More Tales From The Village

     “Supposing I don’t want any flowers?”       
     Gardener “Everyone has flowers for village in bloom!”
     “What’s village in bloom?”
     “Village in bloom is when everyone works together to smarten up the village. We make the village look at its best with flower displays, we make sure the streets are swept clean, even the stone boat is getting a fresh coat of paint and being decked out with bunting. All the flowers beds are weed free, the lawns cut, hedges trimmed and walls painted. Citizens open their gardens so that other citizens can look at them. Then the gardens get judged by the awards committee.”
    “I still don’t want any flowers!”
    “Don’t be like that; your cottage might win a prize.”
    “I haven’t got a garden!”
    “Then all the more reason for a window box then!”
    “And you think one window box can make that much of a difference?”
    “You never know, be seeing you.”

Be seeing you

A Faviurite Scene In The General

 

  In ‘The General,’ what’s Number 12 doing lurking in the bushes? In fact what was he doing on the beach at that time of night, its almost curfew time! Obviously he was there to retrieve the Professor’s tape recorder Number 6 buried in the sand. It then follows that he must have seen Number 6 dig it up after the Professor had buried it in the sand. For why? So that he could micro reduce the Professor’s message about Speedlearn and the General, and transmit that message subliminally to the students. Think of it, if that message had actually been transmitted, the entire people of The Village would have but one thought……to destroy the General. This would cause everyone to riot through the streets, searching here, there, everywhere until they found the General, when they would smash the computer to pieces, behaving like Luddites!  
   But what happened then, after Number 6 had wrestled Number 12 out of the bushes? He asked Number 12 if there was anything he could do for him? Number 12 suggested that Number 6 wanted to get out of The Village, and so handed Number 6 his passport. After all Number 2 had offered Number 6 a deal in exchange for the tape recorder. That deal was later cancelled by Number 2, seeing as the Professor didn’t need the tape recorder any more, but then neither did Number 6. But Number 12 did, in order to make a micro reduction of the Professor’s message, so in handing the tape recorder back to Number 6, who then gave it back to Number 2 because he no longer needed it, would have made it more difficult for Number 12 to get his hands on it again! But at least on the beach Number 12 was able to give Number 6 an important lesson about what not, when. Because Number 6 simply gave the wrong answer!
   Actor John castle as Number 12 appears to have been another of those actors who were on the wrong end of some rough treatment from Patrick McGoohan when he wrestled John Castle from out of those bushes. He has never talked about his experience working on ‘The General,’ or with Patrick McGoohan.
    And where was Fenella Fielding during the production of ‘the General?’ Because it was actor Al Mancini who made the announcement about it being 15 minutes to curfew!

  {Luddites were textile workers in the 19^th century who protested against newly developed labour-economising technologies, primarily between 1811 and 1816. The stocking frames, spinning frames and power looms}

Be seeing you

Watching The Prisoner - Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

 

