Ken Follett’s Foray into Film
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for the truly appalling attempts at comedy” (“Credits and Comments”), this may
have been a prudent decision.
Follett’s next foray into film was more successful. “Fringe Banking” was
Episode 13 of the BBC television series Target, which debuted on September 9,
1977. Follett’s teleplay went through three initial drafts; a near final version is
dated March 11, 1978, with various scenes subsequently rewritten and dated
June 12, 1978. Filming was scheduled for the first two weeks in August of that
year, during the time when Follett was already working on “Numbers Man: An
Idea for a Series;” “Fringe Banking” was broadcast two months later, on
October 13, 1978. These dates are significant: although Follett’s breakthrough
international bestseller Eye o f the Needle had been sold to a publisher by early
1978, and Follett was already seeing significant financial rewards, he remained
grateful for commissioned work during this same period and remained
somewhat cautious about his writing future (Macdonald). As Follett noted years
later, “I thought it might be the most money I’d ever make in my life.. . . ”
(Baker 55), which might explain why he continued to work on television
projects even after Eye o f the Needle had been accepted for publication.
As a television police procedural, “Fringe Banking” continues the exploits
of Detective Superintendent Hackett, the tough and ruthless chief of operations
for the 13th Regional Crime Squad, a unit dealing with large scale crimes
ranging from drug smuggling to homicide to truck hijacking. In this episode,
Hackett discovers a scheme to funnel lucrative government contracts to a
struggling construction company. Follett’s script is briskly paced and competent,
if routine, making use of many standard devices of television suspense: a civil
servant is caught in a “honey trap” even before the opening credits, piquing the
viewer’s interest. While the robbers wait in the cab of a crane, one of them rolls
a cigarette and drops the tobacco can, startling everyone (100). Later, the
robbers think they’ll be apprehended when they hear approaching sirens, then
are relieved to see three fire trucks pass by (108).
Other formulaic devices include the “parallel editing” of scenes to heighten
tension, the climatic chase scene on foot through London streets, and the motif
of “the great British public” (126) willfully