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Friday 8 February 2013

Caught On Camera

   When it comes to dangerous stunts, it appears that Partick McGoohan was able to do his own in this Danger Man episode Not So Jolly Roger from which the above photograph is taken. "Hi, this is Johnny Drake just in on the noon-day tide......." Yes, well thanks Johnny, you don't have to beguile the housewives just this minute! Where was I? Oh yes... But when it came to The Prisoner McGoohan enjoyed a stunt double in Frank Maher, that's him in the photograph below with his back turned to the camera.
    Now Frank Maher would do the stunts deemed far too dangerous for McGoohan to carry out during filming of the Prisoner seen here in a scene from the episode ‘Hammer Into Anvil,’ as Frank carries the cuckoo clock across the street to the steps of the Green Dome.
And yet it's Patrick McGoohan who carries the Cuckoo clock up the steps to the door of the Green Dome.
    What exactly makes this too dangerous a stunt for McGoohan, but instead to have his stunt double Frank Maher carry the cuckoo clock across a street? I don't think that there was any danger of being run down by a passing Mini-Moke! Because up to this point it had been McGoohan carrying the said cuckoo clock across the cobbled square, he must then have passed the clock to stuntman Frank Maher, who then gave the cuckoo clock back to McGoohan who then carried it up the steps to the lay it at the foot of the door of the Green Dome. So caught on camera is the extreme and the ridiculous! And yet, with Frank Maher being as tall as Patrick McGoohan, the same hair and build, it was possible to shoot different scenes at the same time with both Patrick McGoohan and Frank Maher playing the role of No.6, albeit shooting Frank from behind in many of those scene so to maintain the illusion!

Be seeing you

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