventurer instead. As The Adventurer is so unabashfully doing Bond here, Icons are Forever allows for a more colourful variety of bad guys than we’re used to from this series. Gene’s main nemesis in this episode being Holvera’s head of security Darron (Alfred Marks) who is especially hung up on protecting a Russian icon that is in the family’s possession, and has a tendency to snuff out anyone with an interest in it, including Hunt and Burley. Gene’s sudden appearance at the castle, close relationship with the Kung-Fu Contessa and wandering eye for the icon puts him too on Darron’s hit list.



How do you even begin to describe Alfred Marks’ appearance in this episode? His glasses, moustache and cigar combo plus a dress sense that favours sports outfits, suggests a man who can’t decide if he wants to cosplay as Groucho Marx or a PE teacher and eventually decided on a mixture of both. By rights Marks’ bizarre appearance should make him this episode’s natural scene-stealer, but he isn’t without competition as we also get a young, wild Alan Lake playing Darron’s second in command. To cast Alan Lake in anything was to put in an order for a slice of ham, but cast him as a hot headed Italian who knows Kung-Fu and you were pretty much guaranteed the entire pig on a spit roast. True to form, Lake is reliably over the top here, with his out of control sideburns, overblown Italian accent, plus all the snarling and eyeball rolling he gets up to in the Kung-Fu sequences, Lake effortlessly looks like a man possessed…or a man coked to the gills. Icons are Forever captures Alan Lake in all his 1970s hellraiser glory…praise the Lord and pass the amyl nitrate!!!



While the Italian settings and accents in this episode don’t always convince they do result in Icons are Forever evoking the more colourful end of the late 60’s Eurospy genre. Films, generally made in Italy that attempted to hitch a ride on the James Bond gravy train, and saw predominantly European casts playing opposite slightly bland, has been American actors like Ray Danton, Ken Clark, and of course the lad himself Gene Barry. Gene’s path to The Adventurer being paved with films of that ilk like Subterfuge, Maroc 7 and Istanbul Express (which saw Gene sharing the screen with euro sex symbol Senta Berger and French actor/musician Moustache).

The late 60s Euro vibe to Icons are Forever is added to by the fact that someone involved in this episode would appear to be well acquainted with Mario Bava’s 1960s classic ‘Danger Diabolik’. Specifically, the middle-section of Bava’s film in which masked criminal Diabolik scales the wall of an Italian castle, and steals a priceless necklace, outwitting the CCTV system by taking a photograph of the room with the necklace still in it then placing the photo in front of the camera. Thus, allowing Diabolik to steal the necklace from under the noses of the dim witted security officers, who are unaware that they are watching a still photograph of the room. If that scheme was good enough for Diabolik, then it was certainly good enough for Gene Bradley too. The centrepiece of this episode finding Gene scaling the wall of an Italian castle and stealing a priceless Russian icon, outwitting the CCTV system by taking a photograph of the room with the Russian icon still in it then placing the photo in front of the camera. Thus, allowing Gene to steal the icon from under the noses of the dim witted security officers, who are unaware that they are watching a still photograph of the room. Coincidence? Hmmm….the ‘placing a still photograph of a room in front of a CCTV camera’ has been done in so many films and TV shows, and I suspect that Danger Diabolik wasn’t the first to do this. Yet, the Italian castle setting and the scaling of the walls of the castle that precedes the robbery do push you towards the idea of Danger Diabolik being an influence here. Unlikely as a Mario Bava-The Adventurer connection might sound.



Who did it better Gene Bradley or Diabolik? 



As to why Gene has turned master criminal and is trying to get his hands on a Russian icon? Well to be honest, I’d urge you not to concentrate on the plot of this one too deeply, and instead just approach it as a simple heist caper that pits superspy against a then hi-tech surveillance system. Attempting to gain a firmer grasp on the intricacies of Icons are Forever’s plot is only likely to lead you down the usual head scratching alleyways, as only The Adventurer can. For those brave enough to wrestle further with this plot though, it seems stealing the icon is merely a front for Gene’s real purpose at the castle which is to help Maria escape to Rome where she plans to marry her true love Philippe. Once a married woman, Maria will be able to take control of the family estate away from her uncle who has fallen under the spell of the crooked Darron. As to why the icon is considered to be so valuable? Well, it seems it contains a hither-to unknown form of alloy, the ownership of which will put Darron in a position of power over the world’s business leaders…or something like that.

Despite its plot being typically confusing around the edges, Icons are Forever might well be the highpoint of the later Adventurer episodes. Alfred Marks, Stephanie Beacham and even Alan Lake’s crazed muggings lend the series a much needed shot in the arm of charisma, and the Eurospy vibe helps give this episode a distinct, if unoriginal, personality. Let’s face it, if you’re going to pilfer from both James Bond and Mario Bava you really can’t go wrong…the sight of a lycra clad Stephanie Beacham Kung-Fu fighting with Alan Lake is merely the icing on the cake.





This blog post is dedicated to all the characters in ITC shows who died by driving a white jag over a cliff. RIP