THE UNMUTUAL PRISONER ARTICLE ARCHIVE
THE PROJECTION ROOM (The Prisoner Compared...)
"A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH"
"SHADOWS OF A DREAM" By Pete Shimmon
I have thought
of several points that lead me to believe that Patrick McGoohan was influenced
by a film made over 60 years ago. I would like to do this by first recalling
how I first experienced the series 38 years ago as well as recalling an earlier
PMcG performance that made a lasting impression. It is frightening to recall
all my wasted teenage years in the Sixties watching television in grotty monochrome
(and 405 lines), yet enough memories remain of the early Sixties to remember
how I enjoyed watching "Danger Man". I associate it with dark Winter
evenings waiting for supper while it was broadcast usually at about half past
six or thereabouts. Strangely I never quite understood the opening spiel until
just recently. Drake mentions the various agencies and then - "a message
of ... well that's where I come in". A message of what? Now I understand
that he says "a messy job", but I could never figure it out.
I can also remember a compelling television play which I'm sure starred PMcG
as a Russian cosmonaut stranded in a decaying orbit and only able to communicate
with a woman snow-bound in the Canadian outback. Her son had acute diptheria
and -the spaceman (being also a doctor) led her to perform a tracheotomy to
save her son's life while he himself was doomed. The last moments of the play
with the cosmonaut's dying screams as he burned up on re-entry led to my young
mind being quite disturbed for a few hours. In retrospect, and now knowing how
PMcG chose to play roles having a religious connotation, this role seems fitting,
a being from on high dispensing worldly advice and guidance. I can make a similar
connection with a PMcG role some years later - "Ice Station Zebra".
Trouble on Earth caused by surveillance from above.
As I remember
the article in the "TV Times" introducing the new series called "The
Prisoner", it was made clear that it was filmed in a place called Portmeirion.
This would be September 1967 and I can remember thinking from the picture of
the Prisoner in his familiar piped blazer, slacks and plimsolls how this was
just the casual clothing I would like to sport outdoors. The family viewed the
opening episode and enjoyed it as much as any other adventure BUT from various
quarters there were definite and well-stated doubts as to the practicability
of a big balloon being a controllable entity. Thus Rover made its debut and
no doubt split viewers across the country straight away into various camps -
scathing, indifferent or curious. As the various episodes were broadcast over
the following months, I think initial doubts about the subject were subdued,
for as we know all 17 programmes were well crafted and I think this beguiled
most people into following the series even if they wrote off some aspects as
rubbish. Besides, this strange television series was only a small part of contemporary
events at the time.
But there had to be an ending. I was quite trusting that there would be a complete
explanation at the end even given the far-fetched science fiction of "Do
Not Forsake Me...". This episode had strained my loyalty somewhat as I
felt that this particular theme had already been adequately explored in an "Outer
Limits" show and even an "Avengers" episode some years previously.
So the final show "Fall Out" was shown. As the Beatle tune was played,
I slumped back onto the sofa with a bad feeling about what was going to follow.
They may be the semi-divine pop group of m youth, but I don't like that song
with it's crass repetitions. At the end, being somewhat dazed, my feelings had
recovered slightly, and it was at least obvious that a lot of thought had gone
into the script.
But those days were years before video recorders were available so we could
not go back and analyse it. In actual fact the content did not seem too far
away from the context of the times, thinking for instance of the vivid pop song
lyrics allegedly composed under the influence of various substances. But most
people were disappointed in my experience - discussing it at work and so forth.
But it has become quite clear that the series was utterly wasted for the majority
viewing it in black and white.
So "The Prisoner" and the Sixties faded into the background and we
entered the wasteland of the Seventies. I did not catch the early Seventies
repeats of the programmes but I did see most of the 1976 repeats on a small
six-inch portable. But it was just as incomprehensible. However the phrase "looking
after number one" had entered my consciousness over the years and it dawned
on me that this is what it must have been about.
On a warm summer evening in 1982, being a little bit more affluent in the shape
of my own 26-inch colour TV and an early Philips "steam" video recorder
(the N1702) I saw my first "Prisoner" episode in full colour, "The
Girl Who Was Death". I think I missed this in 1976 and I had completely
forgotten the storyline since 1968, so, being virtually new to me, it was a
knockout. The battle scene had one on edge, though I realised it must be a spoof
episode. My appetite for the rest of the series was then insatiable and fortunately
the Channel 4 re-screenings came along. Since then of course I, like other people,
have well-guarded recordings of all 17 episodes, and even though I've analysed
most episodes pretty deeply, I still find small items I did not see before,
particularly since my belief that PMcG was influenced by this old film which
I will now describe.
I first saw this film, "A Matter of Life and Death", late on a Saturday
night in 1981, having been alerted to it by a brief review in the day's newspaper.The
review mentioned how the film had sequences in "clinical black and white"
for the heavenly scenes and this made me curious, as not many films have this
mixed format. But I found the whole film enthralling from beginning to end not
just for the story-line but for the wide range of vivid cinematic techniques
used.
I was recording parts of the film (due to the limited tape times available on
my early machine) and I replayed it many times thereafter never becoming tired
of it. Though I was not around at the time it was made I could imagine the impression
such a film would have on people in the austere postwar years. It is superb
and colourful escapism. It was about five years before the film was repeated
and I had a full recording and there was a third broadcast before I made a connection
with "The Prisoner".
Now let
me make my case for comparing it to "The Prisoner". The notion that
the series is a spy story understandably holds many people. But it is pretty
dumb using a hearse to abduct a person, considering all the curtains twitching
wherever such a vehicle passes. And we never actually see him being taken. He
just feels faint (having left the kettle on), his eyes look upwards, the tower
blocks point in a heavenly direction, and he falls unconscious onto his bed
later to wake up in a colourful new world. So it's a dream sequence and always
has been....in my opinion. And this is just what this film "A matter of
Life and Death", is, a sequence of hallucinations which is resolved in
one big scene at the very end, just like "The Prisoner" or not.
I think I can best compare these two works by citing what I describe as profound
and incidental points of comparison. The film is about an individual in conflict
with a bureaucracy in his own mind. That's the profound point. It features a
camera obscura, a brain operation and the central character finds himself washed
up on a beach thinking he is dead. A Shakespearean play is featured, a parachute
jump is implied, chess is well featured and the numbered messenger Conductor
71 keeps trying to entice the airman to follow him using guile and a colourful
crook. All these points can be found in "The Prisoner". And if that's
not enough, PMcG answers a question concerning Life and Death in "Free
For All". His answer may have been sharp, but the clue was well laid.
Ultimately, people may only see my point of view when they see the film for themselves and I hope, even if they disagree, that it has been worthwhile bringing this film to peoples' attention. Moreover I suspect that at least one of the production team from "The Prisoner" worked on this old film, which would establish a pretty definite connection.
There are some points I cannot make any connection with, such as the Penny Farthing. And one last point about the Village. It contained all the elements of a small community....except a church. There was just the Green Dome with its associated all-seeing control room and, in temporary charge, one of the Governor's agents, whom the Prisoner liked to drop in on every so often to give him a piece of his mind. I think that says it all. I am not very good or quick at puzzles such as crosswords, so here I am many years later explaining "The Prisoner", to my satisfaction at least. I wonder how many members of the general viewing public quietly saw these points all the time. At the end of "Fall Out" (which must imply falling out of bed) the Prisoner moves to climb into his Lotus for the last time but draws back to allow a black vehicle to pass. A quirk of filming? No it's that hearse passing like a last shadow of the dream.
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