The Prisoner: Fall Out

“You are the only individual.”

That was... a lot to digest, utterly glorious and at the same time quite, quite mad. On the surface this may not be quite as surreal as the first episode but there’s so much going on and we certainly aren’t spoon fed the subtext. Those who insist on a diet of strict realism probably hate this. Personally, I found it a fitting and magnificent ending. What straight- up realist finale could possibly have satisfied? Who actually cares why Number Six resigned, what his name is or the backstory of the Village? Revealing any of that would ruin everything. Patrick McGoohan knows this, which is why he reveals Number One to be a mask beneath a mask under which is Number Six himself. Is this a literal metaphor about Number Six being a repressed man who has really trapped himself, with the Village being within his own head? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Why reduce it all to one meaning when you can have the possibility of many? Keep the box closed, or the death of Schrodinger’s Cat may become real.

Has Number Six won and convinced the Village that individualism is best? Perhaps; suddenly the Judge who seems to be running things is fawning before him and he’s constantly praised and promised an “inauguration”. Yet his much-encouraged speech is drowned out by choreographed enthusiasm, and his own victory is juxtaposed by the trials of Numbers Two and Forty-Eight for, essentially, being individuals (Forry-Eight, of course, would be better charged with sexual assault...), the very quality for which Number Six is now suddenly being praised. Are the promises of power or freedom real? We will never know, as the narrative collapses and the escape of all three is a decidedly fourth wall breaking event.

So what does it all mean? Let us not spoil the fun by nailing that down. The author is dead, and Patrick McGoohan is jumping on his grave here. We, the viewers, are left to construct our own meaning from this wonderfully barmy text, and I for one am glad of it.

As for the series as a whole- yes, there are half a dozen episodes that we could have done without, but it wasn’t McGoohan’s wish to pad the whole thing out to seventeen episodes. The Prisoner is indeed a justly renowned and legendary piece of telly, and in 1967 was pointing forward to what television drama could be and do.

The Prisoner: The Girl Who Was Death

"My name... is death!"

Well... at least the game of cat and mouse and the sequence with all the booby traps was entertaining. I loved the cyanide candles. In fact, I also used the cricket ball bomb which blows up the Colonel, complete with magnificent facial hair, just short of his century- a delightful touch, and I love that this detail appears on the headline! I also love Number Six’s response to being poisoned- drinking magnificent quantities of alcohol and making himself sick.

The set pieces are great. But that’s all this episode is- a collection of set pieces. The conceit at the end- Number Six is just reading a bedtime story to some children in a flimsy plot by Number Two to get him to let his guard down- feels very token, and this leaves the episode looking very superficial, very filler, very running-out-of-ideas. You can see why McGoohan decided to end it after just two more episodes.

Perhaps I’m being harsh; on an action/adventure level the episode works splendidly, and I’m sure it was a favourite of younger viewers. But this just isn’t what I expect of The Prisoner. I suppose you could just about manage to squint and find some kind of tenuous subtext about fear of female sexuality, but the episode isn’t really about anything.

Circus of Horrors (1960)

"Quick, get her to a doctor. And send the clowns in."

This is a mildly obscure but well regarded non-Hammer horror film, one with no supernatural elements and more tension than scares, although the sheer body horror of the opening scene with Evelyn’s face after her plastic surgery disaster, along with her hysterical laughter, is one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve ever seen.

Anton Diffring is rather good as our plastic surgeon anti-hero, improbably fleeing to the continent and setting up as a circus after reshaping the face of poor little Nicole and the untimely death of her father who, bizarrely, is Donald Pleasance with a French accent. And so a situation evolves where a circus is set up starring wanted and highly blackmailable criminals whose faces have been reshaped, but dastardly Rossiter has all the details. I’m not sure how such a circus should have become successful from its poor beginnings, but let’s roll with it. Let us also roll with the fact that circuses in 1960 were rather cruel places, with lions, bears, elephants, horses and gorillas cruelly whipped and forced to perform to a clapping and unbothered crowd. People in 1960 also seemed to Thing that clowns were funny and not terrifying at all. Weird.

Of course, every now and then a glamorous female artists threatens to leave the circus, and coincidentally ends up suffering a freak fatal accident in her final performance, something which has not gone unnoticed by the authorities. Amusingly, several times we see said artistes declaring that they will leave or reveal something after the final performance, which they always approach without any fear whatsoever. But this means plenty of tension, and in spite of the awkward questions about the plot this is a rather compelling film and a cut above most of its ilk.