Saturday 24 September 2016

502 Best Sellers : The Word




First  viewed : July  1981

After  the   induction  week,  it   was  a  long  eight  week  break  before life  in  the  sixth  form began. I  would  perhaps  have  been  better  looking  for  some  sort  of  job  but  I  wasn't  really  cut out  for  manual  work  and  I  didn't  suppose  there'd  be  anything  else  available. The  early  part was  brightened  up  by  an  afternoon  re-run  of  this  enthralling  mini-series. I  didn't  see  it  when  first  broadcast  on  Saturday  evenings  in  1978  and  only  came  to  it  halfway  through  this  time  round  but  found  it  absolutely  captivating.

The  Word   was  based  on  a  very  prescient  1972  novel  by  Irving  Wallace . David  Janssen  (  who  had  died  since  the  original  broadcast )  plays  Stephen  Randal, a  top  flight  PR  man  who  is  hired  by  a  religious  publishing  house  to  handle  the  publication  of   "The  Gospel  According  To  St  James" , a  new  version  of  Christ's  life  discovered  in  Roman  ruins  six  years  earlier  and  authenticated  by  leading  Biblical  scholars  but  fiercely  opposed  by  some  factions  in  the  Christian  world,  personified  by  radical  Dutch  minister  de   Vroome  ( Nicol  Williamson ). After  some  rather  improbable  escapades  including  the  brief  kidnapping  of  the  manuscript  from  its  Fort  Knox-style  vault,   Randal  is  alerted  by  a  spy  in  the  camp  to  a  historical  flaw  in  the  text  and  decides  to  investigate  its  authenticity. The  remainder  of  the  story  is  quite  close  to  Ibsen's  An  Enemy  of  the  People  as  Randal  discovers  it  is  almost  certainly  a  forgery  and  tries  to  pursue  the  truth  whatever  the  personal  cost.

At  first  Janssen  seems  a  bit  miscast  as  you  can't  imagine  his  grumpy  persona  being  useful  in  persuading  people  of  anything  but  he  comes  into  his  own  in  the  second  half   as  the  lone  honest  man  in  a  sea  of  crooks .  The  sometimes  unwatchable  Williamson  is  in  good  form  too  but  the  best  performance  comes  from  Ron  Moody  as  the  forger  De  Bruyn   whose  revelatory  encounter  with  Randel  is  brilliantly  filmed. The music  too  is  terrific  , adding  a  real  sense  of  tragic  gravitas  to  the  story  right  down  to  its  downbeat  conclusion. It  isn't  perfect  - you  require  a   fair  suspension  of  disbelief  to  accept  the  number  of  murders  for  instance  - but  very  good  indeed.

Life  has  imitated  art  since  in  two  completely  separate  instances. Not  long  after   this  was  re-broadcast,  you  had  the  infamous  Hitler  Diaries  hoax  which  developed  along  remarkably  similar  lines . And  then  ,we've  already  discussed  the  whole  Priory  de  Sion  nonsense  which  hadn't  yet  been  exposed  as  a  hoax. You  wonder  if  Leigh, Baigent  and  co  ever  saw  this  and  recognised  themselves.

Warning : If  this  write-up  encourages  anyone  to  seek  it  out , beware  that  the  video  currently  on  YouTube   is  culled  from  the  VHS  release   which  was  a  three-hour  condensation  of  a  series  that  was  originally  nearly  eight  hours  long. You  can  imagine  what  that  does  for  narrative  continuity  but  if  you  don't  mind  characters  disappearing  without  explanation  and  multiple  plot  threads  left  hanging   in  the  air  please  do  check  it  out.

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