IF THIS IS HOLY WEEK then if must be all-Jesus all-the-time on one cable TV channel or another. I caught parts of the 1965 megaflop, The Greatest Story Ever Told, on Channel 48 the other afternoon. The movie cost $20 million to make and only earned $12 worldwide. The Greatest Story Ever Told is more famous these days as a trivia question, "Other than Ghengis Kahn, in what role was John Wayne most miscast?"

The answer is Duke as the nameless Roman centurion standing at the foot of the cross during the crucifixion scene in The Greatest Story Ever Told. Wayne's screen time totals seconds, not minutes, and he is as immobile as a statue throughout. In fact, you can't even see his lips move when he utters his only line, which steals the thunder, if you will, from the most dramatic moment in the movie.

Shortly after Christ (Max Von Sydow) utters his last words "Into your hands I commend my spirit." and expires, the heavens open up with lightening, thunder and high winds. As the multitudes cower in fear, the granite-like centurion stares at the cross and says, "Truly, this man was the son of God." Until that moment the audience isn't sure who the centurion is, but in his signature John Wayne voice, the only way to parody the scene would be to add the word "pilgrim" at the end.

Wayne's centurion is as unintentionally comical as Tony Curtis playing the Greek slave Antoninus opposite Kirk Douglas's Spartacus when he says, "Yonda lies da house of my fadah."