Quote For The Day

    "Report to the General? That's a new one!"
                                     {No.2 - The Schizoid man}

   It would be if the General No.2 refers to is the same General in the following episode 'The General.' And that is one of the many myths about 'the Prisoner,' conjoured up by some fans of 'the Prisoner.' And I openly admit that I was one of them. But really it's more likely to be pure coincidence, and that the General mentioned by No.2 in 'The Schizoid Man' is more likely to reside somewhere outside of the Village.

BCNU

The Prisoner Under The Spotlight

 

Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

    It is such a pity that Vincent Tilsley's script for this particular episode was edited so much after he'd written it - because to Vincent Tilsley's mind they had made the script far worse, and more confusing than it was originally, or words to that effect. To be perfectly honest I am not one for reading scripts, yet having glanced through the script Face Unknown which was the original title for this episode, the episode would have ended up far more enjoyable for the viewer if director David Tomblin and co had not edited Tilsley's script.

    For example; it would appear that before the Prisoner was sent back to London, his mind was regressed back to the day of "crisis," to the day of the Prisoner's resignation - a most important moment in time. Originally we would have seen the Prisoner in his London home on the evening before the day he resigned, wearing his dressing gown as he settles himself down to write his letter of resignation - and having finished he places his resignation letter on the mantle piece and retires to bed. The mind of the Prisoner having had been erased right back to the day before he resigned.

   The Prisoner awakens in what appears to be his own home, the camera makes a search, everything is quiet, and then we hear the Prisoner's voice;

"Where am I? Home.....This isn't home...... There's something wrong."

    The Prisoner's hand appears into shot and picks up the travel brochures. This leads to a shot of a framed photograph of Janet Portland.

"Janet.... You'll understand. I hope you'll understand."

   From the mantle piece the Prisoner takes an envelope which contains his letter of resignation.

"My letter of resignation. Wrote it last night. said I'd sleep on it. Sleep.... Was it only last night?"

    The camera searches suspiciously.

"Do they know? What have they done? They've done something.... Something.... There's something different.... what have they changed?"

   The camera hurtles to the window.

That's it! out there! there's something different out there! Looks the same. What's changed?.... Nothing. Nothing.

    {Well I would say that plenty has changed!}

    The Prisoner stuffs the letter into his pocket and heads for the door.

"It's all the same. Why should I think it's different?"

The door opens violently and we see feet hurrying down the steps as the Prisoner hurries towards his parked Lotus 7.  A hand opens the door, and he gets into the drivers seat, and the engine is fired into life and revved up.

"Of course it seems different. Of course. Things are different. Because - I - am - resigning! Now!"

   The Lotus 7 is picked up in the antlike traffic in a panorama shot of London, and zoomed in on, as the Lotus darts angrily through the traffic. There is a high shot of the Lotus as it enters the underground car park, and a shot through the cars windscreen as the Lotus enters the car park.

   The Prisoner storms along that darkened passageway.

"Whatever they're doing they can't stop me. I'm going to resign. They can't stop me.... they? Who are they?"

    The Prisoner bursts into the office, the standard office which we see in the opening sequence and gives his letter of resignation to the man behind the desk. the man looks surprised.

Danvers "YES". What's this?"

"Read it."

"I don't understand."

"Get me Sir Charles."

Danvers {Frightened} "Who are you?"

Prisoner "Who am I?"

    Hands reach out and grab Danvers by his jacket jerking him to his feet.

"Get me Sir Charles Portland. At once!"

    Well, if that little scene is not enough to convince you that it was a mistake to change that to what we actually see in the episode Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, I don't know what will. I think that the episode would have been better if the script had been left as Vincent Tilsley originally wrote it.

   What’s more, we see in the episode a patient in the amnesia room, an agent lying on a table, who gave them all the information No.2 wanted. Later all unpleasant memories of the village would be erased from the agents mind, so that later he can be returned to the outside world in order to gather more information....... And that's what they had originally done to the Prisoner, erased all unpleasant memories of the village, and released him in the outside world - so as to find Professor Seltzman, Professor Jacob Seltzman, and bring him back to the village!

Be seeing you

Village Life!

    One could say, looking at this picture, that the Prisoner has decided that if escape from the Village is not possible, that he decided to send a message to someone in the outside world by tying a message to a balloon.
    On the other hand, it could be said that the Prisoner has found a balloon which has a message tied to it. "To who so ever may find this. telephone Manchester............"
    But the truth of the matter is......the fishing line attaching Rover to the belt of the Prisoner's trousers simply snapped!

BCNU

The Zendazoid Man

Shave him and he’d look like No.6!

   Well allegedly a favourite film of Patrick McGoohan’s at the time of the Prisoner was 'The Prisoner of Zenda' - starring Stewart Granger in the roles of Rudolf Rassendyll and King Rufolf V, who are not only cousins, but the very image of each other, just as Curtis-No.12 and No.6 in 'The Schizoid Man.' Each also has a moustache - Rassedyll and No.12, as a way of telling the two apart.

    In the film 'The Prisoner of Zenda,' the soon to be crowned Rudolf V, is both drugged and kidnapped, and Rudlof Rassendyll is recruited to impersonate his cousin, and attend the Coronation in his cousins stead. This to stop the crown from being usurped by the brother of Rudolf the V. There is even a character named in the film, I forget his name, who knows Rudolf the V intimately and so keeps his eye on him throughout the Coronation. The named character has a glass eye and it is his glass eye which he uses to watch the newly crowned King. Leo McKern has a glass eye - the left one!

