The Prisoner remains, as the successor to Secret Agent / Danger Man, as yet another mediated reason to mistrust all the echos of Cold War stupidity and even the continuing danger of GITMO. (It even pervades the lore of DK)
It was 50 years ago, on 5 September 1966, that the cameras rolled for the first time in the Italianate village of Portmeirion as filming got under way for the cult 1960s adventure TV show The Prisoner.
The programme starred actor Patrick McGoohan playing the part of Number Six who is held captive in a mysterious village where the residents are known only by a number.
Each week, he would attempt to escape, only to find himself unable to break free from those who held him. But who were they? Why was he imprisoned? Which side were his captors on? And who was Number One?
It was not just about an existential dilemma dramatized by the Brits in a post-Cuban Missile Crisis narrative or the post-war problems presented by Cold War espionage and the mass paranoia of global destruction overlaid with the specter / hegemony of state capitalism.
It really was about not being able to trust technology or even one’s own perceptions, much less anyone in authority and not having control over the smallest matters including one’s own sleep. As we only recently have begun to realize, there was a lot of overlap among the various security/intelligence services. The Prisoner reminds us of mass detention, surveillance, torture as enhanced interrogation, and the folly of “brainwashing”.
He tells Number Two, played by different actors each week: "I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."
It was a call for individualism at a time when revolution was in the air. Number Six will not reveal why he resigned, despite repeated attempts to break him.
Portmeirion is a tourist village in Gwynedd, North Wales. It was designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 in the style of an Italian village, and is now owned by a charitable trust.
The village is located in the community of Penrhyndeudraeth, on the estuary of the River Dwyryd, 2 miles (3.2 km) south east of Porthmadog, and 1 mile (1.6 km) from Minffordd railway station.
In 1966–1967, McGoohan returned to Portmeirion to film exteriors for The Prisoner, a surreal spy drama in which Portmeirion played a starring role as "The Village", in which McGoohan's retired intelligence agent, known only as "Number 6", was incarcerated and interrogated, albeit in pleasant surroundings. At Williams-Ellis' request, Portmeirion was not identified on screen as the filming location until the credits of the final episode of the series, and indeed, Williams-Ellis stated that the levy of an entrance fee was a deliberate ploy to prevent the village from being spoilt by overcrowding.[2] The show, broadcast on ITV in the UK during the Autumn of 1967 and CBS in the United States in the Summer of 1968, became a cult classic, and fans continue to visit Portmeirion, which hosts annual Prisoner fan conventions.[7] The building that was used as the lead character's home in the series currently operates as a Prisoner-themed souvenir shop. Many of the locations used in The Prisoner are virtually unchanged after more than 40 years.
Because of its Prisoner connection, Portmeirion has been used as the filming location for a number of homages to the series, ranging from comedy skits to an episode of the BBC documentary series The Celts, which recreated scenes from The Prisoner.
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And lest millenials and Gen-Z’s think these are feeble senior moments…we even remember the first mini-series remake that most of us didn’t like...
Ridley Scott already had plenty of momentum heading into Golden Globes weekend with a Best Director nomination, and now he has even more. I hear that Scott is in early negotiations on a deal to come aboard and direct The Prisoner, the screen version of the 1968 Patrick McGoohan British TV series.
This has been a plum project at Universal for some time with numerous A-list scribes including Christopher McQuarrie writing drafts. The most recent version was by The Departed scribe William Monahan. The film is being produced by Bluegrass Films Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark. Scott’s Scott Free team will likely become part of it as they get the script that makes the director happy. Numerous writers are circling to do that, and the elbowing by several top actors has also begun, now that word is getting around that Scott is coming aboard. deadline.com/...