There are two consistencies within the Prisoner series, three, there are three, four there are four consistencies within the Prisoner series. They are the Prisoner-Number 6, the Butler
Strange that three actors share the amount of screen time with, well I almost wrote an inanimate object, but the village guardian is far from being inanimate. I suppose its been genetically engineered, membrane first grown in a laboratory in a Petri dish by someone in a white coat. They'll be growing human tissue next for organ replacement, and no I do not write that lightly, but simply make the comparison. between the two.
Mind you its true isn't it. That three actors, McGoohan, Swanwick, and Angelo Muscat share the most screen time with a........ balloon!
The Prisoner - Success or Failure?
Well financially the series was a flop. The production company Everyman Films, owned by Patrick McGoohan, David Tomblin, and another individual who's name eludes me for the moment, went into bankruptcy, and led the Inland Revenue a merry dance, according to rumour.
Artistically the Prisoner was a failure at the time, the general public were not ready for such a surreal series which was ahead of its time, and even the social comment of its day went over the head of the average viewer. Yet time is a great educator and over the decades people living in many countries around the world have come to appreciate the series and has become a resounding success, perspicacious, stimulating, annoying, and yes entertaining. But the Prisoner has taken time to achieve this success, yet there are people who cannot see the point, and are still dead-set against it today. Probably because they have the same problem as others before them. They have not tried to make any sense of the Prisoner, because they can't or its too much trouble to try!
Yet through the decades each new generation have found the Prisoner either in Video or Dvd form on shelves in stores on the high street. Have bought said Video's or Dvd's and have become firm fans of the series. Well if new fans had not come to the series appreciation for the Prisoner might very well die out, as the original fans of the series, those who formed Six of One: The Prisoner Appreciation Society back on January 6th 1977 are now either in their late 50's or early 60's years of age, a sobering thought for those of their kind.
The Prisoner was never intended as after dinner fodder, and perhaps that is why it lost the race. Over the decades we have learned differently. Failure or success? Well failure can be instant. Success takes a little longer, and I'm pleased to say that appreciation for the series is still alive and kicking today.
Be seeing you
Had the episodes of the series been shown in a logical order, e.g. Arrival, Free, Checkmate, Dance, Change, Funeral, Schizoid, Returns, A, B & C, Change, General, Girl, Forsake, Hammer, Harmony, Once and Fall Out and not been disrupted over Xmas 1966 when an inexplicable decision was made to air the last 2 episodes of 'Danger Man' (Koroshi and Shinda Shima), the original screening may have been more successful - resulting in a 2nd season.
ReplyDeleteBy the end of the end of the series, writers were becoming more imaginative e.g; 'Living In Harmony' and 'The Girl Who Was Death'.
Most frustrating... BCNU.
Oops! In my 'suggested' screening order above - I've inserted 'A Change Of Mind' twice!
ReplyDeleteI meant to insert 'The Chimes Of Big Ben' between 'Dance' and 'Funeral'!
BCNU. );oB
I don't know whgere your information comes from David, but McGoohan's Prisoner was not a commercial failure at all. It garnered immediate repeats in some ITV regions the following year, something that would not have happened if it had been *unpopular*. Similarly in the USA, it was repeated in 1969 - something the even more excessively commercial Americans would not have contemplated if the show was not attractive to Advertisers. The show had also been sold, and was being shown in many parts of Europe, proving especially popular in France apparently, and also was unusual in being popular in Japan, and South America. Much of this popularity may simply have been because back then viewers simply adored McGoohan himself I guess. He was a significant world star by then.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that second section of your blog is utter tosh.
The Everyman *bankruptcy* seems unrelated to the prisoner show as no queries arose about Everyman until about 1970 and the company was not wound up until 1974. I suspect those problems had more to do with McGoohan's later dealings with Kenneth Griffith and the documentary project McGoohan financed for Griffith, which was largely abortive.
Hello Moor,
ReplyDeleteYes, I admit that 'the Prisoner' was repeated on regional ITV, but that does not make 'the prisoner' a commercial success, only by selling the series to other countries makes the series a success, something which happened in later years. But originally it was only one television company in America who bought it!
Regards
David
BCNU
Hello Steve,
ReplyDeleteThat decision to screen 'Koroshi' and 'Shinda Shima' was not an inexplicable one, it was one born out of nessecity. Because the screening of 'the Prisoner' had caught up with the episodes produced, and so there was a delay until further episodes were edited together ready for screening.
Regards
David
BCNU
David, like I said, I have no idea where you get all this tosh from. Old fan club stuff I assume. American newspaper reports in 1968 remarked,
ReplyDelete"The Prisoner has already been seen in England, Canada, the Far East and Latin America. It has not been seen before in the United States".
