There is determination - there is anger and outrage, as Patrick McGoohan finally rids himself of John Drake, even if only symbolically so.
There is something in the Prisoner's eyes, is it sadness, or regret? Or the sudden realisation of what he has done. Is that why the act of resigning his job became such anguish for him?
BCNU
McGoohan had rid himself of John Drake quite amicably in a meeting with Lew Grade on Saturday morning April 16, 1966.
ReplyDeleteThe resignation was an allegory for the demand for the freedom of individual action. If you cannot understand allegory, you are doomed forever to walk the halls of a reality that never quite makes sense. But that is another choice we are all free to make.
Hello Moor,
DeleteYes, I know he had, and the reasons why McGoohan resigned the role of John Drake.
Oh I understand allegory alright, and I steer a clear course away from it any time it crosses my bows. The trouble I've found with allegory is that it can mean anything one wants it to mean. McGoohan described 'Fall out' as an allegory, what a cop-out that was, as using that word simply meant that he need not explain anything about 'Fall Out!'
For me I'll take reality over allegory any day of the week, at least with reality you know where you stand!
Regards
David
Be seeing you
Having watched the prisoner several times but only very recently ever seen Danger Man, I would not say that these two characters are the same person, but that is just my opinion and probably counts for nothing. I've now watched several episodes from each series of Danger Man and they come across to me as completely different individuals.
DeleteHello Anonymous,
DeleteYes, there is a case for John Drake and Number Six to be two completely different individual characters. Indeed it has been said by Tony Sloman {film librarian on 'the Prisoner'} that if you watch the series in the correct order, you can see the character of Number 6 develop as the series pans out.
Regards
David
BCNU
I've never had any problem accepting that it is a secret agent who is resigning (although that only becomes evident later on in the show) or that he is clearly quite annoyed about something and wants to make a strong point. Part of his annoyance could be stemming from the fact that the bald bloke seems just not to be listening to a word he hears, and it seems plain that this peculiar little bland person really has no place to be sitting in that chair, receiving the annoyed man's note in the first place.
ReplyDeleteIt might even start annoying the secret agent that this pipsqueak is going to be sat there in his office drinking tea and playing with his map-pins after the secret agent has gone and and all this has somehow happened whilst the secret agent was doing all the bloody work in the real world and yet..... for a very long time...........!!
Now that's an allegory worth a thought or two... :-D
Hello Moor,
DeleteWell that's how people are, those sat behind the desk. Like in the television series 'The Mind of J.G.Reader' as Sir Jason sits administrating from behind his desk, sending the Department of Public Prosecutions out to investigate, while he remains in the relative comfort of his office enjoying 3 hour lunches. And again, in the film 'When Eight Bells Toll,' poor old Calvert is sent on a mission to discover why a series of bullion ships have disappeared, facing all kinds of danger, and at times its kill or be killed. This while Sir Arthur Arnford-Jason again sits adminitrating from behind his desk with only the question of why he hasn't got any proper biscuits, the ones with the cream in the middle!
But yes I take your point, in a very interesting comment. Here's a question for you, did that bald-headed bespectacled man actually open that letter of resignation, or did he simply pass it on to the Colonel, or Sir Charles Portland?
Kind regards
David
BCNU
I suspect the pin-counter might have been more concerned with obtaining a new saucer from Central Supplies.
ReplyDeleteThe letter from the aggrieved agent would just have been dropped in the OUT tray, to await the next internal post-run. It wasn't part of his job to know the reason why. What he couldn't have expected was that the letter slipped out of the post-bag later, got caught in a gust of wind and was blown into an open sewer and lost in the decay of history. Meanwhile, nobody knew why the man had resigned, and so questions began to find their own answers in the fevered minds of those who waited, for the letter that never arrived.