The Adventures of Gerard (1970)

I've only seen half this film on late-night TV so I can't be sure if it's really good or not. The bit I did see was charming. McEnery is fabulous as the Conan-Doyle hero, Cardinale is as lovely as ever and Eli Wallach hams beautifully.There's lots of running about deserty parts of Spain and amusing asides to the camera by Gerard, including the perfect way to get your boots off.There are also very weirdly filmed (and plain weird) sequences that put this film far above other silly 1960s "romp films" (is that a genre?). The best example is a stunning slow-mo bit where a bandit with his head popping up in the middle of table is killed William Tell fashion by his preposterously debonair chief.I'd love to see the rest but it hasn't got a DVD release (I don't think it even had a VHS release) and is very rarely screened on telly. Like at lot of Euro-productions, it's uneven, often badly dubbed and was probably panned at the time, with most people involved having forgotten about it (or trying to forget about it). Perhaps it's a great "undiscovered" comedy film. It's at least worthy of a bit more attention.And what happened to Peter McEnery? He was great in this and as Mr Sloane. The results on this site show he's been condemned to TV mini-series for 25 years.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one: Leonard Maltin rates it a BOMB but I found it great fun, if uneven. Skolimowski's first English-language film was actually shot in Cinecitta' and, in fact, features many Italians in the cast (all of whom struggle with the literary - and very English - nature of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original!).There's still plenty of amusing detail to savor - the subject matter of the Napoleonic Wars is treated as farce most of the time and, in fact, there's quite a bit of slapstick involved (to which Skolimowski's technique is happy to oblige via numerous camera tricks, pretty much the sole link here to his early Polish films) - and, accordingly, all the performances are broadly delineated: Peter McEnery is a pompous yet likable ne'er-do-well hero; Eli Wallach is a buffoonish (and gay) Napoleon; while Jack Hawkins has a whale of a time (which, alas, happened very seldom in the films he made following the tragic loss of his voice) as the flustered leader of a bandit rabble who have adopted novel means of torture and execution, and are even dressed in Klan-type garb! Apart from asides to the audience, McEnery also engages in a constantly interrupted duel with British officer Mark Burns - with whom he also spars for the affections of beautiful and fiery Spanish countess Claudia Cardinale. John Neville is the Duke of Wellington in his last film for almost 20 years (when he achieved some latter-day notoriety, in another tongue-in-cheek fantasia no less, with the title role of Terry Gilliam's THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN [1988]). Riz Ortolani contributes a suitably jaunty, yet frequently rousing, score.Unfortunately, some of the film's visual impact was inevitably lost in the pan-and-scan version I watched (taped off Cable TV); originally shot in Panavision, I wouldn't mind owning this in its proper Aspect Ratio on DVD...

Except for the easily entertained, who should always be ignored for their obvious stupidity, this film is a lumbering bore. McEnery is saddled with the hideously written title character who annoys one and all from the first scene to the last. He is that old standby: the oblivious vainglorious military schmuck. The adventures he engages in are more like antics, with lots of frantic activity in a vain attempt to provide humor. But Gerard is such an unwavering clod that he becomes tiresome very quickly, yet you're stuck with him until the end of this fiasco (that is if you decide to keep watching). Cardinale is quite fetching, as always, and Wallach tries as Napoleon, but the script lets them all down. The story is some dull nonsense about Napoleon in need of an idiot officer to bring a false dispatch to the enemy to wreak havoc. Gerard gets the thankless job but becomes an unexpected hero as the story unwinds. Quite predictable. It all takes place during Napoleon's war in Spain, but this is NOT something to look at if you're a fan of the 'Sharpe' series by Cornwell that takes place in the same venue. This film was barely released, deservedly, and remains fitfully buried to this day. Hopefully no where near Conan Doyle's final resting place.

I saw this movie this morning and I must say it does not deserve one star. I admit, this movie is not exactly a CLASSIC per se but it has its share of funny moments. I'm not much of a fan of OLD movies but this one has charm to it. You have the lovely Claudia Cardinale of 'Once Upon a Time in the West' fame and Eli Wallach in this movie...good cast and an alright movie.It's supposed to be an adventure/comedy and sees to be more alongside the genre of Comedy more than anything. It's funny but not downright hilarious in parts and the adventure seems more comical than serious.Eh, not bad. **+/****