The Schizoid Man - it's easy to tell the Number Six's apart in the episode. One is wearing a black piped blazer, the other a cream blazer with black piping. Yet originally both Number Six's were to have worn identical piped blazers, but that idea was deemed by members of the production crew to have been too complicated for the television viewers of the time {personally I think it would have improved the episode if both Six's had worn identical piped blazers} so we end up with the situation that there can be no doubt which Number Six is the real Number Six, and the other being the "economy pack!"
The situation of identifying the real Number Six is a simple matter, and I believe I posted blog to this effect entitled
The Mystery of the Bruised Finger Nail, that there is a simple way to identify the real Number Six, he's the one wearing the black piped blazer, as in the polaroid photograph taken by No.24-Allison in Number Six's cottage that time.
Yet.......there is another mystery concerning the schizoid men. Yes I did mean 'men,' as you will recall No.6 wears a wrist watch with a black leather strap, as seen in the following picture.
Yet when it comes to the fencing scene in the Village gymnasium Number Six is wearing a wrist watch with a stainless steel trap.
And after teaching Number Six to shoot and fence, outside the recreation Hall, as Number Six is about to give a boxing lesson, it's Curtis who is wearing the wrist watch with the black leather strap!
So does that mean that the Six wearing the wrist watch with the black leather strap is the
real Number six? Or is it even more simpler than that, that the schizoid man wearing the watch with the black leather strap is Patrick McGoohan, and the one wearing the watched with the stainless steel strap is McGoohan's stunt double Frank Maher. In my opinion, Frank Maher plays the role of Number Six in
The Schizoid Man just as much as Patrick McGoohan, but remained uncredited for the role! A role which Frank had played previously in the
Danger Man episode
The Ubiquitous Mister Lovegrove.
BCNU
I don't believe that story about the blazers being the same and the viewers being too stupid. I suspect McGoohan saw the way to change a simplistic Prisoner of Zenda story into a much more complex tale about the realities of identity.
ReplyDeletePutting the two men in negative/positive blazeres was all part of the allegory and far from making it plain who was who, my memory is that *our* No6 ends up in the white blazer pretty damned quick..... Or at least so we are led to believe..... we think - but if we are to believe our eyes, then... are we right? And why do we think we are? And why does No6 at first want to be No6, when all along, until this episode, he had been declaring "I am not a number"......... and so on and so forth.....
It's just not as simple as black and white any longer.
Hello Moor,
ReplyDeleteYou might not believe the story about the blazers originally being the same, but such production shots with Patrick McGoohan and Frank Maher wearing identical piped blazers for 'The Schizoid Man' cannot be denied.
For myself I don't see the allegorical in the different blazers. I see No.6 putting on the cream blazer {and it is cream not white as I have actually worn that blazer. Cream appears white on screen} simply so that he can impersonate Curtis and escape the Village. Sometimes things are more black and white than one might imagine!
I have never quite understood why Curtis wears the Number Six badge. Seeing as how he is supposed to be impersonating No.6, he should have known that No.6 never wears his badge, except when impersonating Curtis, or for a few seconds after leaving the hospital in 'Arrival.'
Regards
David
BCNU
Ah, I do not deny that the script may have originally been geared to a simple identity crisis plot, but what I do not believe is that it was changed because of some anticipation of the stupidity of the viewers.
ReplyDeleteThere was no pandering to some low common demoninator because there was never any doubt for the viewer about which was which because the two had such different characters - the man in white was arrogant and supercilious from the first, whilst the man in black we watched being made so disorientated that he become almost an apology for a man. The impersonation was all based on outer appearances... the mole, the moustache, being left-handed or able to smoke Russian fags, etc..
Number Six had never behaved the way Curtis did, but the premise was not that anyone in the village (including the viewer if you like) had any doubt who was who - the issue was whether they could make No6 doubt himself. His sudden pathetic insistence that HE was No6 was a key part of the attempt to break his will. Black and white only really makes sense to us because it is really many shades of grey - or cream.
Hello Moor,
ReplyDeleteYou make some very cogent points, which cannot be denied. My point of the matter is, that had both No.6's been wearing identical piped balzers, then we would not have beeen so sure which Six had died, and which was being taken out of the Village by helicopter until the very end.
Regards
David
Be seeing you