Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Maddyclassicfilms Adam Adamant Lives! was created by Richard Harris and Donald Cotton. Dr Who producer Verity Lambert also produced this series.Edwardian adventurer Adam Adamant(Gerald Harper)is frozen in 1902 by his arch enemy. In 1960's London, he is found by workmen and revived.Aided by Georgina Jones (Juliet Harmer), Adam continues to fight criminals and tries to adjust to a much changed world. I love the scenes in the first episode where Adam ventures out into 1960's London, he is disorientated and overwhelmed, Harper and the camera and sound capture that so well.Harper is superb as Adamant, in this character and his performance you can find traces of John Steed and Simon Templar. He is so suave and classy, he can defend himself very well and you certainly don't want to get into a fight with him.I love the relationship between him and Georgina, scenes between them are my favourites in the series.I'm not really a fan of remakes, but I think a new series of this set today would work very well if done right.

peter-faizey Adam Adamant Lives! is very much a product of it's time. Produced by Verity Lambert (fresh from Doctor Who) and created by 'The Avengers' creator Sydney Newman, the show was made on a shoestring budget by the BBC on a disorientating mixture of film and videotape. With one episode being produced every week the production is understandably often shaky and rushed, but nonetheless some excellent material was produced during its short run between 1966-1967. The show's central protagonist is the wonderful Adam Adamant, a hero from Victorian times, who during an encounter with his mortal enemy 'The Face' is cryogenic-ally frozen and remains hidden in this frozen state for 64 years, eventually being re-discovered again in 1966. The casting is excellent, Gerald Harper gives a wonderful performance as Adam Adamant, a hero from the Victorian era, unaccustomed and often outraged by the starkly different society he has been thrown into. Harper plays the character as a pure gentlemen, a charmer to the ladies despite his naivety of modern times, and they often serve as a enticement towards danger for Adamant in the series! Juliet Harmer makes an excellent sidekick in the form of Georgina Jones, a young woman who is the epitome of 1960's Swinging Britain and the wonderful Jack May as the Butler Simms who always can be relied upon to add a touch of humour to the programme. The show is quite rightly a cult, it's premise is nothing less than inspired and certainly extremely memorable, earning the programme much following during its forty odd years existence. The opening episode 'A Vintage Year for Scoundrels' with a guest performance from the brilliant Freda Jackson is good fun and sets up the story nicely. Unfortunately the following episodes are generally quite poor, both 'More Deadly Than The Sword' and 'Allah Is Not Always With You' feature dreadful racial stereotypes which date the programme considerably. Thankfully the series improved as it went along with the excellent 'The Sweet Smell of Disaster' by Robert Banks Stewart, no doubt an influence for the classic Doctor Who story 'Terror of the Autons' and the Brian Clemens script 'The Terribly Happy Embalmers' which put the programme as close as it has ever been to 'The Avengers' territory, Clemens notably being a regular writer and later producer for 'The Avengers'. Many see Adam Adamant Lives! as a attempt to emulate the success of the aforementioned programme, and there are certainly many similarities. In terms of production values Adam Adamant Lives! could never really compete. As the programme stuck rigidly to the common practice of film and videotape production, 'The Avengers' had just premiered its fourth season with Diana Rigg's Emma Peel as the new sidekick and new glittering production values which included an extra week for production (every episode was recorded in two weeks) and with American backing behind them, 'The Avengers' team also had a lot more money behind them. Adam Adamant Lives! could never afford the slick style of 'The Avengers'. As a result of this the direction of the programme is quite often industry standard for the time, making it easily distinguishable from the polished direction of 'The Avengers' or any of the ITC action series it was competing against during its original run. However, there are some exceptions. The excellent Ridley Scott shows off some of his early talent in the only surviving episode he directed 'The League of Uncharitable Ladies' which comes complete with some slick location footage and freeze frames aplenty and the late Paul Ciappessoni also directed some memorable work, as did the excellent Moira Armstrong who helmed probably the finest existing episode 'Black Echo' an early episode from the second season with a guest appearance from legendary actress Gladys Cooper. The show ran for two seasons and 29 episodes before being cancelled in 1967 after it failed to continue with any considerable success. Verity Lambert would later consider the show as a bit of a failure and it's a shame that it was never given the chance to grow on audiences, and perhaps more importantly that it was never given a bigger budget. Certainly the 17 episodes that remain are a mixed bag of the brilliant, to the quirky to the downright awful. Other than the episodes already mentioned, essential viewing includes 'The Last Sacrifice', 'Sing a Song of Murder', 'The Village of Evil' and 'A Sinister Sort of Service'. It is a tragic shame like so many other series that 12 episodes of Adam Adamant Lives! are missing, only two episodes exist from the Second Season and seeing as they are two of the best it is a great disappointment that more does not exist. Despite its flaws Adam Adamant Lives! is a fascinating piece of 60's television, one which brilliance often lies in its fantastic premise and performances from the lead actors rather than its execution. Not a classic, but worth a watch. To use a frequently used cliché 'They don't make them like this anymore!'.

