Did you know there was an Adventurer movie? Well, don’t get too excited, sadly Gene Bradley wasn’t a big enough deal to warrant his own bona fide movie spin-off in which the character gets to visit Pontins or anything like that. Instead ITC simply cut together a few episodes of the TV series and released it theatrically in some territories, following in the footsteps of 1969’s Vendetta for the Saint and a practice continued with the Space 1999 ‘movies’ that appeared in the late 1970s. Quite how widely distributed the Adventurer movie was I’m not certain, but Italy at least got to see Gene Bradley on the big screen in ‘La Doppia Faccia Della Legge’ (The Double Face of the Law). Going off the billing of Dawn Addams and Sylvia Syms on the poster, two of the episodes used to cut the film together were ‘Skeleton in the Cupboard’ and ‘The Case of the Poisoned Pawn’. While Gene’s ‘Doppia Faccia’ disguise used on the poster suggests that this episode ‘Miss Me Once, Miss Me Twice and Miss Me Once Again’ may have also gotten worked into the movie version. Don’t quote me on any of this though, as Garrick Hagon also gets a mention on the poster too, despite not appearing in any of those episodes!!
Miss Me Once, Miss Me Twice and Miss Me Once Again takes place at the Cannes Film Festival, although given all the posters around with you know who’s face on them you’d think that this was the ‘Gene Bradley Film Festival’. Naturally Gene has put his finest pair of trousers on for the occasion, and is there to host a TV special about the festival. Cannes certainly attracted all sorts back in 1972, no soon as he arrives then Gene spots Gregory Varna (Alex Scott) a renowned hit man loitering about the lobby, and is soon introduced to Eastern bloc politician Vladimir Horvic (John Barrie). In the current climate you do automatically expect any politician with a Russian accent and a name like ‘Vlad’ to be the bad guy. Horvic however goes against expectation by turning out to be an ally of the West, and his good character is truly beyond question when he reveals himself to be a big fan of Gene (“oh Gene Bradley, I’ve seen you may times on the screen”). Horvic also kind of looks like Gene, that’s if Gene were wearing glasses, a cheap stick on beard and sporting a bad Russian accent. Keep that in mind, that’s if you haven’t already guessed where that resemblance is going to lead to in this episode. The actual villain of the piece is Horvic’s chief deputy Micholas Zentner (Bernard Kay), who plans to have Varna assassinate Horvic at the height of the film festival.
It has to be said that Gene is uncharacteristically efficient in this episode, breaking into Varna’s room and uncovering the plot to assassinate Horvic even before the opening credits, then planting a bugging device on Zentner in order to discover more. For once, Gene doesn’t seem put out that circumstances are forcing his showbiz lifestyle to be put on hold in favour of his covert spying activities.
If you haven’t already guessed this is one of several Adventurer episodes centered around the idea of Gene being a master of disguise. One of the series’ weaker aspects, which in keeping with the general anti-logic behind The Adventurer was promoted as one of its chief selling points in the US market (“in the face of danger, his chief weapon is disguise” being the US tag line for the series). Soon Gene is swapping his trademark flowery shirts and legendary trousers for a pair of glasses, a cheap stick on beard and a bad Russian accent in order to assume Horvic’s identity. Trouble is, the Gene Genie never really blows you away with this, or any of the other transformations he gets up to during the series. Gene strikes you as being very much of the “only ever really plays one role, but it’s one of public enjoys seeing him in” school of actor, akin to John Wayne, Chuck Norris or to give a more modern comparison Jason Statham. His characters in War of the Worlds, Burke’s Law, Maroc 7, Subterfuge and The Adventurer may all have different names but essentially there is little to distinguish them from each other. The amount of dressing up in disguises and playing duo roles in The Adventurer, Amos Burke-Secret Agent and Burke’s Law comes across as a heavy handed attempt to prove he has range as an actor, but the end results sadly tell a rather different story. By this stage in his career though Gene appears to have surrounded himself with yes men, who were never going to be honest with him about his limitations. Thus, the Emperor’s new clothes spectacle we get in this episode of Gene prancing around pretending to be an elderly Russian, prepping his disguise and complementing himself in a mess of a foreign accent “verdee good, verdee good, verdee interesting”. Quite what a red-blooded Italian audience, pumped for the Poliziotteschi type thrills promised by a title like La Doppia Faccia Della Legge, made of this is anyone’s guess.
Given the time spent on showcasing Gene’s transformation into Horvic, by rights you’d expect this episode to play out with Gene integrating himself with Zentner whilst in the Horvic disguise, and suspense being generated over whether Gene’s cover will be blown. For all of the build-up though, little is actually made of Gene’s elaborate disguise, as if the show’s makers realised this transformation wasn’t really credible and wanted to brush this subplot under the carpet at the earliest opportunity. Get this, Gene never even meets Zentner whilst in the Horvic disguise, the only use the disguise is put to is to gain entry into Horvic’s hotel room, which Gene could have discreetly done without being in the Horvic disguise anyway. Gene also speaks on the phone to Varna whilst using the Horvic ‘voice’, which again he didn’t need to be fully disguised as Horvic to do, at which point Varna detonates a bomb in Horvic’s room, providing the ‘end of part one’ cliff-hanger.
In the face of danger Gene’s chief weapon doesn’t really appear to be disguise, rather his ability to cause utter confusion, as Gene & Co go about bamboozling Varna into thinking he has been double crossed by Zentner, and misleading Zentner into thinking Varna’s assassination of Horvic has gone to plan. Gene also sends Diane on Varna’s tail, who goes after the rather flamboyant, cravat sporting assassin like a dose of salts. Chatting him up at a restaurant, chasing him around the streets of Cannes and generally invading his safe space, Diane is quite the saucy minx in this episode. Poor Varna seems not only extremely resistant to Diane’s attempts to seduce him, but quite terrified of her. Maybe Mr Parminter or one of Gene’s male assistants would have been more suited to this assignment …or perhaps Varna just shared Gene’s fear of tall women… get thee behind me Hungarian giantess.
This all leads to Gene coming over all David Frost and rehearsing a hard hitting TV interview with the still very much alive Horvic for Gene’s TV special…which is just part of a plan to get Zentner to accidentally confess to being behind the assassination attempt on Horvic. After weeks of plugging Chevrolet cars the “TV Special” subplot finally allows ITC to blow their own trumpet for a change, with name checks for the company in the dialogue and close-ups of a truck bearing the ITC logo registering as some of the most shameless examples of self-promotion you’re likely to see outside of a David Sullivan sex movie.
It’s hard not to feel sorry for Ed Bishop here in his sole Adventurer outing as Gene’s male assistant Wayne…used to be called Gavin….used to be called Vince. This episode gives Bishop more to do than Stuart Damon in last week’s episode, but it is still an insulting non-role that requires him to do little more than drive Gene around Cannes whilst dressed as a chauffeur. The script appears at a loss over what to do with his character, before deciding to have him shift road signs about, the same thing his previous regeneration Vince did in the last episode. Given that this must have felt like more of a chaperoning gig than an acting role, Bishop looks justifiably unengaged and miserable throughout. In contrast Catherine Schell has a real spring in her step in this episode, due I’m sure in no small part to the fact that this episode was filmed in sunny Cannes and doesn’t require her to interact with Gene whatsoever. Indeed so estranged are their characters in this episode that Gene seems to have forgotten what his female assistant is actually called, at one point referring to Diane as ‘Diana’…and this guy calls himself a spy!!!
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