The film stars Bekim Fehmiu, Candice Bergen, Charles Aznavour, Olivia de Havilland, Fernando Rey, Ernest Borgnine, Alan Badel, and Leigh Taylor-Young.

[3] 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 the 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 an ambassador.

Embassy Pictures purchased the screen rights to Harold Robbins' next novel in 1963 for $1 million,[4] hiring John Michael Hayes to write a screenplay.

When the novel The Adventurers was released in 1966, Paramount Pictures promoted the novel with a sweepstakes asking readers to submit their choices for casting with the winners to be awarded $500.

Paramount re-cut the film at the last minute but several critics, including Pauline Kael and Joe Morgenstern, could not be convinced to watch it a second time.

[1] Howard Thompson of The New York Times opened his review by stating, "On the screen, 'The Adventurers' turn out to be an even duller bunch of meatballs than they were in Harold Robbins's best-selling novel.

"[8] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called it "a classic monument to bad taste ... marked by profligate and squandered production opulence; inferior, imitative and curiously old-hat direction; banal, ludicrous dialog; sub-standard, lifeless and embarrassing acting; cornball music; indulgent, gratuitous and boring violence; and luridly non-erotic sex.

"[10] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times stated that the film "is blatant in its borrowing from the more sensational headlines and naked in its manipulation of emotions to the susceptible," adding that "Gilbert is nothing if not consistent: the acting and the relentlessly risible dialogue are uniformly terrible.

"[11] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "Unfortunately, Lewis Gilbert's film version of the novel is quite faithful to the letter and spirit of the original.

[15] Director Lewis Gilbert said on June 25, 2010, on the BBC radio program Desert Island Discs, that The Adventurers was "a big, sprawling, very expensive film which was a disaster.