As a 13-year-old when it originally aired, I was hugely impressed and influenced by The Prisoner, and considered it my favorite show for decades after. In 1976 I visited the Hotel Portmeirion, aka The Village, where the exteriors of the show were filmed. It was really cool.
I’ve never seen a full episode of Danger Man/Secret Agent, and I’ve only seen a few of the 31 feature films he made. But in everything of his I’ve seen, he never played a romantic lead, or had a serious love scene. (On *The Prisoner * a few women attempted to seduce him, but he never succumbed, IIRC.)
So I’ve always wondered if I just never saw his love scenes, or if somehow he had a long acting career without ever doing any. Can anyone enlighten me?
IIRC, McGoohan wanted both John Drake and Number Six (who were apparently the same person anyway) to be both the perfect gentleman, and a loner. No commitment, and no casual hookups, so no love or sex at all. That doesn’t explain every film he’s been in, but perhaps there wouldn’t have been room for a love story in most of them.
I’ve heard that McGoohan insisted on no kissing in Secret Agent.
Watching The Prisoner on AMC’s website. (Thanks for the link, Zagloba.) I saw the show when it was on US tv in the '60s, then years later wondered if I’d dreamed it, it was so bizarre. (Specifically Rover. Who the hell came up with that?)
I’m watching the second episode, with Leo McKern. I don’t know if anybody would write the dialogue that way today, but I’m liking it.
“Do you still think you can escape?”
“Better than that. I’ll escape and come back.”
“Come back?”
“Come back, wipe this place off the face of the Earth. Obliterate it, and you with it.”
This actually contains a decent theological analysis of THE PRISONER, including the final episode. It was originally in a newsletter & in the formatting, “ffi” “fi” and “fl” letter combinations somehow got replaced with __ . So “official”, “final”,
“fish” and “flash” appear as o___cial, __nal, __sh, and __ash.
McGoohan did. The idea was sort of a last-minute choice of desperation.
The original “Rover” was going to be a mobile robot, kind of like a toy-sized VW Bug with a police siren on its roof. But the prototype they’d built was almost impossible to control, very uncomfortable to sit in, not to mention it looked a big decorated cake. It failed to convey much menace. The last straw for the thing was when it plunged into the bay shortly before filming in Portmeirion was to begin.
McGoohan and his producer Bernard Williams (this is according to Williams, on the Prisoner DVDs) were then sitting on the “stone boat” at Portmeirion, wondering what the hell they were going to do for a Rover. A weather balloon passed overhead, and inspiration struck. They ordered up some weather balloons, inflated them, tried pulling them around with fishing lines, and pressing their faces into them in a horrific manner — and a new henchman was born.
Incidentally, the name “Rover” is heard in only one episode — The Schizoid Man.
Thanks for posting that, Bytegeist. I remembered that story and was going to look it up in one of my *Prisoner *books to check the details later today. Now I can (try to ) get back to work.
I didn’t particularly care for The Prisoner (I know, I know. I just didn’t) but I’m entirely devoted to Danger Man. It’s so anti-camp compared to similar shows from the same era that I just love it. Plus McGoohan was capable of being deliciously, frighteningly intense. I’m sad to hear that he died. He was a fine actor!
McGoohan was also a four-time Columbo villain. And he died around the same time as another Columbo alumnus, Ricardo Montalban. Coincidence? Obviously. But if not, who’s next? My vote is Robert Culp. I’m expecting Shatner and Nimoy to take part in a different trio.
Agree with the first sentence, not so sure about the second.
Even though, as I said, I was very impressed with him when I was a teenager, as an adult it strikes me that he didn’t have much range as an actor. In most of the roles I’ve seen he was rather stiff and mannered, sort of stagey. In cases like The Prisoner and Danger Man that worked.
But let’s face it, as much as we may have loved those shows, and his other performances, he was no Lawrence Olivier.
However, I’ll admit I haven’t seen most of his film performances, so I may be underestimating him. (Off the top of my head, I’ve seen him in Silver Streak, Ice Station Zebra, Escape From Alcatraz, Braveheart, and maybe a few others.) If anyone would care to point me to a particularly good role, I’d be interested to hear about it.
The Prisoner was allegorical on so many levels … it just keeps going on and on. Amazing that, though it only ran one season (17 episodes, IIRC), it has garnered such a devoted following. He really hit with it.
BTW, since I’m too lazy to track it down, does anyone know what was the cause of death?
