During ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ was Nadia sure about Lithuania
No.6 went as follows;
No.6 went as follows;
No.6: “Where are we Nadia?”
Nadia: “Lithuania
Announcer: “Curfew time, one minute to curfew.”
No.6: “Lithuania
Announcer: “Sixty seconds.
NO.6:.... “In the Baltic. That means, making for West Germany Denmark
Nadia: “No it doesn't mean that.
No.6: “Why not?”
Nadia: “Well, nearer, in Poland
A little later the conversation continues as follows:
Nadia: “Thirty miles, that's all.”
No.6: “Eh?”
Nadia: Yes, that's how far we are from the Polish border. Beyond, on the coast there's a little fishing village, Maniewo, they resist them.”
Well if you have a glance at the Atlas, you will see that the village is far from being 30 miles from the Polish border, in fact there is no coastal border at all between Lithuania Poland Russian State Kaliningrad
The reason for getting it wrong, could be when in working out the plot of The Chimes of Big Ben, Vincent Tilsley got his geography wrong.
The Author knew it was wrong and scripted Number 8 to make the mistake, by ignorance or on purpose. After all, the whole "escape" was a set-up and the village presumably not really meant to be in Lithuania
Kalliningrad was part of Poland Lithuania
Or the Prisoner is set at an unspecified time period where this might be the case.
One further mistake as No.6 and Nadia make their escape by sea, is that they were supposed to have been sailing from Lithuania Poland Baltic Sea and the Polish shore would therefore have been on their left - unless they were in the Zalew Wislany and making for the spit of land to its north.
Be seeing you
Not only Vincent Tilsley got it wrong, the German version adds even more confusion here in an otherwise brilliant dubbing version. Dialogue writer and director Joachim Brinkmann - or whoever was in charge of this - changes the escape route completely. In a survey on the German version of The Prisoner an old 601 magazine put it this way:
ReplyDelete>>Continuing the story, they meet up with Nadia's contact man who usually confirms their route to London as "By sea, Gdansk - Danzig - you know. By air, to Copenhagen. By air, again, to London." Except that they're now elsewhere, so the route becomes "Boat Turkey - Istanbul - understood. Then plane Athens. Plane again Paris, then London."
Hand me that world atlas, I'm starting to lose my sense of direction!<<
Oh yes. Nobody knows how and why this drastic reshuffle came about. My personal explanation being that it may have been considered politically too delicate by the TV station to place the action geographically in what before WW2 was German territory. Thus it was relocated to "innocent" areas of the globe. - BCNU!
Hello Arno,
DeleteI enjoyed reading your comment, and I'm sure my other readers from it to be most informative. Mind you I'm not surprised you were starting to lose yout sense of direction!
Very kind regards
David
BCNU
Not me, David! Larry wrote it. In addition to the (verbal) changes made to the dialogue the German version also excised the image insert showing "London via Danzig & Copenhaguen". - BCNU!
ReplyDelete