So the exact opposite of what you say are the actual facts.
Your other reply is somewhat erroneous too.
First, it should be clarified that Koroshi was shown in only one or two regions of the UK.
Second, the reason for this was not necessarily because Fall Out was not ready (or could not have been made ready), the primary reason for this was that some itv regions were a full two weeks behind in terms of episode broadcasting.
Strangely enough. this actually goes further to emphasise how darned popular and successful The Prisoner was!! In fact it was so popular that the companies realised that for one or two of them to show the finale some weeks before the others was going to create the ultimate *spoiler* for those viewers, and cause major negative public and viewer reaction. Therefore the itv Regions that were ahead of the game used those epsiodes of Danger Man to take a pause and allow the other areas to catch up with The Prisoner, to episode 16.
This last might seem a bit weird nowadays, but it does go back to my earlier point that much of the show's popularity was predicated on the popularity of McGoohan, so the slot was very much McGoohan's Hour and the viewers were hooked.
Hello Moor,
ReplyDeleteAs Oscar wilde might once have said, "There's only one thing worse than writing tosh, that's writing un-read tosh!"
Well I certainly won't argue the matter, and bow to what seems to be a superior knowledge in this matter, and I thank you for informing the readership of my blog.
Kind Regards
David
Enjoy the weekend which will soon be upon us.
Blogging should always broaden the mind, if not change it.... ;-D
ReplyDeleteNot to labour the point but Roger Parkes says he and Markstein attempted to litigate around 1972, bercause they wanted a bigger slice of the prisoner pie, so successful was it:
Mr.Parkes, referring to his lunching with George Markstein: "...the topic that we always discussed ad nauseum, was why we weren’t getting any royalties for The Prisoner…it was well over five years, with the show, by then, shown to multi billion audiences worldwide before our legal threats to ATV finally produced a trickle of royalties."
http://numbersixwasinnocent.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/mcgoohan-in-his-own-words-george.html
Hello Moor,
ReplyDeleteYes, and it should be humourous, and that was my stab at humour, as well as being informative, which reminds me of a story Frank Maher once told me.
Back in the 1990's when 'the Prisoner' was being screened on 'BRAVO' Frank decided to contact 'Bravo' and ask about his repeat royalties. He spoke to a young woman on the telephone, saying that 'Bravo' was screening 'the Prisoner, ' and said that being the case he was entitled to royalty payments. The young woman said "The Prisoner, what's that?" Frank explained who he was, and that it is a television series in which he was the stunt co-rodinatior, and stunt double for Patrick McGoohan. "Frank who?" the woman asked. And as I understand it, that's why ITV1 have never rescreened 'the Prisoner' since 1976, because of having to pay royality payments to the actors etc. If that is the case, I don't know how Channel 4 got away with not paying royalty payments in the past, and does paying royalties not matter when ITV4 has screend the series?
Regards
David
BCNU
Hello David
ReplyDeleteThere is an item in the London Times that states that Lew Grade has pre-sold The Prisoner to CBS in 1966.
There is an interview with Michael Dann in the Chicago Tribune that Dann give an accounting of the shoot times and budgets for The Prisoner and how impressed he was with the production.
The Prisoner was pre-sold in multiple markets before the final first 13 episodes were even completed.
The claims of some delays in royalties to the various writers is because their original contracts contained a revolutionary clause at the time that they receive an advance on royalties.
Mr.McGoohan would have had nothing to do with the payment of those royalties as that would have been the duty of ITC.
Sincerely
Mr. Anonymous
Hello Mister Anonymous
ReplyDeleteAn interesting comment. And of course it was up to ITC to pay royalties. Advance royalty payments, an interesting clause in the contracts.
I wonder if Polygram, the next owners of the rights to 'the Prisoner' paid any repeat royalties, then of course it was Seagram for a short time, followed by Carlton, and now Granada Ventures.
Regards
David
BCNU
I once perused some old Film/TV Industry magazines and Equity were printing lists of names who the Union said they were holding royalty/copyright monies of various sort for. Amongst those names was Patrick McGoohan. The process is probably quite a sloppy one. When Danger Man first started resurfacing in Britain on TV via Channel 4 in the 80's/90's, Patsy Smart alerted her brother in Australia, and she applied on his behalf to the TV company about the royalty payments he was not receiving. According to my source, her reply from the company included an apology, and an explanation that they had thought Ralph Smart was dead.
ReplyDeleteHello Moor,
DeleteAn interesting comment.
Yes, that's the thing, it is always up to the performer to make the contact regarding royalty payments, TV companies don't go chasing actor and actresses to give them money.
Regards
David
Be seeing you