the prisoner and Dead of Night

A parallel between two entites

by David Stimpson 

Over the past twenty years countless members of our society have come up with countless ideas and theories regarding ‘the Prisoner’ and what it all means.  Members of our society have managed to read all manner of different meanings into ‘the Prisoner’ whilst looking for so-called hidden meanings which may or may not be true.  Others look for outside influences which may have been brought to bear whilst writing and filming ‘the Prisoner’, such as Kafka, Orwell’s 1984, The Prisoner of Zenda and religion to name but a few.  Well, I can promise you there’ll be none of that in this article!  What I am on about to do is draw a single ‘parallel’ between two separate entities, ‘the Prisoner and ‘Dead of Night’.  No, I am not saying that ‘Dead of Night’ played any influence on the making of ‘the Prisoner’ in any way but if there is a link between them it is that both ‘the Prisoner’ and ‘Dead of Night’ have a wonderful array of actors and actresses. 

And so to the first entity ‘the Prisoner’ a seventeen episode television series filmed in 1966-67.  A car is seen hurtling down an empty road. It is being driven by a man in his late thirties to early forties, his face set in a grimace.  His journey takes him to London where he parks his car in an underground car park. Then somewhere in another building he hands in a letter to a bald headed man sitting behind his desk. This action is accompanied by a great deal of anger as he shouts at the man sitting behind his desk, culminating in the man banging the desk with his fist. 

He then returns to his car and we see him drive out of the car park and drives through the streets of London to his home apparently followed by a hearse!  And as he packs his suitcase he is gasses and falls back unconscious onto a leather couch. When he awakens he finds that he is no longer in London but in ‘The Village’.

 Each episode of ‘the Prisoner’ deals with his repeated escape attempts, his fight against his captors and his struggle to maintain his individuality in a Village full of numbers and rotten cabbages!  Although ‘the Prisoner’ is a ‘series’ of seventeen episodes it is fair to say that each episode is a story al of its own.  What I mean is that you can watch’ for example ‘checkmate’ without having to know what happened in the previous episode I think you can see what I am getting at.  

The first episode of ‘the Prisoner’ is ‘Arrival’ but is that the beginning of ‘the Prisoner’? ‘Fall Out’ is the final episode of ‘the Prisoner’ but I feel that ‘Fail Out’ was not only an ending to ‘the Prisoner’ but also the beginning!  At the end of ‘Fall Out’ the butler enters 1 Buckingham Place, the door opens and closes automatically.  The Prisoner drives his Lotus through the busy London traffic, we see one word - Prisoner.  Then a clap of thunder and out of the horizon a car hurtles towards us on an empty road and a close up of the driver’s face fills the screen just as it did in the opening sequence of ‘Arrival’ and so ‘the Prisoner’ begins all over again! 

And so with ‘the Prisoner’ firmly etched on our minds, I turn your attention to ‘Dead of Night’, a black and white film made in 1945.  ‘Dead of Night’ is a film of four short supernatural stories.  They are in themselves excellent short stories but do not need to be described as I am only concerned with the beginning and ending of Dead of Night’ but for interest the four short stories are entitled ‘The Bus Conductor’, ‘the Haunted Mirror’, ‘Smee’ and ‘The Ventriloquist’s Dummy.  And so to the beginning of.... ‘Dead of Night’.  A soft top sports car travels down a tree-lined lane, its registration EYY 260.  As the car turns a bend in the lane it stops and the driver can see a house which has come into view.  The car moves forward once again and within a few minutes comes to a stop outside the house which the driver had seen a few minutes earlier.  There is a man waiting outside the house.  The two men meet and shake hands.  The driver of the car is Walter Craig, an architect.  The man who greets him is Eliot Foley.  Foley takes Craig’s suitcase and they walk up the garden path towards the house.  Craig has been invited down for the weekend by Eliot Foley and will be staying with a group of people whom he has never met before, in an area of the country where he has never been before.  Oh, and the house... he’s never been in it before!  But he does know that the house has but one living room and unconsciously knows where to hang his coat!

There is a strange look about Walter Craig as he meets the other guests who are staying for the weekend.  After a short while he recognises a Doctor Van Stratton. Walter Craig tells the doctor that he has dreamt of him continually.  It turns out that Walter Craig has had a recurring dream of the house and of everyone in it, in fact it turns out to be a nightmare! 

Craig begins to explain his dream to his fellow guests.  “The dream starts exactly the same as I arrived just now.  I turn off the main road into the lane.  At the bend in the lane the house comes into view and I stop as I recognise it, then I dive on again and Foley meets me at the front door and I recognise him too.  And then when I am taking off my coat, I have the most extraordinary feeling. I nearly turn and run for it because I know that I am going to come face to face with the same six people.”  But Walter Craig has no proof that he has dreamed his recurring dream.

I shall not relate any of the short stories as it would serve me no purpose.  All the four short stories are different and related by four different people however at the end of the short story ‘The Ventriloquist’s Dummy’, the dummy which has come to life has its hands round the throat of Walter Craig! 

Walter Craig wakens from his nightmare just as his wife walks into the bedroom and the telephone rings. His wife answers the telephone and passes the receiver to Walter.  He talks on the ‘phone for a short time and replaces the receiver back onto its cradle.  Walter tells his wife that it was a Mister Eliot Foley and that he has been invited down to Pilgrim’s Farm for the weekend.  He wants a reconstruction job doing.  For a moment Walter Craig wonders why Pilgrim’s Farm sounds familiar but then appears to think no more of it. 

Then a soft top sports car registration EYY 260 travels down a tree-lined lane.  At a bend in the lane it stops and the driver can see a house which has come into view.  The credits begin to roll and the car moves forward once again, finally coming to a stop outside the house.  A man is waiting for him, he takes Walter’s suitcase and together they walk up the path and into the house. 

I cannot make up my mind if Craig is experiencing a recurring dream or if he is stuck in a vicious circle with no way out!  Or if Craig is ‘living’ a nightmare, of his own mind for whatever reason.  If you have not seen ‘Dead of Night’, watch it when you get a chance and you will see what I am getting at and you will see a ‘parallel between two entities!’ 

Over the past twenty years countless members of our society have come up with countless ideas and theories regarding ‘the Prisoner’ and what it all means... “Just a moment, I’ve got the strongest feeling that we have been through all of this before.  In fact I know the next line”.  

‘Members of our society have managed to read all manner of different meanings into ‘the Prisoner’ whilst looking for so-called hidden meanings which may or may not be true.’ 

Well, I was right!!! 

Alan comments 

Thanks to David for another interesting and unusual article (got a little confused typing in the last part though. You know, transcribing the same text as at the start - thought I was getting déjà-vu! - but a nice way to finish the article).

I’ve seen the film ‘Dead of Night’ a few times over the years and it is indeed very easy to see the parallels that David cites between ‘Dead of Night’ and ‘the Prisoner’.  I would imagine that this ‘cyclic’ technique where the story ‘finishes’ if that’s the right word, as it began, has been used by a number of directors in their time but for the life of me, I can’t think of any other films at the moment! It would be interesting if other readers could write in and offer their suggestions.

We’ll probably never know whether or not McGoohan was influenced by ‘Dead of Night’ as David himself states but this film or ‘the Prisoner’ may have had an effect on other film makers so please let us know if you can think of any such movies or television programmes.

As for the movie ‘Dead of Night’ itself, each of the stories tells a good tale though I found the short story ‘The Ventriloquist’s Dummy’ particularly bizarre and very disquieting, I seem to remember, and I suspect it would still be capable of giving me the creeps even now!