According to Tony Sloman {Film Librarian}, Bernie Willams {Production Manager] and legend, Patrick McGoohan had a Lava Lamp on his desk, and said this was as the origin of 'Rover' the Village Guardian, as it would be in the series. Baby Rovers, as Tony Sloman and Bernie Willaims recalled calling them. Well forgive me, but this was again according to Sloman and Willaims, that 'Rover' as we know 'it' would not be created until three weeks into filming the Prisoner at Portmeirion! What's more I have seen photographs of McGoohan sat at his desk in this office, and there's no sign of any Lava Lamp, on his desk or anywhere else in his office!
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not calling Tony Sloman or Bernie William liars, but it seems to me that there might be some dressing up of the facts. I mean the generally accepted story is that 'Rover' wasn't thought of until a meteorological weather balloon was seen in the skies above Portmeirion, there being a Meteorological Weather Station nearby, never before had there been any mention of Lava Lamps and 'Rover.' Mind you, Tony Sloman and Bernie Williams could very well have been talking about the Lava Lamps post the Portmeirion shoot in September 66, as they did have Lava Lamps on sets at MGM Studios, that would explain it.
It is the way the stories are told by those who worked on the Prisoner series, it lays confusion at times. Because why say that the Lava Lamp is the origin of the Village Guardian when they already had that mechanical contraption of Go-Kart, dome, and flashing blue light? Its as Moor Larkin has said before, you pays your money and takes your choice.
Be seeing you
Surely Bernie Williams never maintained that? He clearly recounted the tale of the balloon sighting that inspired Rover, and his account always matched up with McGoohan's memoir. The lava lamp obviously lent itself to the concept later.
ReplyDeleteI was listening to a Tony Sloman commentary the other day and he was waffling about the Penny Farthing representing the earth and the moon. I also think he indicated that he didn't get involved in the show until after the Portmeirion filming, so perhaps the fact that they were busy filming lava-lamps for the *baby* footage by then left him with the idea that it was the lamps that had inspired the idea originally.
Hello Moor,
ReplyDeleteWell it was certainly one of them, Bernie or Tony Sloman who were speaking about the Village Guardian during the 'Arrival' commentary. I may have mistaken who said it, as I was getting a little confused as to who was saying what at the time. If the later concept of 'Rover' was right from the beginning, then why that awful 'Rover' contraption in the first place? No, the Lava Lamp must have come later.
I presume you have seen the so termed 'alt' Chimes of Big Ben? Because for the closing credits there is the Universe with the Earth in the penny wheel of the Penny Farthing bicycle.
And that's right, Tony Sloman didn't get involved with 'the Prisoner' until after the Portmeirion shoot, well there was no need for a film librarian until there was some film to put in the library! One can generally take some of Tony Sloman stories with a pinch of salt. However he did have something very interesting to say in an interview regarding both the library order and screening order of 'the Prisoner, I'll see if I can find it.
Regards
David
BCNU
The Chimes end-title though involved the earth against the Universe. Perhaps Mr.Sloman was thinking of David Niven's biography, 'The Moon is a Balloon'..... :-D
ReplyDeleteI must take a listen to the Arrival commentary because as you say, it is those two again (as on Dance of the Dead), and it only recently dawned on me that these episodes can be watched this way.... :-D
Took a listen tonight. It is a bit confusing, but it is mostly Bernie Williams talking and he does definitely make clear at one point that Rover had already been invented with the weather balloon, but that the lava-lamp blobs became known as the baby rovers.
ReplyDeleteI think it is sometimes possible to overstate the degree to which the original Rover was radically different to the one we eventually saw. I recalled writing this in my blog a while back:
"The original Rover was, it should be remembered not a piloted vehicle, but some kind of impossible technology that probably would never have been explained, any more than the balloon version was. "
http://numbersixwasinnocent.blogspot.com/2010/12/mcgoohan-introduces-himself-to-his-fans.html
We know it was an egg on a go-kart, but if it had been workable, that would never have been apparent on the screen.... although I still have huge doubts about the blue light on the top.
Hello Moor,
ReplyDeleteYou are quite right of course, we only know that the original 'Rover' had a man sat inside it from photographs and the stories from certain members of the production crew. If we had not known that, and 'if' the original mechanical 'Rover' had been a success, then it would have.....well perhaps a remote droid, controlled by a technician in the Control Room. This in the same way as remote droids are used, and controlled in the armed forces.
