The Adventurer (1972) episode 18: To the Lowest Bidder

If I’m remembering rightly there are one or two more ‘New Adventurers’ episodes still in the pipeline, but ‘To the Lowest Bidder’ marks the beginning of Gene’s return to the show. Likely filmed after Gene’s holiday mid-way into the series, this episode ushers in slight changes to Gene’s appearance. Evidentially he must have stopped off at the barbers on his hols, as his hair is shorter than before. Gene also appears to have sworn off hair dye for the second block of Adventurer shooting, as his hair begins to revert back to its natural grey in these episodes. In keeping with this new ‘mature’ look Gene’s dress sense tends to become a bit more conservative at this point, in this episode he is mainly outfitted in a dapper, tweed suit. Energy levels are slightly up here too, Gene even jumps over a small fence in this episode without the aid of a stuntman- this truly is a Gene reborn.

As well as a new hairdo, Gene is also sporting a new girlfriend on his arm, Laura (Sheila Gish) and a new set of wheels in the form of a silver Corvette Stingray, no doubt courtesy of the show’s Chevrolet sponsors. Noticeably absent from this episode is Brandon the Butler. Although we haven’t seen the last of ol’ Brandon yet, you do have to wonder why Gene keeps him on the payroll. Brandon is nowhere about when he clearly is needed, and in his absence it is Gene himself who has to do all the mundane chores that keep him from his latest love interest. Gene has to collect the milk bottles from the doorstep, answer the phone and serve up champagne for himself and Laura. Given the nightly rave-ups that Brandon must have been having while Gene was away on his holidays though, I suppose it is nothing short of a miracle that there is a drop of champagne still left in that household.

Usually it is Mr Parminter who acts as the show’s coitus interruptus on legs, and always turns up just as the Gene Genie is about to get all hot n’ seamy with his latest conquest. In this instance though, Parminter isn’t to blame for Gene not getting a bit, rather it is a phone call from an elderly civil servant called Samuel Cookson (Anthony Nicholls). We the audience know from the outset that Cookson is already at his wit’s end. Since the pre-credits sequence of this episode had found Cookson walking the streets of Brussels in a depressed state before returning home and contemplating shooting himself. As Gene is always a sucker when it comes to old men, it is a foregone conclusion that he’ll forgo horizontal pleasures with a woman in favour of flying out to Brussels to help out an old timer.



In fact Gene and Co spend so much of The Adventurer rushing to the aid of old men that arguably this series is far more deserving of the title ‘The Protectors’ than the Robert Vaughn one. After Gene takes the first plane out to Brussels and meets Cookson it transpires that it isn’t Cookson himself who needs protection, rather it is his daughter Sarah (Jane Asher) who is in danger. As to why? Well as tends to be the case with Adventurer episodes…it’s complicated. Cookson is the head of a governing body that decides which company will be awarded the contract to build ‘Europe 100’, a ginormous European super highway. In the spirit of E.U. generosity the contract will be awarded to the company that submits the lowest bid. A decision that has come back to haunt Cookson, as one particularly nefarious company has now resorted to threatening Cookson and his daughter in order to ensure the contract is awarded to them. As Gene also happens to be engaged in the bidding war for Europe 100, he too has become a person of interest to the company threatening Cookson. Laura –who in fact works undercover for this company- teams up with another of its operatives Forrester (Carl Rigg) to tear apart Gene’s muse home in search of the answer to how much he plans to bid on Europe 100. What with Gene’s house being cluttered up with the countless amount of sporting trophies he has won over the years though, it is no surprise that Laura and Forrester come up empty handed.

It is unclear why Cookson insists on Gene visiting him in Brussels in order to ask for Gene’s help in protecting his daughter…who lives and works in London!! Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Cookson to have just asked Gene to protect his daughter during their phone call, thereby sparing the need for Gene to journey from London to Brussels, then immediately take the first flight back to London. That’s ITC for you though, any excuse for some overseas location shooting.

Once we’re back in London, the action relocates to Parkington’s School for Girls, where Sarah works as a teacher to a gaggle of young schoolgirls. All of whom are of course thrilled to bits that a sex symbol like Gene walks in their midst (lest we forgot “Gene Bradley is everyone’s pin-up, Nobody Fool”). While Gene has to grin and bear being a lust object for young schoolgirls, his own attention (and libido) is focused upon the well-to-do, horse riding obsessed Sarah. Insane as it sounds, it would appear that Gene’s height ‘thing’ also extends to the animal kingdom. In scenes involving Sarah’s horse, director Val Guest tends to only cut to Gene whilst the horse is lowering its head, with Jane Asher possibly having been directed to pull on its bridle in order to get its head into such a position.



(Fun fact: the horse that was originally meant to play this role was called Stuart ‘Neigh’mon, sadly it had to be taken out and shot when it was discovered to be taller than Gene).

While Gene is getting all hot for the teacher, two further villains Carlson (David Kelly) and Johnny (John York) show up at the girl’s school with a devious plan. Rather than try and kidnap Sarah, who is being heavily guarded by Gene, they instead abduct one of the schoolgirls Lizzy (Gillian Bailey), then force Sarah into exchanging herself for Lizzy.



