With the money they take in, the Billy Graham Ministry under the banner of Worldwide Pictures should be able to produce a film with better production values than some of the religious films I've seen. That in fact they did in the film Caught. Would that the story and direction and acting matched the technical stuff.
The film was made to take advantage of the International Conference of Itinerant Evangelists taking place in Amsterdam which among others featured Billy Graham. Graham himself is seen in sermons before the conference woven into the plot of the film.
Which centers on two people, American kid John Shepherd and Indian Amerjie Deu. Amerjie is in Amsterdam for the conference, but Shepherd came there trying to find his birth father. Seems he just learned that he was an out of wedlock child to Jill Ireland when she was living with a Dutch student during the hippie sixties. The knowledge has given him an attack of teenage angst.
Of course when in the Netherlands that notorious sin center of Europe he falls prey to all kinds of temptation and winds up selling drugs and selling himself in Amsterdam. But in a series of incredibly coincidental meetings with Deu, Shepherd reevaluates his life and since this is a Christian evangelical film, you know what that means.
Which brings me to an interesting observation. Whoever wrote and researched the film must have had a knowledge of homo-erotica and fetishism that's not usually learned in bible college. I also wonder how a Christian filmmaker managed to learn about Amsterdam's notorious spot for rent boys.
Of course it's made abundantly clear that Shepherd is gay for pay. Note that none of the other really gay kids out street hustling is even attempted to be evangelized. The producers knew well to stay away from that topic.
Caught will never exactly be a prime candidate for any film honors. Still it's a curious work considering who produced it.
