Why 'The Prisoner' Endures  

By JOHN FUND

PARK CITY, Utah -- Most of the people attending the Sundance Film Festival here weren't even born when the cult TV series "The Prisoner" first aired in Britain and the U.S. more than 40 years ago. But Sundance's celebration of independent filmmaking was filled with people who mourned the death last week of Patrick McGoohan, the 80-year-old actor who both created and starred in the quirky story of Prisoner Number Six, a spy trying to escape a remote seaside "village" where everyone is known only by a number and where he is told that "by hook or by crook" the reasons for his sudden resignation as an agent will be extracted from him. No wonder Mr. McGoohan will be missed -- he was a truly independent artist.

Mr. McGoohan came up with the rarest kind of TV show: a thought-provoking thriller that raises more questions than it answers. Its cult status rivals that of "Star Trek," and its popularity is so enduring that a big-budget remake of the series will air later this year on the AMC network in the U.S. and on ITV in Britain. In fact, just last week AMC launched a Web site (http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/) that allows anyone to view the 17 episodes of the original series. Each of them opens with a prologue in which Mr. McGoohan's character tells the village's administrator, known as Number Two: "I am not a number! I am a free man!" When he asks who Number One is, he is only told that "You are Number Six."

View Full Image

Photo by CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images

Patrick McGoohan's Number Six, at right, in a surreal moment.

In every episode, Number Six resists attempts to pry information out of him, but his own efforts to escape are also thwarted -- often by a menacing weather balloon called "Rover." As each Number Two fails to break him, that man is replaced by another. The Village itself is filled with people who "know too much" and live a comfortable existence so long as they conform. Various episodes explored profound issues of privacy, individualism and mind control. The whole series struck me as Mr. McGoohan's unique take on George Orwell's novel "1984," but with a sense of humor.

Although the role somewhat typecast him, Mr. McGoohan always identified with his best-known character and his fierce independence. In 2000, he even reprised the character in a memorable episode of "The Simpsons." "The village is a place that is trying to destroy theindividual by every means possible, trying to break his spirit, so that he accepts that he is Number Six and will live there happily as Number Six for ever after," he once explained. "And this is the one rebel that they can't break."

Mr. McGoohan delighted in being a rebel in his own career. Born in New York, his Irish parents moved him back home as a toddler. As a young man in Britain, Mr. McGoohan became a chicken farmer but took up acting after falling ill. He was soon much in demand and in the 1960s was Britain's best-paid TV actor playing the role of secret agent John Drake in a series in which he never fired a gun or seduced a woman. When he was offered the starring role in the first James Bond movie, Mr. McGoohan, a staunch Catholic, turned down the part both for moral reasons and because he preferred a character with more brains than brawn.

Eventually tiring of the John Drake role, Mr. McGoohan was able to persuade his British boss to bankroll a series in which a Drake-like character would explore more meaty themes. He delivered a libertarian classic, somewhat marred by the hurriedly written final episode in which Mr. McGoohan's character leads the Village's other inhabitants in a successful revolt. He finally confronts Number One, who is wearing a false face. When that is yanked off, a monkey mask is revealed. And when that is also pulled off, the face of Mr. McGoohan himself is seen.

As Mr. McGoohan told close friends, the implication is that Number Six had willed himself to think like a prisoner, limiting his options even while he sees himself as the ultimate rebel. The answer given in every episode to his question about who Number One is thus could have a double meaning. Perhaps it was meant as: "You are, Number Six."

Little is known about "The Prisoner" remake, although a strange resort village in Namibia was used as the backdrop rather than Portmeirion, the bizarre Welsh resort that figured in the original series. But the makers of the new series promise it will also explore privacy issues, man's place vis-à-vis government, his nature as an individual, and his relationship to himself and, indeed, reality.

Mr. McGoohan's number having, in a sense, come up too early will mean he won't see the remake he inspired. But he left behind not just many memorable screen performances but a series whose individualistic message is likely to hold viewers for generations to come.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com. An earlier version of this essay appeared in Political Diary, an e-newsletter published by The Wall Street Journal's editorial department.