   So both the episode The Schizoid Man and The Prisoner of Zenda are likewise linked by the use of identical look-a-likes. Well what if we carried this idea forward to Fall Out. No.6 who has now become known as Sir, is about to go through an Inauguration ceremony. Swap the word Inauguration for Coronation, and you could have the President and members of the Assembly attempting to usurp the "throne" upon which Sir now sits, by using a look-a-like for No.1, and to place him permanently upon the throne. There is even a man present at Sir’s pending Coronation who has a glass eye, his right eye - No.2 with which he gives No.1 a stare!

   I find it fascinating as to what can be done with the Prisoner, placing different interpretations on aspects of the series, by what is there already. Don’t you?

Be seeing you.

The Therapy Zone

Information And Observations

    A friend of mine recently wrote that in ‘Fall Out’ Patrick McGoohan might have been more original. But really, I don't think that there was anywhere else McGoohan could have taken the Prisoner. My friend also wrote at one time that he thought that Fall Out is the logical ending to the surreal series. I wish he'd make up his mind!

    Patrick McGoohan is on record as saying he doesn't like private jokes in the Prisoner, and wouldn't have them. So what about that address on the envelope in ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ - Saltzman, 20 Portmeirion Road, Filey Clyde, Scotland.

   The handwriting of that address and that written in a diary by the Colonel, both belongs to Patrick McGoohan. So is it Seltzman, or Saltzman? Because having studied that envelope more closely, It can be seen that McGoohan has written Saltzman!

   But it is not only the word Saltzman which is the curiosity about the envelope, what about that stamp and frank mark? There's something not quite right there!

   Checkmate sees the searchlight crew in the tower attacked by No.6 and his conspirators. One of the crew is punched from the tower and lands with a splash of water. yet there isn't any such water anywhere around the tower. Mind you the average viewer who had not been to Portmeirion would not know that!

    The lighthouse at Beachy Head was actually manned at the time of the Prisoner. Today its an automatic lighthouse, and much nearer to the coast due to cliff erosion.

    Apart from trying to extract the reason behind No.6's resignation, each episode of The prisoner has some kind of a sub plot. Such as education, the question of identity. Freedom and servility are such examples which automatically come to mind.

   The following is an extract from a transcript of an interview carried out with Christopher Benjamin in April of 1994.

Christopher Benjamin: I had been watching Danger Man so it was quite exciting for me to meet Patrick McGoohan. And he was actually delightful and charm itself. And I was then pleased when I got the call to go and do ‘the Prisoner.’ I thought "That's nice, he must have liked me. And must have been pleased with what I did." But you have this theory about the character, I don't know, but in the Prisoner what was I? I was Number 2's assistant in one; and then I was the Labour Exchange Manager; then I was the chap called Potter in ‘The Girl Who Was Death,’ but it wasn't the same character as Number 2's assistant was it?

Q: It was rumoured it was the same character as you played in Danger Man.

C.B: I don't know that, I mean if it was that I wished somebody had told me, because I played them as two completely different characters. I mean in Danger Man he's a rather simpering man with a moustache and smooth hair and was a sort of public school type and Potter was a much crasser, rather more stupid sort of fellow. A sort of Robert Morley, but a very different one from Potter in Danger Man.So if I had known I could have put on my little moustache on and been a different character. It would have been quite interesting. But nobody told me that, so I don't know if it was intended or not

Be seeing you

Gloster Meteor Jet Flies Again!

Gloster Meteor lifted from Imjin Barracks by helicopter

A historic jet aircraft has "flown" above Gloucestershire - carried by a helicopter.

    The Gloster Meteor T7 - Britain's first operational jet plane, developed in 1940 – was lifted out of Imjin Barracks, Innsworth, by an RAF Chinook. It was flown 1.5 miles (2.4km) above the rooftops of Churchdown to a new home at Gloucestershire Airport. This particular model was used as a "gate guardian" by the RAF, which was stationed in Innsworth until 2008. This is a bit different more military history than military exercise.
   In 2010, the base was renamed Imjin Barracks and it became the home of Nato's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC). The Meteor T7 was bought by members of the Jet Age Museum - based at Gloucestershire Airport - which is due to open in August. Martin Clarke, trustee from the museum, said: "I met my wife when she was building this (the aircraft). We were married for seven years but when she died and when the aircraft came up for sale I just had to buy it as a tribute to my wife and all of those in the Cotswold Restoration Aircraft Group.
    "Flying again for the very last time... when it comes here it won't have any wings on it but it will be the only aircraft in the museum to have flown in."
    Major Chris Hyde, from the ARRC, said: "I can't think of anything more fitting than for Imjin's Meteor aircraft to fly to its final destination.
    "The Meteor aircraft represents a very important link to Gloucestershire's military and industrial heritage.
    "It embodies a period of rapid technological progress in the region that is still represented in the area today."
    Imjin's Meteor T7 was built in 1949 at nearby Hucclecote and flew some 2,000 hours until 1968.
   Nine years later it was removed from service and then transported to RAF Innsworth in 1981 where it was restored and unveiled as the base's gate guardian in 1994.

BBCNEWS – Gloucester

   {Quite obviously this is not the Meteor Jet aircraft we see in ‘the Prisoner’ episode ‘Many Happy Returns,’ but I think it makes for an interesting story when considering the connection with the aircraft to 'the Prisoner.' The wings will eventually be re-attached.}

Be seeing you

Thought For The Day

     No.6 must have been extremely well known in the small community of the Village. Because he never wears his canopied Penny Farthing numbered badge, yet those citizens of the community know exactly who he is - No.6!

  Ah, but then in bygone days in a small community such as the Village, everyone used to know who everybody was. I'm not so sure that is true today.  I once lived in a small rural Village, where everyone knew everyone else, and everybodies business! But such a thing could never be in the cities where thousands of people live. Unless it is within the small local communities within cities.

Be seeing you.