If the mechanical 'Rover' had been a success, then that would have had an effect on the whole series, giving the series a whole diffent look don't you think?
As ever
David
BCNU
Hello Moor,
ReplyDeleteI trust you are enjoying the weekend. I am being kept thoroughly busy!
The moon is a balloon, yes I like that one, no not the film, the thought that 'Rover' turns into the Moon......just a minute........during the evacuation of the Village, there is a shot of 'Rover' in a smouldering rocky, almost alien environment, as though 'Rover' was suddenly pictured on an alien planet...could be the Moon!
When you said that it only recently dawned on you that you could watch 'Arrival' and 'Dance of the Dead' that way, did you mean watching them in that sequence in the series? Because according to film librarian Tony Sloman and the library sequence of episodes, 'Dance of the Dead' was originally to have been the third episode of 'the Prisoner.' That's why No.6 tells his personal maid that he's new here. To say that he's new to the Village some 7 episodes on from 'Arrival' doesn't make any sense to me.
Regards
David
BCNYou
No, I meant that I hadn't really investigated all the *extras*, which include those episodes being *talked over*. I have no problem with No6 saying he's new in 'Dance of the Dead' because that episode follows 'Many Happy Returns'.
ReplyDeleteGoing back to the *original* Rover, I think it's appearance could have been edited in such a way to have an effect not all that dissimilar to the vulcanised version.... Obviously not bouncing, but just as *mysterious* in it's own way - assuming it could climb walls and such.
But that blue light would have been very parochial... turning the thing into a mere policeman..... And what would they have projected onto the walls without all that babyrover footage - maybe just those circles we see in Arrival I guess.
Hello Moor,
ReplyDeleteOh yes of course, being new in the Village doesn't mean that No.6 had not been there before, yes I can see that. I have to admit that I've never been really interested in either the production side to 'the Prisoner' or extras found on the DVD discs in the past. For me, it has always been the series itself which has always been the most important for me.
Perhaps with the original 'Rover,' if it had been made to work, the viewer might have simply seen its myterious shadow on a wall as it passed by.
Yes, 'Rover' as a policeman, to serve and protect. No, it doesn't work. Yet that is what the Balloon does as a Village Gaurdian. Not only does it chase down anyone attempting to escape, but it guards and protects the community, depending on which side you are on of course. Well that's how it has always seemed to me.
And that blue light of the original 'Rover' do we see the effect of that blue light on No.6 in 'Free For All' for example? I think perhaps we do.
Regards
David
BCNU
Yes, it did cross my mind that the *blue light* could have become a mysterious ray of some sort, which would have taken the notion of it from being a mere Dixon of Dock Green thing, into perhaps a more allegorical area, where the blue light of the *law* hypnotises the villagers into *obeying*, even when the law makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteThat's the thing with allegory - you can make it seem like more than just what it is...... :-D
Hello Moor and David
ReplyDeleteMcGoohan had worked in the steel mills in his youth. Perhaps his vision for both Rovers was to emerge from some molten substance.
In the case of the original Rover the 'birth' of a 'steel beast' is in the molten heart of the steel mill. In the case of the Rover we know and love the origins could be the 'primal soup' of the oceans depth.
In either case the Rover demise we see at the end in Fall Out could have applied to either conception of Rover.
It is well to remember that Tomblin states that Rover was conceived as a 'creature' from the very beginning when referring to the original Rover, giving some impression of a living being.
Sincerely
Mr. Anonymous
Hello David and Moor
ReplyDeletePerhaps Mr. McGoohan was inspired by this image.
http://salvadordalipaintings.blogspot.com/
Sincerely
Mr. Anonymous
Hello Mister Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteWith hindsight perhaps. So you see I know where you are coming from. Because one idea with the Village Guardian as a balloon, was to have 'it' absorb people, that it would turn red with it's victims blood. But that was thought to be far too frightening for television viewers at the time!
As ever
David
BCNU
Hello Mister Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteMmmmmmmm, I see the Village Guardian, the balloon version, as either an alien being to this planet, or having been genetically engineered by bio-scientists in a laboratory somewhere, having begun its life in a test tube or petri dish.
Regards
David
Be seeing you
Hello Moor,
ReplyDeleteOr 'Z' cars, perhaps the mechanical 'Rover' might have had a siren as well!
