Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

How the quest was won

1997; Elsevier BV; Volume: 7; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0960-9822(06)00303-4

1879-0445

Sydney Brenner,

Philosophy, History, and Historiography

Not long after Jim Watson's The Double Helix appeared, there was talk about making a movie about the DNA story. The author of the book took this very seriously and did not find all the many suggestions made to him very helpful. One idea put forward was that Jim should be played by Woody Allen and Francis Crick by Peter O’Toole. Another was to do it as a musical with a dance based on the entwining DNA chains. Eventually, it was the BBC that made a film, in which the part of Jim was played by Jeff (The Fly) Goldblum, who later went on to greater scientific fame in the film of Jurassic Park. From the very beginning, I came to the conclusion that the real question about transferring The Double Helix to the silver screen was what kind of a story it is. Is it a comedy? Or is it a romance, or an epic or an adventure story? The BBC's portrayal carried some of the saccharine romance associated with tales of Oxbridge — there were echoes of Brideshead Revisited — but there was also a strong dose of the 1950s and something reminiscent of the novels of Kingsley Amis (remember Lucky Jim — a title actually suggested for the book). I talked to some of the potential producers of the movie. One I remember well because I discovered he had written all of the scripts for the Dr Kildare movies and had worked with Lionel Barrymore. He felt that one of the difficulties about making the film is that there is no action in the story and, for the most part, nothing happens to keep the audience interested. There are just a lot of people sitting around and talking all day or scribbling on pieces of paper. Put that way, it sounded to me more like an Antonioni film. Actually, when I spoke to this producer, I was so dazzled by his credentials that I forgot to tell him that I had solved the problem many years ago, and that I even had a sketch of the script which I could make available for the right price. As with all my other suggestions, I could not persuade Jim to take my script seriously. As the years pass, it has become increasingly unlikely that it will ever be made because I required everybody to play themselves and many of the actors are no longer with us. It is set as a Western of the classical form. The location is Fudge City, a typical dusty one street town, at the end of the railroad and at the gateway to the Far West. All the characters are looking for the DNA lode, and, in particular, for a map showing how to find it. The map was either lost a long time ago or, more likely, had never been drawn. I can only give you brief sketches of the characters and a glimpse of some of the scenes. The mayor of Fudge City is Larry Bragg, dressed in typical formal Western style with striped pants and a top hat, and played by Sir Lawrence Bragg. Rosalind Franklin is the school marm, Linus Pauling owns a large ranch, called the Lazy A, and a mine. On Saturday nights, the boys ride into town and may be found cavorting in the Crazy Helix Saloon. Many lose all of their wages playing cards with Francis Crick, in the full dress of a Mississippi river boat gambler. On some evenings the boys amuse themselves with a half mad prospector, played by Erwin Chargaff, who has hitched his four mules, Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, and Thymine, to the rail outside. Maurice Wilkins is the English railroad owner who occupies a private rail car, decorated in resplendent Western Victorian style. (Don’t forget the large enamel bath.) The arrival of the greenhorn from back East is a scene to relish. Jim Watson has been sent West by a group of Eastern bankers who would love to lay their hands on the DNA lode. On a hot day the train pulls into the station. Out steps Jim in a black suit with trouser bottoms well above his booted ankles. His scrawny neck is encircled by a collar several sizes too large, and a black hat, several sizes too small, shields his slightly bulging eyes from the glaring sun. He clutches a cardboard suitcase with his meagre possessions. There is no one to meet him. The story moves on to the meeting in which Francis teaches Jim a new card game called Model Poker. Then Pauling claims he has found the map, but Jim and Francis know it is wrong because the water is in the wrong place. They produce their own map. There is much rejoicing, including a tremendous party in the saloon that allows many other people to play small parts. We move to the final scene. In the telegraph office at the railroad station, Max Perutz, played by himself, with a green eyeshade shielding his puzzled eyes and with his sleeves held in place by elastic armbands, sits tapping out the news of the find. The camera closes up to the tapping key and fades in scenes of telegraph lines going to every town. The DNA lode has been found! There are shots of newspaper headlines announcing this and we fade to a series of frantic scenes of people fighting for seats on the trains, of buying supplies, loading wagons and whipping horses, as, in every quarter of the land, the Great DNA Rush gets underway. I even sketched a sequel, to be called The Return of the Screw. There was a wonderful scene of a high noon shoot out between Marshal Nirenberg, played by Marshall Nirenberg, and an elegant Mexican gunman dressed in black (pace Cat Ballou) played by Severo Ochoa. The rest, as they say, is left to the reader's imagination.