macaskillnc Having just turned off half way through the first episode, I'm afraid in my opinion Adam Adamant Lives was badly acted and had an appalling script. Adamant is meant to be an Edwardian gent, but has never come across underground trains, escalators, cars, electric lights or telephones. Of course this is a fantasy but I do expect a certain amount of internal consistency. Why not have Adamant as a Victorian detective (say having been frozen for 100 years instead of 60)? I don't feel I need to make allowances for the budget or the production values that British TV had at the time - it costs nothing to have a decent standard of script writing or acting.

ShadeGrenade I regret to say that I never saw 'Adam Adamant Lives!' at the time. My first encounter proper was in the early 1990's when the first two episodes came out on video. I was hooked! Sadly there were no further releases. I got in touch with someone who had copies of the surviving episodes ( many of appalling picture and sound quality ) and could see that here was another innovative and inventive series from the creative mind of Sydney Newman ( his others include 'The Avengers' and 'Dr.Who' ). Placed in suspended animation by his arch-enemy 'The Face', the dashing Edwardian hero Adam Adamant ( Gerald Harper ) was found and revived in 1966, where he, aided and abetted by his sidekicks - the wide-eyed Mod Georgina Jones and 'Jeeves'-like butler William Simms, battled evil in the modern world. In 'The Sweet Smell Of Disaster', for instance, Kinthley ( Charles Tingwell ) tries to get the country hooked on the scent of a new kind of soap powder. 'The Doomsday Plan' has Dr.Mort ( Peter Vaughan ) out to fake a nuclear attack on London. 'Sing A Song Of Murder' involves pop music turning teenagers into criminals. It was surprisingly violent at times; Adam never failed to run someone through with his sword if he thought they deserved it, and in one episode a man was impaled on a steering wheel.Verity Lambert produced, the scripts were by amongst others Brian Clemens and Tony Williamson. Ridley Scott directed several episodes. Being a video-taped B.B.C. production, it stood no chance of competing with the more expensive filmed shows made by I.T.C., but worked well on its own terms.Gerald Harper cut a dash as the caped Adamant, sword stick forever at the ready. There was humour in his attempts to adjust to the modern world. Kathy Kirby sang the Bond-like theme song, and Bernard Lodge's titles blended Victoriana and '60's chic. So popular was 'Adam' that he followed 'The Avengers' into the pages of 'T.V. Comic'! The first season outperformed 'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' in the ratings in Britain. In the second year, Peter Ducrow was reintroduced as 'The Face'. Many episodes no longer exist, alas, but those that do are entertaining and amusing. B.B.C.-4 ran a documentary - 'The Cult Of Adam Adamant' - a while back, and the series has been issued on D.V.D.( To the unnamed author of the comment entitled 'First Episode', I see you have chosen to submit a hostile review when, by your own admission, you watched only half of the first episode. You do not seem to have grasped the fact that it was a fantasy adventure, and as such was not intended to be taken seriously. )