text: Once upon a time in the mid 1990s I used to write for DOCTOR WHO fanzines and the whole of fandom was holding its breathe about the new American produced DOCTOR WHO TVM . As soon as it was announced that the Doctor`s arch enemy the Master was going to be played by Eric Roberts everyone scratched their heads and exclaimed " Who is Eric Roberts ? " . I should point out this was before the IMDB came online when all you had to do was type in a name into this website to their resume , but one helpful soul wrote into a publication I wrote for to explain that Eric Roberts was best known for a role where he starred opposite F Murray Abraham , the film was called BY THE SWORD and was about a fencing school . Actually looking back now Roberts is best known for THE POPE OF GREENWICH VILLAGE and RUNAWAY TRAIN but that didn`t stop the person putting the boot into both Roberts and BY THE SWORD and his mind was made up that this American Master with his southern drawl was going to a debacle . Strangely most fans were furious about Roberts playing the Master but after they saw the DOCTOR WHO TVM a great many fans ( Myself among them ) thought Roberts performance was the best thing about the disappointing American production <br /><br />Yeah I`m digressing but BY THE SWORD was a film that I wanted to see simply because it was the first time I`d heard the name of Eric Roberts but I didn`t get the chance to see it untill this weekend and I was fairly disappointed with it . I know nothing about fencing ( Everyone else on this page seems duty bound to mention if they fence or not . I don`t fence ) so I don`t know how accurate it all is , but as mentioned the film feels somewhat anachronistic even if you saw it on its release in 1991 , the hairstyles seem a few years out of date along with its mixed teenage cast doing a little dance routine that makes you wonder if it wouldn`t have worked a lot better if it`d had been produced by Jerry Bruckheimer in the mid 1980s . You could argue this would have meant the relationship between Max Suba and Alexander Villard being off centre for most of the film but I wasn`t convinced about their love/hate relationship and Abraham and Roberts have given much better performances before and since BY THE SWORD