So, you are playing the lead in a TV series from the golden age of white male privilege. A series that has a revolving door of attractive female co-stars, and an episode opens with your character undergoing a thorough massage. Who do you choose to give you an onscreen rub-down then? Well, in Gene’s case the answer is a burly, balding middle aged man who bares more than a passing resemblance to Nosher Powell. In fact, if this isn’t Nosher Powell then he must have a doppelganger. Fortunately for Nosh he was spared any blushes by the fact that the role of ‘Jenkins the Masseur’ goes mysteriously uncredited.
As Jenkins beats a hasty retreat, it’s a case of ‘Exit the Masseur, Enter the Butler’ as we welcome back a familiar face to the series. Yes, Brandon (Dennis Price), London’s most intoxicated Butler, is back in town, and looks to be kicking himself over missing out on whatever shenanigans have been going on between Gene and Jenkins. At least Brandon manages to cop an eyeful of the master of the house as Gene quickly whips a towel around himself, which after an 11 episode absence was surely worth returning to the series for.
On account of his habit of exposing himself to his butler, and all these visits from masseurs, you’d think Gene would be grateful for any publicity that portrayed him as rampantly heterosexual. This doesn’t appear to be the case though, and when Gene is romantically linked to a married woman within the pages of Tatler magazine it not only ruffles Gene’s feathers, but results in an army of tabloid reporters on his doorstep. Fittingly, given this rather gay themed opening, among the actors playing the reporters is David Rayner, soon to find a niche for himself playing gay comic relief in British sex comedies like Sexplorer, The Office Party and Secrets of a Door to Door Salesman. Brandon proves surprisingly useful in this scene and manages to repel the tabloid hacks by jabbing his fingers into Rayner’s forehead. Just one display of the deadly ‘Dennis Price- Touch of Death’ being enough to keep the entire mob away. Bruce Lee would have been proud.
Sadly of course being kept at bay by the Dennis Price touch of death, meant that David Rayner wasn’t able to use his famous “I like your shirt” catchphrase from the TV series ‘Not on your Nellie’…and my God, if ever there was a character worthy of being the recipient of that catchphrase –which ridicules flamboyantly dressed straight men- it was Gene Bradley.
Much can be learned about the contradictions and double standards of the era from this Adventurer episode. While the series never takes Gene to task for having a different love interest just about every other week, the suggestion of him having an affair with a married woman is taken very seriously, and is a wrong that immediately needs to be set right. Womanising and promiscuity might be acceptable behaviour from an action hero in a 1970s TV series, but being a home wrecker was a definite social no-no.
However Gene doesn’t have to wait long to clear his name, in fact the woman who done him wrong quickly shows up on his doorstep offering apologies. It seems that the fire had gone out of the marriage of Lady Diane Battersley (Barbara Murray) and in order to reignite it she has tried to evoke the green eyed monster in her husband by feigning a red hot love affair with Gene. To achieve this goal, dirty Diane hired a photographer and had him snap away whenever she has been around Gene at social events, before forwarding the incriminating evidence on to Tatler magazine. It is all a rather elaborate scheme just to whip up a bit of jealousy in Lady Diane’s husband, Walter. No surprise then, that there is more to Lady Diane’s scheme than meets the eye, and when Gene visits Sir Walter’s home he is knocked unconscious. To add insult to injury Gene then finds himself in the frame for Sir Walter’s murder when he wakes up to discover Sir Walter’s abode trashed and blood splattered.
Given that the 1960s spy boom was responsible for transforming Burke’s Law into Amos Burke- Secret Agent, it does seem ironic that the Amos Burke- Secret Agent derived The Adventurer should now be harking back to Burke’s Law with this murder mystery/police procedural themed episode. Gene is certainly channelling the Amos Burke character here, with Gene Bradley turning detective in order to clear his name, and the character’s regular side-lines as a spy and a movie star either fleetingly alluded to or ignored completely. In another echo of the Burke’s Law format, this episode offers up a parade of quirky murder suspects for Gene to grill, including Sir Walter’s business partner Geoffrey Cains (Maurice Kaufmann) who makes no secret of his hatred for Sir Walter, and Sir Walter’s niece Vanessa (Angela Douglas) a photographer whose obsession for plants rivals Gene’s obsession with his co-stars’ height.
The Not-So Merry Widow was the last of four Adventurer episodes to be written by the Brooklyn born Marty Roth (1924-2000). Whereas the majority of the series’ writers had long histories with ITC, Roth’s background was in American TV and these Adventurer episodes would end up being his only British credits. Given his outsider status it is surprising to discover that among his Adventurer credits were ‘Return to Sender’ and ‘Miss me once, Miss me twice...Miss me once again’, two of the most stereotypically ‘ITC’ episodes that the series had to offer. The Not-So Merry Widow though, does come across as an attempt to steer the series in a different, almost film noir like direction. It is an episode I do have mixed feelings about. If I’m being honest I have to admit it didn’t grab me all that much, the supporting characters are a rather dull bunch and the storyline uninvolving, yet the quality of the writing is way above average for this series. Roth undoubtedly had an ear for noirish dialogue “money doesn’t buy friends, only rents them”, and the amount of witty dialogue here is an atypical, but welcome, addition to the series. Roth can also take credit for the most intentionally funny dialogue exchange ever heard in The Adventurer, when Gene tries to justify breaking into Vanessa’s room by claiming ‘the door was open’, only for Angela Douglas to shoot back with “so is the top button of my shirt, but that doesn’t mean everything underneath isn’t private property”. A line delivered with all the gusto you’d expect from an actress who’d been in numerous Carry On movies. In light of this episode’s mixture of comedy and murder mystery elements it comes as no surprise that Roth’s earlier TV work had included lots of sitcoms (I Dream of Jeannie, My Favourite Martian, McHale’s Navy) or that his future lay in US detective shows, his later credits including the likes of Mannix, Barnaby Jones, Vega$ and Hart to Hart.
Roth’s writing, along with a particularly engaged performance by Barbara Murray as the deliciously wicked Lady Diane (pronounced ‘Dee-Anne’) are the highlights of an otherwise underwhelming Gene Bradley outing. A sense of ‘let’s just get this series over with’ hangs over this episode. Gene mumbles his way through his dialogue, while male co-stars Maurice Kaufmann and Charles Kay look thoroughly bored by roles that –surprise, surprise- require them to do the usual amount of slouching and sitting down in Gene’s presence. At least Brandon the Butler is on hand to provide comic relief, whether it is by nosily listening in on Gene’s conversations though the keyhole or his uncanny ability to show up whenever alcohol is around. Brandon is a man whose glass is never half empty.
I do have to wonder… am I a bastard for finding amusement in the fact that so many idolised TV shows of yesteryear have had multiple episodes wiped from existence…Doctor Who…The Avengers…Top of the Tops…Dad’s Army…Adam Adamant Lives!...Ace of Wands…the lists goes on, and yet every single episode of The Adventurer survives. Life just isn’t fair, is it? In the case of The Not-So Merry Widow though, even I might be tempted to offer up this Adventurer episode to the flames in return for one of those other series’ wiped episodes being brought back from the dead…why do I get the feeling that Nosher Powell would be in agreement?
Incidentally, a trek into the pop culture wasteland that is YouTube reveals that this Adventurer episode wasn’t the first time Gene was the recipient of some hands on attention from his male co-stars. So, let’s end this week with this tender moment from Bat Masterson, which feels straight out of the gay version of Eskimo Nell, complete with dialogue that is practically begging to be misinterpreted as homosexual innuendo “it would take an awfully big fee to get me back to those mangy bears”. Be warned though, Gene is singing again…
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