It would appear that Number 6 will have to learn to smoke his brand of cigar right handed, and how to light one. Always use a match, never a cigarette lighter. But just a minute, whenever do we see Number 6 smoking cigars, and to have his favourite brand? This is the first and only time we see Number 6 attempting to smoke a cigar. He can’t of course because of the length of plastic running through it, that’s what makes Number 6 cough, as he discovers much later in the episode.
The thing is, is it Number 6 who smokes the cigars, or Curtis? Perhaps that’s an embellishment of his own which he added to his persona as Number 6. So why doesn’t Curtis join Number 6 is smoking a cigar, unless they all have a piece of plastic running through them. It’s curious, Curtis has a cigarette light, yet he never smokes. When Number 6 chokes on the cigar its almost as though he is the weaker Number 6, because he cannot smoke Number 6’s brand of cigar. And that makes Curtis’ Number 6 better, if not superior than the original. Perhaps that’s the way Curtis saw his impersonation of Number 6, not the economy pack at all, but bumper pack with 50 percent more!
Be seeing you
I think it's sad that Patrick McGoohan ever even started smoking, as he had asthma. It couldn't have helped his lungs.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember there were 3 different smoking products mentioned..regular cigarettes...Russian cigarettes and cigars. Interesting that they chose Russian cigarettes rather than just a brand...were they trying to brainwash Number 6 into believing that he was really a Russian agent rather than a British agent?
BCNU
Karen
Dear Karen,
ReplyDeleteI used to be a smoker, cigarettes, cigars, and the occasional pipe. But I gave up smoking, and have now given up smoking longer than I was a smoker.
Yes there are three different kind of smoking products, ordinary cigarettes, cigars, and Black Russian cigarettes. I have smoked Black Russian cigarettes, the brand Sobranie, black with gold tip, and no-one tried to brainwash me into believing I was a Russian agent. So no, they were not trying to brainwash Number 6 into thinking he was a Russian agent. Mind you it was very good of Number 2 to see that Number 6 was furnished with his own brand of cigar!
While ‘the Prisoner was in production Patrick McGoohan smoked endless cigarettes, Senior Service. Yet in ’the Prisoner’ he is only seen to smoke once, that was while he was in the cell in ‘Living In Harmony.’ Many devotees of ‘the Prisoner’ think he was smoking a cheroot in that scene. But you don’t roll your own cheroots. He rolled his own cigarette using a brown liquorice cigarette paper!
Best regards
David
Be seeing you
Hi David . .
ReplyDeleteMy father and grandfather used to roll their cigarettes . ..so I never even thought about Number 6 rolling anything BUTT...haha.
I read that Patrick started smoking when he was 25 years old...I've always wondered if it was for a role.
I was sorry to see that he smoked so much...knowing that he had asthma and had such a bad attack in his early 20's .
I have mild asthma and once I got away from my dad and brothers . ..I can hardly breathe if I get around smokers .
Times were quite different back then...he might have been using the cigarettes as part of a characteristic trait in a role...and then got addicted to cigarettes . I know that here in the states there was a big hullabaloo about cigarette manufacturers putting stuff in the cigarettes to get people addicted to them .
I thought I read that he quit smoking . .but don't remember if it was due to health issues or not.
It seems like he had several bad health issues in the last 15 or 20 years of his life . I wish he had been able to get some of his other projects done . ..it would have been interesting to see what he worked on as he aged...and as the time passed and societies around the world evolved .
BCNU
Karen