The Adventurers

The Adventurers is a 1970 American adventure drama film directed, produced, and co-written by Lewis Gilbert. It is based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Harold Robbins. The film stars Bekim Fehmiu, Candice Bergen, Charles Aznavour, Olivia de Havilland, Fernando Rey, Ernest Borgnine, Alan Badel, and Leigh Taylor-Young. The film was the American film debut of Yugoslavian actor Fehmiu and was shot in Europe and parts of South America. It is loosely based on the life of Dominican diplomat and playboy Porfirio Rubirosa. Lewis Gilbert did the movie under a lucrative contract he had signed with Paramount following the success of Alfie. He called The Adventurers "the worst thing I ever did" and that the book was "impossible". Plot Dax Xenos, a ten-year old boy in the South American country of Corteguay, witnesses the rape and murder of his mother by government soldiers and runs to his father, Jaime, who is with a band of revolutionaries. Jaime's men capture the government soldiers, give Dax the privilege of personally executing his mother's murderers, and then take the boy to their hideout in the mountains where he meets Amparo, the daughter of revolutionary leader Rojo. After the rebels oust the dictator and establish Rojo as president, Dax accompanies his father to Rome, where Jaime is to serve as ambassador.