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Life Story: A Horizon Special

Film telling the story of the race to discover the structure of DNA. Watson and Crick have the bright ideas and the will to win. But there's one little problem: Rosalind Franklin has the crucial data.

It's 1951. There's a race on, and two of the brightest and brashest young men in Cambridge are determined to win it. The prize is glittering. Eternal fame, glory and almost certainly a Nobel prize await whoever is first past the post - for the goal is nothing less than the secret of life itself.

So begins the extraordinary story of the race to the double helix of DNA, one of the greatest true detective stories of the 20th century.
Watson and Crick have the bright ideas and the will to win. But there's one little problem: Rosalind Franklin has the crucial data... and she plays the game by very different rules.

Release date:

1 hour, 46 minutes

Credits

Role Contributor
Jim Watson Jeff Goldblum
Francis Crick Tim Pigott-Smith
Maurice Wilkins Alan Howard
Rosalind Franklin Juliet Stevenson
Nicholas Fry Nicholas Fry
Director Mick Jackson
Producer Mick Jackson
Writer William Nicholson

Broadcast