‘Prisoner’ May Yet See Release

The British press went a little crazy last August when a London-based official of the ITC Entertainment Group announced that “The Prisoner,” the cult English television series from the 1960s, was in “active development” for a feature motion picture. “Second Coming for the Prisoner,” shouted the Guardian; “Prisoner Fans in Movie Battle,” declared the Cambrian News; “Return Prisoner to the Village, Say Fans,” cried Liverpool’s Daily Post.

One fly tainted the ointment, however: the statement by Frank Ratcliffe, ITC’s international publicity executive, proved premature. Preoccupied with the company’s possible sale to another entertainment company, ITC headquarters in Studio City remained tight-lipped about the project, and in the wake of Ratcliffe’s announcement barely acknowledged that a “Prisoner” script was in the works. The film version of the series, to no one’s surprise, was proving just as problematic as the original.

Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of “The Prisoner”--millions in the United States haven’t, which is a major reason the series’ passage to the big screen has been more laborious than that of “Star Trek,” “The Fugitive” and other television shows gone celluloid.

But “The Prisoner” should become much more familiar soon, for in January the long-simmering romance between ITC and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was finally consummated, and with an unexpected flourish, 88-year-old Sir Lew Grade, the TV pioneer who founded ITC in 1954, was brought back as “chairman for life.” In a sense it was coming full circle, since Sir Lew greenlighted “The Prisoner” series in 1967. PolyGram, in announcing its purchase of ITC, said “The Prisoner” movie, budgeted at $40 million to $60 million, would become the top-priority project at the reinvigorated ITC.

‘T he Prisoner” series was a genuine oddity--”Brave New World” or “1984” with popular sensibilities, an action-adventure novel as conceived by Sartre, or an espionage tale as crafted by Kafka. It consisted of 17 episodes in which a British spy--played by Patrick McGoohan, who also created, produced and wrote much of the series--attempts to escape from the Village, the self-contained, superficially idyllic hamlet in which he has been incarcerated.

Who abducted him? The viewer is never told: all we know is that the McGoohan character, referred to only as No. 6, was kidnaped after his angry resignation from some secret government agency, and that his tormentors want “information.” No. 6 repeatedly asks the identity of No. 1, and shouts, “I am not a number, I am a free man!” but his protests are met with gales of laughter from No. 2, the Village overlord with whom The Prisoner does battle--emotionally, psychologically, intellectually--in each episode.

No. 6 somehow manages to outfox and humiliate No. 2 in most installments, thus ensuring that he will encounter a new foe in the next, and in the series’ finale, No. 6 appears to escape for good--but only after discovering that the long-shrouded No. 1 is . . . himself.

“It’s a program that makes you think,” says Bruce Clark of North Wales, Pa., U.S. coordinator for Six of One, the authoritative “appreciation society,” or fan club, for “The Prisoner.” “There’s never been anything like ‘The Prisoner’--it’s about the numeralization of society, about the way we’re losing our sense of individuality.”

But is the average American ready for such a tale, which has appeared only irregularly over the years in this country (on CBS, PBS and A&E;)?

Possibly. Michael Birnbaum, vice president of ITC and long a champion of “The Prisoner,” has said: “The themes addressed in ‘The Prisoner’ “--alienation, government regulation, loss of individuality, technological and psychological mind control, and so on--”are never more relevant than they are today.”

Harrison Ford, Kevin Costner, Alec Baldwin and Daniel Day-Lewis have been mentioned for the lead role, but Mel Gibson is currently rumored to be the favorite, having starred with the unconventional and reclusive McGoohan in the upcoming film “Braveheart.”

Last year, shooting of the film was rumored to be set for 1995, and probably in the United Kingdom. “It’s hard to say about the timing, but it’s being fast-tracked,” Birnbaum says. “It’s a very hard nut to crack--at once high-concept and existential, both commercial and a thinking-man’s movie.”

Regarding the possible involvement of McGoohan, Birnbaum says, “We would very much like him to be part of the creative process, maybe writing a script or a treatment,” adding that details are being worked out.

“Prisoner” fans have long been skeptical, and even downright hostile, to the idea of a Hollywood-produced remake. They may change their tune, however, now that Sir Lew is involved; it was he, after all, who gave McGoohan total creative control over the original “Prisoner,” having come to respect him while producing the series “Danger Man” (“Secret Agent” in the United States) that made McGoohan, for a time, the best-paid actor in Britain. Even with the tender loving care of Grade and McGoohan, however, many “Prisoner” aficionados feel lightning isn’t likely to strike twice.

F or 17 years, the Six of One club has been holding its annual convention in the Village--actually, an eccentric Welsh seaside resort called Portmeirion and best known, its role as a television location aside, for its pottery--and at last summer’s meeting the ITC movie was the major topic of conversation. Between re-enacting in full costume a scene in which No. 6 watches a man hospitalized for making an unauthorized move in a human chess game, and holding bull sessions noting the similarities between the Village’s police state and modern Britain, participants bemoaned “The Prisoner’s” impending Americanization.

The accusation loses some of its bite when you learn that McGoohan is an American citizen born in Astoria, Queens, and now lives in Santa Monica, but you get the idea: “There’s a feeling it might be ‘Terminator II: In the Village,’ ” as Clark puts it.

A cartoon in a Six of One magazine summed up the widespread fear: Arnold Schwarzenegger agrees to play No. 6 after being reassured that he can “machine-gun a lot of people at the end.”

That scenario, in the light of Grade’s comeback, now seems unthinkable. But it’s also true that the fate of a cinematic “Prisoner” won’t turn on the opinions of an appreciation society with just 3,000 members worldwide--a society so self-conscious it avoids calling itself a fan club, mindful of “The Prisoner’s” consistent emphasis on individuality.