The Prisoner [DVD] [2005]

1955's The Prisoner is one of those films that isn't exactly a failure but isn't exactly a success either. Pitting Jack Hawkins' psychiatrist-cum-interrogator against Alec Guinness' troublesome cardinal in an unnamed Iron Curtain state, it's ideas are sometimes more interesting than the script's execution, the confrontations and psychological tactics neither exciting or dramatic enough. There's intelligence but not enough bite, at least in the first hour. It's the last third of the film that proves the most interesting as the film takes a genuinely unexpected turn that prevents it from being just another tale of the power of piety, revealing the cardinal's flaws - he can serve but he cannot love - as it becomes clear that each man will destroy and defeat the other. Best seen as an early and not entirely successful attempt at psychological drama, Peter Glenville's direction manages to keep it from seeming like a filmed play and for the most part it manages to avoid going too Hollywood - the early stirrings of revolution the cardinal's arrest causes soon fade away after a few sporadic acts of violence while the film ends on a note of mutual defeat.

Wilfred Lawson offers good support as a jovially pragmatic warder and the film half-heartedly throws in a subplot with Ronald Adam's guard trying to persuade his lover to divorce her husband who has escaped to the west that never goes anywhere but does at least get us out of the prison for a while, but it's more or less a two-hander with the two stars on good, but not great form.

No extras on the DVD, but decent picture and sound.

"The Prisoner" is a claustrophic subect as the title would suggest.Throughout history it can be seen how during revolution those that take over are often personally obsessed with the idea of breaking the spirit of their enemies. Notably in the C20th religious people often are earmarked for such attention. this is the theme and plot of the film. It is often a theme or plot in cinema that reoccurs through the decades.
Another but of course updated plot, is that of the biography of Pope John Paul II "Karol - A man who became Pope" only his interrogator is a Communist Komrad Polish Commissar but this fasination of 'spiritual wills battling' is explored wonderfully in "The Prisoner".

For fans of the 30s & 40s British black and white films it is interesting, though unsettling to see Jack Hawkins, in the role of a 'baddie' and the exploration between Hawkins as the Nazi interrogator and Guinness as the prisoner works really well.
The plot is heightened I think, because one is so used to seeing Hawkins as the RN Army or RAF officer a 'good fellow' and it is this which adds a sense and dynamic of extra menace to the plot. As one has to feel perhaps, a little bit like the prisoner must have, when wondering 'how could one man do this to another' and with such civility as interrogators often use along with vicious flashes and with such verve.

It is a haunting film and made in the days when the studios didn't have the remit enforced that 'people need a lift an up at the end - a happy ending' - life isn't like that. Nor is this film.

Yes, the priest is released and has held on but it is not with a sense of 'winning' that we watch him walk to the outside and to his 'freedom' - it is as one becomes, when presented and confined to the energy of evil intent; intimidation and threats, formalised and circulated defamation the realisation is brutal - a man who has survived but now is a completely different man who now carries within him such knowledge from such an experience. An interesting and powerful film but it haunts you. Not a first date after dinner film that is for sure!

Feedback was good. Not much else I can say so pointless being advised x number of words still required. Suggest you do something about your system.