The Adventurer (1972) episode 17: The Solid Gold Hearst

The Solid Gold Hearst flirts with the idea of being the series’ horror themed episode, as police inspector Farley (David Weston) prowls around a dark and misty Highgate cemetery before entering a crypt and attempting to prise open a coffin. At first glance it would appear that we’re knee deep in Hammer horror territory, but instead of the coffin containing Christopher Lee, its contents are revealed to be gold bullion, and instead of being set upon by Dracula’s female followers, Farley is discovered by a group of sinister undertakers. Headed by Wyvern (Sydney Tafler) this unfriendly bunch are actually gold smugglers who’ve only been masquerading as undertakers, and the fact that he has now uncovered their secret means that Farley might have been better off discovering Dracula in that coffin after all.

From Highgate cemetery we then cut to the old American West, where honest, god fearing townsfolk are being bothered by rampaging outlaws who are looting and burning down the town. Thankfully, pistol packing sheriff Gene Bradley is on hand to restore some law and order to this place. Just when you think this show has flipped its lid big time, this is all revealed to be part of the latest movie Gene is working on at the moment. Gene looks to be having a whale of a time starring in this cut price Western and throwing his male co-stars about, he even gets carried away and accidentally flips the assistant director over his shoulder at one point as well. In fact, Gene is having so much fun that as a result he can’t be arsed saving the world this week, and aside from chipping in a bit of advice over the phone, largely leaves this episode’s heroics to the ‘New Adventurers’ trio of Mr Parminter, Diane and Gavin.



When a TV episode opens with a character we’ve never heard of before being placed in mortal danger, usually it means the next time they show up will be when they are dead. While The Adventurer never likes to play by the rules, even so it is surprising to then find Farley alive and well, and reporting back to Mr Parminter about his pre-credits encounter with the phoney undertakers. Exactly how Farley managed to escape from the crypt that the undertakers locked him in at the end of the pre-credits scene remains a mystery, presumably known only to the cutting room floor.

What with Farley in line for some well-earned leave (and never to be heard from again) Mr Parminter teams up with the two agents who happen to be on the ‘duty roster’ that day…which happens to be Diane and Gavin. Incidentally, if Mr Parminter has a ‘duty roster’, this of course begs the questions…just how many Adventurers does he have on the payroll? Acting on Gene’s advice, The New Adventurers make their way to a London wharf, but with Mr Parminter in charge things quickly descend into chaos, with Diane getting trapped on board the ship that is carrying the gold bullion to Belgium.

By this stage in The Adventurer, Gene and Parminter seem to have done a complete reversal on their original roles in the show. Now it is Parminter as the wannabe hero and man in the field, while Gene assumes the role of the short tempered boss barking orders to underlings over the phone. Needless to say, it doesn’t reflect too well on Gene Bradley that he favours acting in some schlocky looking Western (complete with fake cacti) over helping out his supposed friends. The pursuit of the gold bullion relocates the action to Antwerp, where with his usual bad timing Parminter has just missed the gold bullion being transported from the ship. It’s not all bad news though, as Diane turns up safe and well, having managed to avoid detection whilst on the ship by passing herself off as one of the guys. Ever had the burning desire to see Catherine Schell dressed up as a Belgian fisherman? Well then, consider this your lucky day.



The Adventurer continues to act as its own spin-off show with this episode, which carries with it all the pros and cons of any legitimate spin-off show. Negative aspects being that you’re always aware you’re watching characters who were never envisioned to be anything more than background characters now forced into becoming the main focus of attention, not helped by scripts that look understandably rushed. Still it is difficult to not feel sympathy for writers of The Adventurer, who initially must have thought they were on to a winner with the series, only to then have to go back to their scripts time and time again…changing the name of Stuart Damon’s character, writing more Parminter material, reducing Catherine Schell’s role…and doing more re-writes to make sure various characters were always sat down in Gene’s company. On top of all that they then had to quickly come up with all these episodes based around the supporting characters. So, spare a thought for The Adventurer writers, who must have been suffering for their art by this point.

I don’t want to dwell on the negative too much though, because rather than lazily just offer up more of the same these Adventurer episodes do use the opportunity to take the series in a very different direction. Under Parminter, The Adventurer is a more playful and tongue in cheek show, with Barry Morse gamely assuming the role of the series’ court jester. We’re into some very uncharted waters for an ITC series here, what with the lead character now being a blundering middle aged fool, who needs long suffering youthful companions to come to his aid. After being addled for so long with a star who was touchy about mocking his screen image, it comes as a breath of fresh air to see another actor jump at the chance to try his hand at comedy, with no qualms about transforming his character into a figure of fun. Make no mistake; Parminter is an incompetent force of Inspector Clouseau proportions. In my favourite scene in this episode, Parminter lectures Gavin and Diane about the importance of discretion in their job, then proceeds to follow the bad guys into a building whilst waving about a rather indiscreet film camera. He also manages to get into an argument with Gavin about how unnecessary violence is in their job, in the process alerting the bad guys to their presence and instigating a brawl between New Adventurers and the faux-undertakers.



The Spirit of ‘The Avengers’ does tend to hang over The Adventurer when Gene isn’t around. Mr Parminter’s bowler hat sporting appearance and adoption of a cane as his weapon of choice, automatically invites John Steed comparisons. The idea of the bad guys disguising themselves as undertakers adds to the Avengers-esque vibe you get from this episode. The episode’s centrepiece, a high speed chase through the streets of Antwerp, also benefits from the eccentric, very Avengers like touch of having the bad guys use a hearse to tear around the streets of Antwerp, with the New Adventurers in hot pursuit.

If I had to nit-pick about this episode, I do wish we’d have seen more of the hilarious sounding subplot in which Diane stows away on a ship by disguising herself as a fisherman. Admittedly Catherine Schell isn’t at all convincing as a man (which at the same time is precisely what is so funny about it) and maybe the powers that be felt that this was too implausible to linger on. Still as The Adventurer has now ‘discovered’ intentional comedy, the glossing over of Catherine Schell going all Yentl on us, does seem like a missed opportunity. Papa, can you hear me?

Of course we should perhaps be grateful we’re getting any Diane Marsh content at all at this point in The Adventurer, since Gene was under the impression he had been successful in getting Catherine dropped from the show. Another tricky problem the writers faced with these episodes was coming up with scripts in which Diane Marsh played a prominent role in, while at the same time making sure the character was never brought up in scenes involving Gene. In last week’s episode Mr Parminter managed to summarise his Wuppertal adventurer to Gene without ever bringing up Diane’s sizable involvement in it. While in this week’s episode Parminter does mention Diane’s name in a phone call to Gene, Gene’s side of the conversation carefully avoids giving Diane a name check in any of his dialogue. For now at least, the fact that Diane Marsh was still clocking on at Adventurer HQ remained the series’ big secret. One that Gene is kept distracted from by this week’s Wild West playtime, which allowed him to relive his youth as the star of the TV Western ‘Bat Masterson’ as he guns down the bad guys, restores law and order to the old West, and rides the high plains of Elstree. Giddy-Up!!!



As we haven’t seen too much of Gene in this episode, maybe it is only fair we should let him sing us out this week. So here is Gene’s version of ‘Moonlight Gambler’ a song that could well have been the theme tune to the Western he was working on in this episode…and before you ask…yes, this record is being played at the right speed, even if Gene’s singing makes it sound otherwise.