    Time to watch another episode of the Prisoner, as though in real time. The original script called ‘Face Unknown’ has ZM73 waking up on the morning he was supposed to hand in his letter of resignation. He wrote the letter the night before. But ZM73 thinks there is something different, out there, but there’s nothing different, nothing has changed, outside it’s just the same as it has always been. The London street, his Lotus parked outside. As he pockets the letter he heads for the door, and leaving the house rushed to his parked Lotus, climbs in, starts the engine, revs the engine. Of course its different, of course things are different. Because I am resigning…..now!”
    This episode is easy to date to October 5th 1967 for the simple reason that ZM73 disappeared a year ago, having been abducted to the village. The last time Janet Portland saw her fiancé was at the final fitting of her dress, yellow silk, she hasn’t seen him since!
    It is lucky for the village administration, and perhaps for Sir Charles, that No.6 was in the village seeing as he was the last to have contact with Doctor Saltzman, otherwise they would be in the impossible position, as they wouldn’t know where Saltzman was!
    One might imagine if No.6 wasn’t in the village, those “masters” who wanted to know where Saltzman {I use Salzman because that’s the original spelling in the script} is, they would have had ZM73 either seconded to the village, or abducted there in order to carry out their plan behind ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling.’
    It was about a year ago when ZM73 wrote to Saltzman in Scotland, and in keeping that location to himself, not divesting it to anyone, was ZM73 protecting Doctor Seltzman from even his own people? Was Seltzman part of the reason why ZM73 resigned? Perhaps it’s simply coincidence.
    When the Colonel/ZM73 had selected the correct numbered slides according the name SALTZMEN 19-1-12-20-26-13-5-14 {that’s why they had to change the spelling of the name they couldn’t have two ‘a’s’ in Saltzman} he placed them all together in the projector. Then he takes a pair of spectacles from the breast pocket of his blazer adding two different coloured lenses. They are in fact sunglass shades used by people who have to wear spectacles. But that’s not important, what is important is, why is No.6 wearing spectacles when he’s never worn spectacles before! Yes they are the Colonel’s spectacles, but the prescription for the lenses wouldn’t be the right for No.6. Especially as he doesn’t wear spectacles for either distance or reading! As an added note, judging by the pink tinge to the Colonel’s spectacle frames, they look like National Health spectacles. And yet, seeing as ZM73’s handwriting is still the same, would he really need spectacles?
    I mentioned imponderables before in a previous write-up for “Watching The Prisoner,” well this episode outstrips any other episode on those grounds, and indeed ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ is notorious for having so many unanswered questions.
    Did Sir Charles Portland know of the village’s existence, was he one of those so called “masters?”
    Was it Sir Charles who took the decision to have his future son-in-law taken to the village? If so it’s no wonder he didn’t tell his daughter where her fiancé was!
    How did those behind the village acquire the Saltzman machine?
    Why was it so important that Professor Saltzman had perfected the reversal process, when all that had to be done was put the same two subjects through the exact same process!
    Was it really wise to have left that receipt for the roll of film with Janet Portland? That made it easy for her father Sir Charles to get his hands on it!
    Where is Saltzman, and who wanted to know? We started off with Sir Charles and some of his colleagues looking at slides in his office. It is clear they want to know where Professor Saltzman is. Also there is a Saltzman machine in a laboratory in the village. So are we dealing with two separate entities, or just the one? If the British are behind the village then it’s British Intelligence, if not then there are two sides in the race to get their hands on Professor Saltzman!
    In having acquired the Professor’s location ZM73 went on his merry way to Kandersfeld in Austria, followed by Potter, followed by an undertaker, an agent working for the village disguised as a chauffeur. Or as my wife likes to think, a tour coach driver! In the basement of the barber’s shop the Colonel/ZM73 is discovered by Potter. A fight ensues, however they are both subdued by the tour coach driver {undertaker}. The said undertaker eventually takes both Saltzman and the Colonel/ZM73 back to the village, would that be in a coach, or two coffins in the back of his hearse? If that wouldn’t have been difficult enough for one man alone, what of Potter? Was he left in the basement still unconscious from the affects of the nerve gas, was he also to one day wake up in the village having been taken back there along with the Professor and the Colonel/ZM73? What a task that would have been for the undertaker all on his own!
   If Potter had been left behind still unconscious in the basement of the barber's shop, he’d certainly have some explaining to do to Sir Charles at having lost Professor Saltzman to the other side. But then if Sir Charles is behind the village………well its all very complicated, and as the original scriptwriter for of ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ Vincent Tilsley once said “they turned a bad script into an incomprehensible one.” That’s because messers McGoohan and Tomblin messed it about, making amendments to the script. If only they had left it alone!        
    One final question, in the final mind transference when Professor Saltzman managed to change the minds of three people at the same time, how did the Colonel know when to pull the four jack plugs out of the EKG Simulator box?
      The one thing we can be sure of regarding ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling,’ we can be sure of nothing. Although this episode is unique in its quality of music, that music for me is the best in ‘the Prisoner’ series of any of the episodes.
   Also this episode sees a change in the Prisoner, or perhaps a beginning if you prefer, in that ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ is the first episode of a second series which takes place more out of the village and more in the outside world a category ‘Many Happy Returns’ dovetails with very nicely.
   Next time our friend No.6 tries living in Harmony, and finds both the judge and the town, not to his suiting.

Be seeing you

The Harmony Poster Video Slideshow

 

 

  This was created for the Prisoner Virtual Convebtion September 2020 on facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/theprisonervirtualcon 

Be seeing you

The Village Times

 

    “Hay mas mal en el aldehuela que se suena,”

                    Miguel de Cervantes's ‘Don Quixote.’
    Which translates “There is more evil in the village than it sounds,”
   While No.2 reads in The Tally Ho “There is more harm in the village than is dreamt!”

    ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ has something in common with ‘Once Upon A Time’ basically it’s a two-hander episode because of the struggle between No.2 and No.6. In ‘Once Upon A Time’ No.2 has the diminutive butler to assist him. While in ‘Hammer’ No.2 has No.14, but No.2 doesn’t trust 14 in the important details, only in the matter of when brute force is required. No.14 wants to know what was in that white envelope, but No.2 sent him away telling him just to obey orders.
    So where did they dig this No.2 up? What was he like before he arrived in the village? And how long had he been in the village before the advent of ‘Hammer Into Anvil,’ because by now he has become paranoid, seeing enemies, and conspiracies everywhere.
   No.2 is interviewing No.73 at the hospital. Life in the village hadn’t suited No.73, so much so that she had already slashed her wrists in one suicide attempt, so perhaps it would have been wise to have had that hospital window closed and secured. But it wasn’t, and when No.6 comes bursting into the room it gives her the opportunity to hurl herself through the window to her death. No.2 threatens that No.6 will pay for his interference, and probably sees No.6 as a ferocious giant, and thinks that after defeating him he will be able to collect the spoils and the glory as a knight would have done. So it’s lucky he was able to bring his word with him into the village. However, as Don Quixote who saw the windmills as giants, having decided to vanquish 30 or 40 of them, when he charges one of these “giants,” his lance gets caught in a sail. As with No.2, who decides to vanquish No.6, his lance gets caught up in the weak link in the chain of command, a victim of his own paranoia!
   Fact, In ‘Checkmate’ tests have proven that No.6 has a negative reaction to pain, but by the time of ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ he seems to have lost that ability {or perhaps scriptwriter Roger Woddis wasn’t made aware of that ability} because when No.2 pokes No.6’s forehead he flinches, he reacts against the pain of the tip of the blade.
    “Music makes for a quiet mind,” meaning “Music hath the power to sooth the savage breast,” well not in No.6’s cottage it doesn’t. As the calming music plays on the record player a brutal fight breaks out between No.6 and No.14, as 14 wants to take his revenge on No.6 for “Putting the poison in.” But however good a “thug” No.14 is he’s no match for No.6, who hurls him out of his cottage through the French window. As he goes No14 takes the balcony railings with him, what then? Does he lay injured on the cobbled path below amid the twisted iron framework? Or perhaps he broke his neck on impact with the ground!
    No.2, played by Patrick Cargill is the quintessential villain of the kind one likes to boo in a pantomime! And yet at the end he’s a broken man because of a nervous breakdown, and needs to be replaced. But as he sits in his chair making his report to No.1, I cannot help but feel sorry for him. A stronger man would have stood up to No.6 more, wouldn’t have fallen for his jamming antics, would have placed more trust in his assistant. Basically this No.2 was a bully, and basically bullies are cowards who lash out at the small man, and yet even he stopped at striking his diminutive butler.
    ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ shows the gradual disintegration of an arrogant man, who is reduced to cringing cowardice.
   Fact, Victor Madden when attending a Six of One event at the Thatched Barn he was the only person in the room who didn’t know he’d been in the Prisoner!
   The village, This is another episode in which the Guardian does not appear, I’m sure you can list the others without my having to do so, and the village graveyard has moved from the beach to somewhere in the woods. And the General Store isn’t quite the same shop in ‘Hammer’ as it is in ‘Arrival,’ probably because there is a new shopkeeper No.112. Why the need to replace the former shopkeeper? Well perhaps an audit was made of the General Stores accounts, and No.19, or was it 56, was found to have had his fingers in the till! Mind you that would be rather difficult seeing as he didn’t have a till, that was not added until No.112 was appointed the new shopkeeper!
    Fact, There is less screen time of the bout of Kosho in this episode than there is in ‘It’s Your Funeral,’ which begs the question why? Actor Basil Hoskins as No.14 is No.6’s opponent in the Kosho match, so surely there should have been more screen time in ‘Hammer’ than ‘Funeral.’ As it is the Kosho match places Basil Hoskins fair and square in ‘It’s Your Funeral.’ Perhaps that is why No.22, played by Mark Burns is in ‘It’s Your Funeral,’ because of his likeness to Basil Hoskins?
    Dodgy Coding, The two slips of paper seen in ‘Hammer Into Anvil,’ which have inscribed upon them the numerical code written by No.6 are both different. The first is seen to be attached to a pigeon’s leg, the second is given to a cypher clerk in the computer room.

