THE UNMUTUAL PRISONER ARTICLE ARCHIVE

THE PROJECTION ROOM (The Prisoner Compared...)

"THE HOUSE "

"HOUSES AND VILLAGES: A FURTHER PRISONER COMPARISON"
By Dr Andrew K Shenton

The American supernatural anthology programme, "Rod Serling’s Night Gallery", has never been highly acclaimed. Although Skelton and Benson (1) mount a robust defence of the series, Javna (2) and Gerani and Schulman (3) go so far as to write that it was panned by the critics, and the view of Brosnan and Nicholls (4) that Night Gallery came as something of a disappointment after Serling’s classic "Twilight Zone" is widely held. Nevertheless, the show included some excellent episodes. One such first season success was "The House", a twenty-five minute play written by Serling himself and based on a short story by Andre Maurois. In the drama, a young woman, played by Joanna Pettet, experiences a recurring dream which features a charming country house. On discovering the building apparently by accident in real life, she finds it is for sale and immediately buys it and moves in, despite the fact that she is told that the house is haunted. When the girl experiences the manifestation for herself, a shocking revelation emerges…

"The House" was first broadcast in the US on 30th December 1970, some three years after the initial transmission of the opening episode of "The Prisoner" in England. The two productions share several important plot similarities. Perhaps most fundamentally, both deal with a key period in the life of a displaced person set apart from the rest of society, although the starting points for the two programmes are quite contrasting. The title sequence for the British series begins with the hero resigning from his intelligence post. He is kidnapped and taken to The Village, where he will be incarcerated for most of the series’ duration. In "The House", however, the central protagonist, Elaine Latimer, is contemplating leaving the sanatorium in which she has been recovering from the effects of mental illness. We learn very little about the circumstances surrounding the protagonists’ arrivals in these closed communities. In "The Prisoner", whilst it would appear that the hero’s decision to resign from a major intelligence post has led to his abduction, the viewer is never told why he left his job. Similarly, in "The House", the reasons for Elaine’s admission into the sanatorium are not revealed. Whereas The Prisoner is a reluctant inmate within the Village, Elaine, in contrast, is not keen to leave the sanatorium and is apprehensive about life beyond the institution. Both communities may be considered highly artificial. A press information booklet produced by ITC (5) suggests that the only fun to be enjoyed in The Village is that which is “manufactured” (p. 127), whilst Elaine’s doctor tells her, “A sanatorium can be a pleasant place, but there’s no reality here for you. The reality comes outside”. Most of the action in "The Prisoner" takes place within The Village but in "The House" the scenes in the sanatorium are restricted to the first half of the episode.

Both "The Prisoner" and Elaine Latimer are portrayed as true individuals. The independence and determination of Number Six have long been celebrated by fans of "The Prisoner" and, despite the psychological problems that have clearly dogged her in the recent past, Elaine displays similar characteristics herself. On leaving the sanatorium, she makes no attempt to contact anyone and moves into her new house alone. Like The Village in "The Prisoner", the place in which this house is located is never named. Elaine’s individuality is recognised by the estate agent, Peugot. Realising that Elaine is different from other female house buyers, he muses, “You’re a woman who knows her own mind. If something appeals to you, you follow your instincts. That’s good. It shows resolve and will”. Even tales that the house is haunted do not deter Elaine from moving in. Peugot’s attitude to Elaine shifts somewhat during the course of the programme, however, as he later implies that it is her susceptibility to suggestion that has led her to believe the house is haunted.

Neither "The Prisoner" nor Elaine is universally popular among the people they encounter. The former is variously labelled “disharmonious” and “unmutual” in "A Change of Mind", and an elderly patient in the sanatorium takes a strong dislike to Elaine, admitting to a nurse that she “never cared for the woman”. Skelton and Benson (6) observe that the characters in "The House" are generally harsh, and this elderly woman is particularly unpleasant. Elaine’s doctor is also somewhat less than sympathetic. He listens to her concerns about leaving the sanatorium but does not offer to extend her stay until her confidence has risen. On the contrary, he insists that the confronting of anxieties is part of ordinary life. As in "The Prisoner", it is difficult to determine which of the protagonists in Serling’s drama can be trusted. When looking round the house, Elaine quizzes Peugot about why the previous occupants left. Like many of the Villagers in "The Prisoner", the estate agent is evasive, and he frequently responds to her questions with more of his own. Ultimately, he discloses that they, like the owners before them, believed the building to be haunted, although Peugot himself does not accept their argument. He later treats with similar scepticism Elaine’s claim that she, too, has experienced hauntings within the house.

The conclusions of "The Prisoner" and "The House" would both appear to reveal that the main character of the drama has actually been responsible for the events affecting them. In the former, Number One is seen to be The Prisoner himself, whilst in the latter the ghost haunting the house is shown to be that of Elaine. If an alternative eye-catching title summarising the seventeen episodes were to be given to "The Prisoner", then "The Man Who Tortured Himself" would seem an appropriate possibility and, in the case of "The House", "The Girl Who Haunted Herself" would be equally suitable. Nevertheless, the fact that the previous owners of the buildings also experienced hauntings suggests that the manifestations do not just affect Elaine.
Even after the revelations surrounding the roles of the central characters in creating the situations that have been witnessed, further surprises await the viewer. Indeed, in each production the last moments are critical and provide a final twist. In "The Prisoner", the opening seconds of the title sequence recur, thereby suggesting that the hero’s kidnapping will take place again. In "The House", Elaine is disturbed by a knock at her front door and reaches the entrance just in time to watch her own car leaving the house, thus repeating events that have already been seen in the episode. Nevertheless, the mood of the two conclusions is quite different. When the clap of thunder that accompanies the title sequence of "The Prisoner" is heard once more, this may be considered a somewhat ominous precursor of the events to come, yet in "The House" the sunny, airy wholesomeness that permeates the whole episode is maintained. Much has been made in recent years of the downbeat and menacing tone of many of the "Night Gallery" stories. Phillips and Garcia (7) believe that, whereas "The Twilight Zone"“celebrated mankind, "Night Gallery" reflected the host’s darker nature” (p. 314). The atmosphere in "The House" is refreshingly light, however. As Elaine herself comments, she experiences “no apprehension in the dream, no sense of fear or tension” and, as she approaches the house in her fantasy, she feels a sense of “peace, of serenity”.

