because they gave him this show which is absolutely awful and he carried it forward on the back of his Scottish accent and good looks. I remember watching this as a kid and thinking it really sucked in comparison to "Secret Agent", which also had a much greater theme song.
sharethis series is highly regarded.
shareI remember back the phone modem BBS's and there were groups discussing "The Prisoner", probably because it was hailed as great on our local, or what it national PBS station. It was something cheap that they could build up and that there are always followers of willing to latch on to. I never saw it. Be seeing you!
shareCharisma and intensity but I always thought not much of a range. That was until I stumbled on The Quare Fellow where he toned it down and was perhaps the better for it.
shareWhat I was trying to say is that he was all style and no substance ... in as polite and affirmative way as possible. He had something, but not sure what. I doesn't seem like all his acting credits together would have given him a huge income, particularly in the UK. He did get a short-lived American series, but I wonder what his life was like and why he was not more gung-ho as an actor. I guess maybe there are not many parts for a mouthy Scottish smartass. Good looks, great voice, not that much of a career. Maybe the reprise of the Prisoner was done to fund his retirement?
shareI joined this page solely to reply to TrentnQuarantino's ill informed comment. Firstly, Patrick McGoohan was Irish (born in America to Irish parents), not Scottish. I could leave it there, as this says enough about TrentnQuarantino's knowledge on the subject and their indifference towards research. TrentnQuarantino didn't have to 'wonder what his life was like'. There's a thing called the Internet, and TrentnQuarantino could have learned that Patrick Mcgoohan was not only not Scottish, he wasn't 'mouthy' either. Perhaps 'mouthy' to an underachieving keyboard warrior, but driven and committed in order to provide for his family in a high pressured and competitive environment which TrentnQuarantino could never begin to comprehend.
Mr McGoohan had an expansive and highly regarded stage career, before becoming a renowned (and wealthy) writer, Producer, Director as well as an intensely charismatic film and television actor. I'm Welsh, a fanatically patriotic nation, but I believe that Patrick McGoohan was a more accomished and better actor than our own Richard Burton (you've heard of him TrentnQuarantino, haven't you?). His moral standards made him turn down the role of James Bond, and gave Sean Connery (look him up) a career. TrentnQuarantino, do the work and learn the facts before voicing your opinions. They say that ignorance is bliss: TrentnQuarantino must be very happy.
Who cares?
What an arse-o
By the way, McGoohan was born in Queens, so he is American.
I joined this page solely to reply to TrentnQuarantino's ill informed comment.
No one "gave" him this show. He was the producer, and a large reason why, IMO, it started to really suck halfway through and went nowhere. This was basically a vanity piece, where he got to overact his little heart out. Over time, the show lost steam and ended in that awful, ridiculous surreal mess.
And I don't think he carried it based on his accent and good looks. He was kind of a poor man's Richard Burton, and I think his acting style reminded so many people of Burton.
The final episode is a triumph of surrealism, Theater of the Absurd, mordant satire that leaves the engaged viewer with both an intense emotional experience & plenty of questions to ponder afterward. But I'll grant that it isn't for everybody, especially in these current days of diminished imagination & vision.
share^THIS!!!^
shareThank you for that! :)
There's no question that today's TV & film have made remarkable leaps forward in their visuals, special effects, etc. Yet the imagination to create something like the final episode of The Prisoner does seem to have been largely lost. The emphasis tends to be mainly on geek continuity, with everything having to be connected & explained in excruciatingly minute detail, which would destroy something as wild & bold & ferociously inventive as The Prisoner.
The imagination to create something like the final episode of The Prisoner, LOL!!! Oh, dear...someone who was only just born yesterday has no idea that because of Richard Lester and the 1960s counterculture, anarchic/surrealistic storytelling was a huge fad. Don't anyone tell him about all those Beatles and Richard Lester films, Laugh-In, The Monkees, What's New Pussycat, Casino Royale (the first one starring Niven), Skidoo, Head, If.
Don't ever tell him about The Avengers during the Diana Rigg years.
Hell, don't even tell him about the kids shows produced or art-directed by Sid and Marty Krofft, which adapted zany surrealism and anarchism for little kids back in the 60s and 70s. He might have a stroke!
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Actually, I first saw The Prisoner in 1968, and I lived through the explosive creativity & surreal brilliance of the 1960s quite thoroughly & joyfully.
share"I, I, I, I, I, I like you very much!"
shareSpoken like a GenZ/millennnial neckbeard moron. It isn't for everybody in an age of subintellect and zero cultural or historical knowledge before 2010.
If you were actually alive at the time of the show and fully aware of the "zeitgeist" that inspired The Prisoner, you would've recognized that it started out as a clever commentary on bureaucracy reducing people to mere numbers. This is what is meant by when #6 says, "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered." People were panicking about how they were beginning to be given "numbers" to identify them when doing business, getting a license, etc. People were also panicking about how bureaucracy was being used for areas in life that used to be personal.
The show, like I said started out as brilliant social commentary and then lost steam.
If you were also alive at the time, you would've recognized that because of Richard Lester, it became faddish to end stuff on a zany, anarchic note to pander to Baby Boomers (who were then in their teens and twenties) and that this is all the ending to The Prisoner was. The ending didn't even hide it. It referenced The Summer of Love and was shot in the same wacky, anarchic style that was so popular among them.
Maybe actually try to watch movies and TV shows before 2010, and you will see how corny, unremarkable and faddish the ending was. (A Hard Day's Night, The Knack and How to Get It, The Monkees, What's New Pusssycat, Laugh-in, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Skidoo, Head, If, etc...). You will see how pandering it was, too. The ending was the equivalent of when historical movies back in the 1990s would play it straight, but then have the ending shot like a hip hop MTV video (always rapped by Will Smith) or when one of the Star Trek Abrams films had The Beastie Boys blasting in one sequence. Except this time, instead of pandering to rappers and Gen Xers with rap music and The Beasties, The Prisoner pandered to the 1960s generation by playing The Beatles and the Summer of Love "anthem" (All You Need is Love), then ending on a Richard Lester note.
TL;DR: You're a typical pretentious neckbeard on the internet who knows nothing about The Prisoner.
Actually, I was alive at that time, seeing the series when it first appeared on TV in America, and then returning to it many times over the decades. Yes, it was part of the zeitgeist ... but the zeitgeist was far more than just an empty fad, though it may seem no more than that to you. The social commentary extended into psychological commentary, going ever more deeply into the mind & soul of Number Six, who of course is also Everyman. The spiritual connotation is a conscious choice there. The final episode obviously doesn't work for you, and that's fine. But many viewers would disagree with your assessment.
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"because they gave him this show which is absolutely awful and he carried it forward on the back of his Scottish accent and good looks."
As mentioned above, Patrick McGoohan was American not Scottish. Born in New York then moved to Ireland as a child. His natural accent was American (had he not left the US) or Irish but at the time he was playing Number Six he had a neutral English accent (the typical Royal Academy of Dramatic Art voice, I guess). He played some roles with an American accent: Columbo, Murder, She Wrote.
Another actor to dramatically alter his voice was Richard Burton. He was Welsh but had a very distinctive English RADA accent. I would imagine many actors of the 1950s/60s changed their accents to improve their chances of getting work. Sean Connery had little of his Scottish accent when playing Bond.
No, his natural accent wasn't American. He wasn't in America long enough. He was born in New York and literally left a few months later while he was still a baby. Moved to Ireland until he was seven, then spent the rest of his childhood in England.
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