The Last Adventure [Les Aventuriers] *** (1967, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura, Joanna Shimkus) – Classic Movie Review 8,254

The 1967 French adventure film The Last Adventure [Les Aventuriers] stars Alain Delon as handsome Manu Borelli and Lino Ventura as craggy Roland Darbant, who search for sunken loot off the coast of Africa with attractive Laetitia Weiss (Joanna Shimkus). 

Co-writer/ director Robert Enrico’s 1967 French-Italian adventure drama film The Last Adventure [Les Aventuriers] is based on a novel by José Giovanni, and stars Alain Delon as Manu Borelli, Lino Ventura as Roland Darbant, and Joanna Shimkus as Laetitia Weiss, with Serge Reggiani as pilot, Hans Meyer as mercenary and Valéry Inkijinoff.

Manu and Roland are adventurers and best friends who set off with artistic young Laetitia to find the loot in a crashed plane lying on the ocean floor off the coast of Congo, and find trouble.

With a good cast and a decent script aboard, it is a striking looking movie shot partly on various exotic French locations like Fort Boyard (Charente-Maritime, France).

The screenplay is by Robert Enrico and José Giovanni, with dialogue by José Giovanni and Pierre Pelegri, based on the novel by José Giovanni.

It uses only used the first half of the novel and the second half is adapted as Law of Survival (1967) [La loi du survivant] starring Michel Constantin.

It was one of Delon’s biggest Sixties hits at the French cinema box office. There were 3,120,412 admissions for it at the box office in France, which is a heck of a lot of paying customers.

Its classic iconic status is confirmed by its use in excerpt in the 2015 Christian Dior Eau Sauvage cologne advertising campaign.

It was remade in Japan in 1974 as The Homeless and in 2014 in Russia as The Adventurers. A sequel of sorts was made in 1983 called The Ruffian, directed by José Giovanni (who also wrote Les Aventuriers) and again starring Lino Ventura but this time with Bernard Giraudeau. The plot again is about the hunt for hidden underwater treasure but now set in Canada.

The Last Adventure [Les Aventuriers] is directed by Robert Enrico, runs 113 minutes, is made by Compagnia Generale Finzaiaria Cinematografica, is distributed by Societe Nouvelle De Cinematographie, is written by Robert Enrico, José Giovanni (dialogue) and Pierre Pilegri (dialogue), based on the novel Les Aventuriers by José Giovanni, is produced by Gérard Beytout and René Pignières, is shot by Jean Boffety, is scored by François de Roubaix.

José Giovanni (22 June 1923 – 24 April 2004) was the pseudonym of French writer film-maker of Corsican origin Joseph Damiani, a former collaborationist and criminal who at one time was sentenced to death. Giovanni drew inspiration from personal experience or from real gangsters, such as Abel Danos in his 1960 film Classe tous risques,

Release dates: 12 April 1967 (France) and 14 April 1967 (Italy).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8,254

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