The story takes place in some unnamed country in Eastern Europe, with characters likewise unidentified in the credits (though some are named in the film). As the story opens, The Cardinal (Alec Guinness) is arrested for "treason against the state." Aware of his influence as a popular religious leader and war hero, and fearing martyrdom, government leaders decide instead to discredit him. They assign The Interrogator (Jack Hawkins) to get him to crack, to confess to crimes he never committed, to wear him down psychologically to the point where he'd willingly appear before the public courts and destroy his own name. Most of the film depicts the cardinal's losing battle and his gradual breakdown, despite his great intelligence and enormous will, and the interrogator's subtle skill.

The picture is based on a play by Bridget Boland, who also wrote the screenplay. It's essentially a study of two strong-willed people keenly aware of the other's tactics. The cardinal had survived torture at the hands of the Gestapo, while the interrogator had been a doctor before the change in government.

The picture is both imaginative and clumsy. Director Peter Glenville and cinematographer Reginald H. Wyer offer an array of striking, austere camera work outside the two-character scenes, while the interrogations understandably focus on the two lead performances. The church sequence that opens the film is excellent, with Guinness carefully passed a note warning him of his imminent arrest. Conversely, there's some thuddingly obvious symbolism here and there involving chess pieces, mirrors, and an especially clumsy sketch by the interrogator of a spider catching the cardinal in its web.

Guinness, without a toupee and placid in appearance, looking rather like a boiled egg, is moderately indulgent here, especially against Jack Hawkins's understated performance. Though primarily a two-character piece, Wilfred Lawson (Alice in Wonderland) nearly steals the show as the gravelly-voiced Jailer, while Kenneth Griffith (later an actor and writer on that other Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan) is appropriately creepy as Hawkins's all-too-eager disciple. However, a romantic subplot with Ronald Lewis (Mr. Sardonicus) and Jeanette Sterke is almost tastelessly inappropriate.

Leaving the country and (most of) its characters unnamed, The Prisoner comes off as dated instead of universal, presenting a generic 1984 world as with almost no shading at all. (Though an American adaptation of the material would probably literally have none, and be more overtly anticommunist than this is.)

Video & Audio

Columbia/TriStar has given The Prisoner a good transfer using only so-so film elements. The picture is rather dupey, with a lot of white speckling throughout. The DVD is 16:9 anamorphic with a 1.77:1 ratio. British films of the period generally were framed for 1.66:1, but this appears to have been made in association with Columbia, and shot for 1.85:1. This makes sense given that ratio was Columbia's standard by 1955. The mono sound, like the image, is only fair. To its credit, Columbia/TriStar still consistently puts more subtitle options on its catalog titles than anyone this side of Ruscico. The Prisoner offers English, Japanese, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Korean.

Extras

Alas, the only extras are trailers, for The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Gandhi, but none for The Prisoner. One can only imagine how a studio head as crassly commercial as Harry Cohn could have sold a picture like this.

Parting Thoughts

Though sincerely made, in the end The Prisoner lacks the universality and timelessness (and timeliness) it's clearly shooting for. Still, acting students should seek it out. If nothing else, the picture is a testament to Alec Guinness's enormous range, especially when one considers that after playing a cardinal under torture, his next part was as the eccentric criminal in the classic comedy The Ladykillers. How tickled he must have been.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Los Angeles and Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes The Emperor and the Wolf -- The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. He is presently writing a new book on Japanese cinema for Taschen.