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Monday 4 May 2015

The Mystique of The Prisoner!

   There are certain mysteries within ‘the Prisoner’ that will probably remain a mystery. Although having said that, because of the restored film of ‘the Prisoner’ and through ‘High Definition’ many visual mystiques of ‘the Prisoner’ have been solved.
   Two such mystiques which I have attempted to solve have to do with the machine. The first is the sheet of paper fed into the machine by the Professor, which I have taken to be a page from the script for ‘The General,’ used as a prop. Or perhaps not, but the late actor Peter Howell does appear to  typing something on that sheet of paper, but what was he typing? The machine itself looks like a photocopier, well it is. It is in fact the Xerox 813, the first desktop printer.
    As for the text on the sheet of paper, for a while now I’ve been attempting to enhance the picture to the best of my ability, but cannot actually read the text. But then I do not have ‘the Prisoner’ in either ‘High Definition,’ or Blu-ray. However perhaps someone with the series in either of those formats might be able to read the text, if clear enough.
   The second mystique is the text printed by the teleprinter in ‘Dance of the Dead.’ The machine is actually working in the scene, so it must be typing text sent from some place. However the text is even smaller making it even more difficult to read! If the first is solvable, the second may not be, as well as another subject I’ve been attempting to discern for a while, but without success.

Be seeing you

3 comments:

  1. I have an image of the page that was inserted into the computer in "The General" in my study of the episode at http://prisoner.popapostle.com/html/episodes/P67/The-General.htm. It's just barely readable on the Blu-ray edition. The page appears to be nothing more than the minutes of some society meeting! Feel free to use the image in your blog should you wish.

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    1. Hello Enik1138,
      I've taken a look at the image in your studies into 'The General' I really must set time aside to read your studies. I did read 'The General' and that's very good.The text certainly appears to be minutes from a social club meeting, concerning the purchase of a dartboard, and the treasurers report. I always thought that the late actor Peter Howell was typing something, but I cannot see him typing a page from social club report, unless he just made it up. But if its a genuine page from the minutes of a social club's meeting, perhaps its from a social club attached to Elstree film studios, if there was ever such a thing. Otherwise where did it come from, persuambly one of the production crew provided it as a prop.
      Thank you for the very kind offer of allowing me to use the image on my blog, I shall bear it in mind.

      Very best regards
      David
      BCNU

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    2. Hello Enik1138, the Portmeirion building still under construction during the shooting of The Prisoner is Villa Winch. - BCNU!

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