And I could not agree more about the use of the allegorical. I've known fans who have latched on that term simply because McGoohan used it when explaining 'Fall Out,' but didn't really explain anything. Allegorical, that means it could mean anything!
Regards
David
Be seeing you.
Hello David
ReplyDeleteCertainly the closet Sci-Fi relative to the original Rover must have been the Dalek of Dr. Who fame. These creatures even came complete with a flashing blue eye:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kmTcyM_XBA&feature=relmfu
There is a scene in The Daleks Invasion of Earth (1964) where a Dalek pulls off what the original Rover failed at, which was an emergence from a body of water to present it self as a menacing presence.
Your comments on how the original Rover could have maintained a menacing presence is validated by the Star Trek episode The Devil In The Dark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJbUwCfwoKw
The Horta solved the 'wall climbing' problem by going 'through it.
The Dali egg may have had a practical side to the original Rover as Dali himself on his Arrival in America did so by emerging from an egg like transport.
You may recall all those globes from Fall Out in the No.1 rocket, suggestive of just such a
Globuspolitical.
Sincerely
Mr. Anonymous
Hello David
ReplyDeleteAROUND A CORNER HURTLES A VEHICLE AT GREAT SPEED. ... IT LOOKS LIKE AN ELONGATED EGG WITH A BLUE FLASHING POLICE LIGHT ATOP. ...
The above is Mr. McGoohan's's own description of Rover's first appearance in Arrival.
The simplest explanation for the inspiration of the original Rover is that it actually existed in some form:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3561/3769927326_8344d3789c.jpg
http://www.solarnavigator.net/inventors/christopher_cockerell.htm
For comparison:
http://www.rickmcgrath.com/not_a_number/orginal_rover.jpg
Mr. McGoohan had always insisted that the technology of The Village, as he saw it, existed in some form already in the present.
Sincerely
Mr. Anonymous
Hi Mister Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI can think of one other possible relative of 'Rover' other than the Dalek, and that is the Mechanoids. They are round, mechanical, have steel arms for restraining, and a ray, but sadly no flashing blue light!
I enjoyed the 'Star Treck' clip of film, although I have as yet not looked at the other links you gave.
Yes, that was a very impressive image of the Dalek emerging from the river Thames, something the original Rover could never have achieved.
Regards
David
BCNU
Hello Mister Annonymous,
ReplyDeleteTo see a possible relative of 'Rover' from 1965, here is a link to see a MECHANOID.
http://imdoctorwho.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html
Rgards
David
BCNU
Hello David
ReplyDeleteActually the Mechanoids may just be the perfect Rover ancestor.
They were waiting for humanity having created a 'perfect Colony (3?)... the city of Mechanus. Perhaps they tired of waiting for humanity and decided to use cloning to perfect a humanity to serve. Like all 'creations' to make themselves more like the 'image' of the maker they created the fleshy 'balloon Rover'.
No.6 would have been the perfect 'New Man'... everything we see outside The Village is a mere Matrix like 'dream' program that DOTD No.2 tries to get No.6 to accept.
http://th00.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2011/016/5/0/proto_movellans_i_by_icehawkprime-d37cb39.jpg
Sincerely
Mr Anonymous
Hello Mister Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI like to see people letting their immagination run riot, I tend to do the same on occasion. It's just a pity that whoever it was that came up with the design of the original Village Guardian didn't do the same. That Go-Kart with a dome and flashing blue light shows little immagination. Something more like a Mechanoid would have been excellent, and would have fitted in with the Village's futuristic technology.
In 'Dance of the Dead' No,2 said'If you insist on living a dream, you may be taken for mad!' To which No,6 says 'I like my dream'. To which No.2 replies 'Then you are mad!' Is it the outside world No.6 dreams about, or the Village in which he is living? It has been said, by fans, that No.6 has created the Village in his own mind, and that he is living the dream of the Village. If so, the Prisoner is most certainly mad! And so when No.6 tells No.2 that he likes his dream, is he talking about the outside world, which No.2 tells he dreams of, or is it the Village? It is a most interesting paradox I feel.
Regards
David
BCNU
Hello David
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of the Mechanoids being an influence on Rover ... however they are a product of the future.
I am curious as to your perception that the original Rover may have had a basis in the (then) present day technology of the hovercraft cited in the post above.
Sincerely
Mr. Anonymous