Both by a different hand, and not necessarily in Patrick McGoohan’s hand!
   It’s strange, but in the final scene in ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ the purple walled domed chamber somehow seems much larger. This was No.2’s inner sanctum, a place where he could feel safe behind the pair of blast-proof steel doors. But as No.2 clings to the Penny Farthing bicycle for comfort, the chamber seems unfriendly and alien, especially when he takes to his womb-like chair, but even in that there is little comfort to be found at the end.

 Be seeing you

Making A TV Prisoner Version of The Mini MokeModel 106

 

Be seeing you

More tales From The Village

    The pair of steel doors closed behind the departing No.14. No.2 opened the large white envelope eager to know what it was in it. His hand pulled out four sheets of blank paper. Whatever No.2 expected it wasn’t that! He turned the sheets of paper over and over, but not a word could he find written on them. Leaning over his desk he picked up the yellow ‘L’ shaped intercom
   “Laboratory.”
   “Laboratory…….yes sir…..I understand sir……yes sir…..well we do actually have something important on the brew just at the moment……….very good sir I’ll be over right away sir.”
    “Tea’s up.”
    “No time for tea I’m afraid, Number 2 wants to see me urgently.”
    The lab technician was forced to leave the laboratory and make his way through the village on foot, his white coat fluttering out behind him in the breeze as he hurried along. Eventually the steel doors opened and No.253 rushed down the ramp.
    “Ah there you are at last!”
    “I got here as fast as I could sir.”
    “I don’t want to hear your excuses. I want these tested” No.2 ordered handing 253 the four sheets of blank paper.
    The lab technician examined the sheets of paper “For what sir?”
    “Words figures, whatever’s written on them.”
    “But they’re just blank sheets of paper.”
    No.2 glared at the lab technician at hearing those words “Don’t argue with me, I’m telling you, there is a message of some kind. Try everything x-ray, infra red. What are you looking at?”
    “Well earlier you borrowed our electrostatic detection device, you could use it again.”
    “Well I would wouldn’t I, except these sheets of paper are too large for it!”
    “Oh I see sir. What about the graphite test” 253 suggested.
    The lab technician laid the sheets of blank paper on the desk, then taking a pencil from the breast pocket of his white coat he began to rub the graphite tip of the pencil across the first sheet of paper.
    “What are you doing scribbling all over the paper, you’ll ruin it!” No.2 protested.         “It’s alright sir, as you’ll see” 253 said with confidence turning the paper over and continuing to rub the pencil over the reverse side “didn’t you do this as a boy, to discover secret writing?”
     “Just get on with it.”
     When the lab technician was finished he examined the graphite covered sheet of paper, it revealed no indented writing. No.2 examined the sheet of paper himself while 253 carried on with the next three sheets of paper……nothing, not one single word could they find.
     “Well that’s one test” No.2 said, now go and conduct all the other tests and don’t come back until you’ve found something!”
   Returning to the laboratory…..
    “The tea’s cold, do you want me to make some fresh?” 243 asked.
    “Yes, I need a cup!” 253 replied in frustration.
    “What have you got there?”
    “Four sheets of blank paper!”
    “I see you’ve used the graphite test.”
    “Yes, for what good it did! Number 2 has it in his mind that there’s something written on these sheets of a paper. He wants them tested.”
    A matter of hours later!
    “This ones blank as well!” 243 said.
    “Of course, I didn’t expect anything else.”
    “Shall I put them through the tests again?”
    “What’s the point we’ve tried everything. He’s not going to like this!”
    The pair of steel doors opened and the lab technician hurried down the ramp.
    “Well?” said No.2 eager to learn what was written on the papers.
    "I’m sorry sir but there’s nothing.”
    No.2 couldn’t accept this “Nothing, nothing at all?”
    No sir they’re just blank sheets of paper, except for the graphite.”
    “They can’t be!” No.2 said snatching the papers from 253’s hands “and you tried everything, x-ray infra red…..”
    “Along with the fumes test, and density and penetration everything.”
    “Why should he hide blank sheets of paper in the stone boat?”
    “Who sir?”
    “Six Number Six!”
    “Presumably for someone to find then sir.”
    “Are you trying to be funny?....oh get out, get out!”

     Be seeing you