The Adventurer continues on its puzzling quest to be mistaken for a spin-off series from ‘Here Come the Double Deckers’, by casting yet another of the Double Deckers, Gillian Bailey. Closely following in the footsteps of Debbie Russ, who guest starred in the ‘Return to Sender’ episode. The casting of The Adventurer does suggest an attempt to target every demographic possible, using female glamour –usually in the form of ‘Au Pair Girls’ cast members- to get the dads watching, and former Double Deckers to get the kids huddled around the box to watch Gene Bradley as well.

‘To the Lowest Bidder’ also illustrates The Adventurer’s unfortunate habit of casting actors who soon after would become household names in sitcoms, often making it difficult to take them serious in these earlier, straight roles. Previous Adventurer episodes have featured Allo Allo’s Richard Marner and Are You Being Served’s Arthur Brough, and upcoming episodes feature Man About the House and The Good Life cast members playing bad guys. Here we get David Kelly as the schoolgirl abducting Carlson, shortly before he achieved fame as the one armed cook Albert Riddle in Robin’s Nest. Stupidly, a relative of mine did for many years believe that David Kelly really did only have one arm, on account of his Robin’s Nest role. So it was all rather surprising to see him with all limbs intact in The Adventurer. It wasn’t Kelly’s arms that caused problems in this episode though, rather the problem was –surprise, surprise- his height. Fortunately the writers of this episode came up with an ingenious way of writing a confrontation between Gene and Carlson whilst avoiding the height ‘thing’. Namely by having Gene rough up Carlson while Carlson is sat in a car!!



To the Lowest Bidder also brings back an element of the series that has been largely absent of late, the shameless showcasing of Chevrolet cars. The plot of this episode just so happening to require Gene to do allot of riding about in his brand new silver machine. In the process demonstrating his car’s superiority to rival brands of car when it comes to speed, breaking and the ability to run them off the road. As someone who has never regarded a car as anything more than a means to get from A to B, I must admit that the ‘car porn’ aspect of The Adventurer does often go over my head. Even so, it is impossible to deny that Gene’s new set of wheels is one impressively cool vehicle, and this episode makes good on its hidden agenda of doubling as a 25 minute advert for it.



It is all rather surprising then to see this episode feature close-ups of cars bearing logos for the likes of Opel and Vauxhall as well. While your first reaction is to wonder whether The Adventurer has started two-timing Chevrolet by endorsing other manufacturers of cars, the conspiracy theorist in me suspects something cleverly underhand is at work in this series. Whenever rival brands of car appear in The Adventurer it is usually in a highly negative context. When the depressed Cookson carelessly steps out into a road at the start of this episode he is nearly run over by an Opel vehicle, likewise when Carlson and Johnny drag the Double Decker poppet into their car, it is a Vauxhall. The references to these brands are quite blatant too, in ways that would be in violation of rules against product placement on British television, had the series genuinely have been taking back handers from these brands. Whenever The Adventurer plugs Chevrolet cars it tends to be a bit more subtle, showcasing the cars for a lengthy amount of time but never drawing too much attention to the brand name. In America however, the series could be a bit more upfront about its sponsorship, with the Chevrolet name being worked into the title sequence when it was shown there.



To the Lowest Bidder is overall a rather fragmented episode, sporting two sets of villains (Laura and Forrester, Carlson and Johnny) who are working for the same aim but who rarely share screen time. Heroics too seem equally divided between Gene and Mr Parminter. While Gene comes to the aid of Sarah and Lizzy at the girls school, Parminter is busy in Brussels trying to thwart attempts to extract information from Cookson. In all likelihood this episode was constructed in such a manner in order to gently ease Gene back into the swing of things after his holiday. In light of Barry Morse’s comments about the series’ regular directors not getting along with Gene though, it is hard to avoid the feeling that Val Guest probably wished he was helming a solo Parminter episode here.



To the Lowest Bidder serves its purpose when it comes to demonising drivers of Vauxhall cars, keeping the cast of Here Come the Double Deckers in employment and planting the idea in the audiences’ minds that their next car should be a Chevrolet. Still, it is one of those Adventurer episodes that you tend to remember for its guest stars more than anything else. This one having for years been filed away in my mind as ‘the one with Jane Asher in it’, or alternatively ‘the episode with the one armed cook from Robin’s Nest, who as it turns out actually has two arms’.

Of course this wouldn’t be an episode of a 1970s TV series set at an all-girls school unless it featured some inappropriate remarks destined to now land this episode on the cultural naughty step. The scene featuring Carlson eyeballing a bunch of schoolgirls and remarking that “you have to set a sprat to catch a mackerel” feels like it belongs in a public information film warning schoolgirls not to talk to strangers… especially if they drive Vauxhall cars. While Carlson is meant to be a creepy character, even Gene himself gets a little pervy at times in this episode, remarking of the schoolgirls “well, you call them rosebuds, but I can tell you they are flowering…did you hear some of the questions they asked me”. 

Now then, now then Gene…as it happens…you don’t want to be the leader of that gang…oh no…so extinguish that little bit of boogie woogie from the back of your mind…best stick with Jane Asher, she is of age, isn’t too tall and –so I’m told- makes exceedingly good cakes.