No.2 "There is more harm in the village than is dreamt of"
No.2 is interrogating No.73 in her hospital bed, having recently slashed her wrists. When he turns nasty, she screams and jumps to her death from the window. No.6, hearing the scream, comes to her aide but is too late. Later No.2 talks to No.6 where he states that he will break him. No.6 is disgusted, and calls him a sadist. When No.1 (?) calls No.2, he is clearly rattled. Seeing that he is frightened of his masters, No.6 decides to break No.2 instead, by a series of ruses, including secret messages reporting on the fitness and competence of No.2 to an outside Village superior XO4.
Roger Woddis is probably more familiar for his often humorous poems, especially his weekly one in the Radio Times. So it's no surprise this is quite a literate story, quoting both Goethe and Cervantes in their native tongues, German and Spanish. Competently directed by Pat Jackson, it's essentially one long shaggy dog story, where an increasingly suspicious and paranoid No.2, aided by his confidante No.14, spies on No.6 as he plants secret messages, places adverts in the Tally Ho and on the radio request show, sends Morse code to an unknown observer, places a cuckoo clock (a bomb?) outside No.2's office, sets loose a pigeon with a message tied to its leg, etc. until No.2 reaches breaking point. Though the techniques employed by No.6 are varied and ingenious, they do seem to go on.
One of the fascinating aspects of this episode, which causes so much confusion in viewing order and theories about the show is the 'rehiring' of Patrick Cargill as No.2, when he had already appeared in the series in the earlier episode Many Happy Returns as an ex-colleague of No.6 in British intelligence, Thorpe, who, along with The Colonel, helps No.6 to trace the location of The Village. Are they the same person? If so, neither of them mention the fact that they knew each other. Also, Cargill's No.2 is quite different in character and temperament than Thorpe. The former is sadistic, quick to anger, and prone to violence (he assaults quite a few people in this story), whilst the latter was warm but sceptical, with a sardonic wit quite beyond No.2. So I don't think they are the same.
In production terms, this was the 12th episode made whilst MHR was the13th, so Cargill was hired for this first. This might be pragmatic casting by Rose Tobias Shaw, who apparently made two casting suggestion sheets for McGoohan, one the ITC conventional, the second a more off-the-wall casting sheet, and Shaw pointed out that McGoohan often chose from the latter. It might also be that Shaw had to find casts that could or would work with McGoohan, and he with them. The show was already gaining an inside reputation for being a toxic set, with McGoohan descending into screaming fits and paroxyms of anger and sometimes violence, often sacking cast and crew and redirecting episodes himself, particularly on the eighth produced It's Your Funeral, where it appears McGoohan had something of a minor nervous breakdown.
So maybe Cargill just fitted, and when it came to cast Thorpe both Shaw and Pat chose Cargill for the admittedly small role at the end (it must also be noted that this was also Georgina Cookson's second stint on the show). Another explanation, judging by the absence of Cargill's voice on the opening credits as No.2, could be that the original actor for No.2 for this episode was someone else, someone who faced Pat's ire and got sacked so Cargill, already available for the next episode, was a late replacement as No.2.
There are some nice touches in the story, it starts strongly with the suicide of No.73 (a gorgeous Hilary Dwyer in one of her earliest roles), so we can empathise with No.6's disgust at no.2 and his plans to make No.2 self-destruct. There's also the nice literary touches, especially the Cervantes quote: "There is more harm in the village than is dreamt of". There's some fine classical music to add to new incidental music by Albert Elms (see below), which is uniformly excellent, and I like the way the fight between no.6 and No.14 at no.6's home ends with No.14 being defenestrated, a touching parallel to No.73's suicide.
The only real theme of the show here is the paranoia, insecurity and fear of conspiracies in even the most brutal and controlling of authorities, especially if the leader has a personal character weakness, e.g. a fear of his superiors (e.g. the Party) or subordinates, as here. Because No.2 thinks the way he does, and because of the way The Village operates, he too quickly interprets No.6 as having the same qualities, and becomes suspicious of his colleagues when they are unable to furnish the information he needs, thus making him think they're part of the conspiracy. No.6's attempts to break No.2 by fictional devices would have humorously real-life parallels in the deliberately false and fictional ones created by American writers Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (see here), including The illuminati (see here) which 50 years later were widely circulated on the internet by conspiracy theory nutjobs as real evidence!
On the minus side, there is no attempt of No.2 to get No.6 to conform or give information, in fact No.2 spends all his time being led by the nose by No.6. Also, this is one of few episodes where No.6 makes no attempt to escape The Village, or resist its attempts to control or condition him. Instead, he subverts its close monitoring of his behaviour, movements and actions to drive the increasingly paranoid No.2 to breaking point. Also, No.6's victory is a bit of a pyrrhic victory. So he gets No.2 to phone in denouncing his own competence and fitness to lead, but it doesn't do anything for others like No.73 destroyed by the methods of The Village, it doesn't affect The Village, doesn't give No.6 any new information. It merely changes No.2 for another new one. So in the end one can say of this episode, as one can of No.6's efforts here, so what?
There's also the pointless introduction of a fake martial arts called Kosho, which not only looks silly (with terrible outfits) but which I really don't see the point of, and doesn't really add anything to the show.
In the end, the strong writing, acting (especially Cargill, who is superbly malevolent and violent, and wonderfully portrays No.2's slow disintegration), the plethora of location shooting in Portmeirion, and the new excellent incidental music, plus the tightly wound and inventive nature of the plot, more than make up for the rather empty hollow nature of the piece. Perhaps if we'd seen more of No.73, got to know her a bit better? Perhaps coming after an absolute classic like Checkmate it slightly pales. Still, it's much better than the next, the aforementioned It's Your Funeral.
The Village rating (out of 6) No.5
Incidental Music
Cast
The Prisoner .................................................................. PATRICK McGOOHAN
Number Two .................................................................. PATRICK CARGILL The Butler ..................................................................... ANGELO MUSCAT Bandmaster ................................................................... VICTOR MADDERN
Supervisor..................................................................... PETER SWANWICK
New Supervisor ............................................................ DEREK AYLWARD Number 14 .................................................................... BASIL HOSKINS Psychiatric Director ....................................................... NORMAN SCACE No.73 ........................................................................... HILARY DWYER
Control Room Supervisor ............................................. ARTHUR GROSS Shop Assistant ............................................................. VICTOR WOOLF
Laboratory technician ................................................... MICHAEL SEGAL
Shop kiosk girl .............................................................. MARGO ANDREW
Female code expert ..................................................... SUSAN SHEERS
Guardians .................................................................... JACKIE COOPER
Comments
Post a Comment
All comments welcome, you don't need a Google account, but trolls beware, all comments are moderated.