The Jerusalem File

American archaeology student David Armstrong (Bruce Davison) is studying at the University of Jerusalem. His old Arab friend from Yale University Rashid Rifaat (Zeev Revah) draws him into a power struggle between rival Arab terrorist groups. Both are nearly killed in an assassination attempt on Rifaat who then goes into hiding. Professor Lang (Nicol Williamson) at the University tries to protect Armstrong and hides him at an archaeological dig at Qumran in the West Bank. He promises to help him him get back to America, but Major Samuels (Donald Pleasence) of the Israeli security agency Shin Bet confiscates Armstrong's passport. Samuels wants to use Armstrong to learn more about the organisation and leadership of the Arab groups and identify Rifaat as the leader of the West Bank Resistance. At Qumran the beautiful Nurit (Daria Halprin) seduces Armstrong to keep him loyal to their terrorist group and arrange a meeting with Rifaat. Amstrong goes back to Jerusalem and tries to contact Rifaat using a special coin he presents to a local antique dealer who is later killed. Professor Lang intercepts the coin. He tries to stop Armstrong and make him see sense, but Armstrong eventually succeeds and a meeting takes place in the desert with disastrous consequences. The story takes place after the 1967 Six Day War.

• Bruce Davison as David Armstrong
• Nicol Williamson as Professor Lang
• Daria Halprin as Nurit
• Donald Pleasence as Major Samuels
• Ian Hendry as Mayers
• Koya Yair Rubin as Barak
• Zeev Revah as Raschid Rifaat
• David Smader as Herzen
• Jack Cohen as Altouli

Director John Flynn later recalled the original script was bad but Troy Kennedy Martin rewrote it and Flynn loved the result. The movie was shot in Israel. Flynn:

I stayed at the American Colony Hotel in east Jerusalem, further refining the script while waiting for the production money to come in. All the foreign journalists congregated in the bar of that hotel. So I’d be sitting there in that cavern, as they called it, with all these gentlemen of the press, getting the inside dope on what was really happening in Israel... I never saw Ian Hendry sober, but he somehow managed to function. He’d start with a couple of shots in the morning, but it didn’t seem to affect him. He’d say his lines clearly. Hendry was a perfectly functioning alcoholic when I worked with him. Nicol Williamson (who played an archaeologist) was a wild man too. Very heavy drinker. Late one night, Nicol got quite loaded and threatened to throw Bob Dylan off a hotel balcony!^[2]

The Jerusalem File was met with mixed reception from critics. A. H. Weiler of The New York Times concluded his review stating, "The politics, the disparate motivations and the implicit drama of youth defeated by a world they don't want are only vaguely projected and are secondary to the chase and shoot-em-up action of The Jerusalem File."^[1]

Flynn said the film "didn’t do well at the box office and has all but disappeared."^[2]

• List of American films of 1972

• The Jerusalem File at IMDb