Both resolutions would appear to indicate that the events we have witnessed will repeat themselves in some sort of perpetual cycle, yet additional oddities complicate the pattern. In "The Prisoner", the blurring of the fantasy world of The Village and the real world of London is suggested by the fact that, as he returns to his home, The Prisoner’s front door opens automatically in a manner identical to that of his cottage door in The Village. Distinctions between the dream world and the real world are also unclear in "The House". As Skelton and Benson (8) note, the dream sequences are always shot in slow motion until the final scene when, at the very end, it is Elaine, now apparently awake, who is seen to move in this fashion, whilst the car moving away from her house is shown in real time. Certainly the “resolutions” of "The Prisoner" and "The House" may be considered to provide more questions than answers. The events are merely presented to the viewer and there is no explanatory scene to follow in which protagonists discuss the significance of what has happened and thereby offer possible interpretations to the audience. Skelton and Benson (9) conclude, “the meaning of The House stays just beyond the viewer’s reach” (p. 64).

"The Prisoner" and "The House" benefit considerably from multiple viewings and thus form durable drama for the modern DVD age. Gregory (10) writes, “The Prisoner appears to be an ideal ‘video text’, as repeated viewings reveal more and more depth in each episode… The series can be watched, discussed, reassessed and ‘deconstructed’ in the viewer’s ‘own time’” (p. 184). In each production, there are several features of the drama that keen fans may use as evidence to construct their own theories. Viewers may, for example, attach particular importance to the ghostliness that surrounds certain characters in the "Night Gallery" story. On meeting Elaine for the first time, Peugot seems simply to materialise and indeed director John Astin (11) himself explains, “I had him sort of appearing from the shadows of the trees, sort of drifting in… as though he himself might have been a spirit” (p. 63). In addition to the baffling closing scene which would seem to imply that Elaine is a transient figure moving between the real world and the dream world, there is other evidence to suggest that the girl may not be quite what she seems. In words that offer an early indication of Elaine’s otherworldiness, the sanatorium patient who so dislikes Elaine confides to a nurse that she found her “dreamy… never walked, just sort of wafted along, like a wood sprite”.

Hora (12), Gregory (13) and O’Brien (14) speculate that the events depicted in "The Prisoner" may be understood simply as a bad dream. McLean and Stansfield (15) believe that it may be assumed that The Village “is a projection of the Prisoner’s own mental turmoil” (p. 10) and similar ideas may be proposed to rationalise the events in "The House", especially in view of the fact that it has already been established that Elaine has been suffering from psychological problems. The painting that Serling shows to the audience in his opening narration may offer an advance clue. It depicts the face of the girl who comes to form the main character of the drama and this image is combined with a representation of the house into which she moves. With hindsight, the juxtaposition of the two may be thought to suggest that the whole episode takes place in the protagonist’s mind. In addition, Astin (16) acknowledges that the way in which the first dream sequence is presented, with the door to the house opening only as Elaine’s car leaves and the scene dissolving into a close-up of the actress’s eye, implies “that she’s the one in the house, that this is all playing out in her head”. Astin continues, “If you’re looking for a clue to explain the story, that’s the clue!” (p. 64)

Whilst "The Prisoner" has become a huge cult over the last forty years, "Rod Serling’s Night Gallery" has remained relatively little known in Britain. McGoohan’s series has been the subject of several DVD releases, whereas "Night Gallery" is still to appear in this country. Nevertheless, a Region One DVD boxed set embracing the pilot film, all the first season episodes (including "The House") and a few instalments from the programme’s later seasons was released in 2004.

References
(1) Skelton, S. and Benson, J. Rod Serling’s Night Gallery: an after-hours tour. Syracuse University Press, 1999.
(2) Javna, J. The best science fiction tv. Titan, 1988.
(3) Gerani, G. and Schulman, P. H. Fantastic television. Harmony, 1977.
(4) Brosnan, J. and Nicholls, P. Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. In: Clute, J. and Nicholls, P. (eds.) The encyclopedia of science fiction. 2nd ed. Orbit, 1993, pp. 1023-24.
(5) Reproduced in: White, M. and Ali, J. The official Prisoner companion. Sidgwick and Jackson, 1988, pp. 126-30.
(6) Skelton, S. and Benson, J. op. cit.
(7) Phillips, M. and Garcia, F. Science fiction television series: episode guides, histories, and casts and credits for 62 prime time shows, 1959 through 1989. McFarland, 1996.
(8) Skelton, S. and Benson, J. op. cit.
(9) Skelton, S. and Benson, J. op. cit.
(10) Gregory, C. Be seeing you... decoding The Prisoner. University of Luton Press, 1997.
(11) Quoted in: Skelton, S. and Benson, J. op. cit.
(12) Hora, M. The Prisoner of Portmeirion. 2nd ed. Number Six Publications, 1989.
(13) Gregory, C. op. cit.
(14) O’Brien, D. SF: UK - how British science fiction changed the world. Reynolds and Hearn, 2000.
(15) McLean, N. and Stansfield, D. The Prisoner program guide. Ontario Educational Communications Authority, 1976.
(16) Quoted in: Skelton, S. and Benson, J. op. cit.

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