#PrisTweet – April Edition Feature Presentation.
The General
A, B and C
#PrisTweet – April Edition. 4/29.
Attention please:
This Wednesday April 29th at 9 PM EDT marks our April installment of #PrisTweet. We’re about to hit the halfway mark of the series, and this month promises to put the fi in “spy-fi.” This months two episodes take a look at 2 beloved 1960s Sci-Fi Tropes.
First up at 9 PM we have The General.
The Village is treated to a brand new program called Speed Learn, which claims to be able to teach an entire Undergraduate Degree to an individual in a matter of minutes. It’s taught and managed by someone known only as The Professor and sponsored by a mysterious figure known as only The General. Well, at least it’s a nice change of pace from calling everyone a number!
After an escape attempt from the village by The Prof and further interrogation by Colin Gordon’s Number 2, The P discovers a radio with a message denouncing Speed Learn and it’s eventual mind-control capabilities, and subtle homoerotic tension with the radio’s current possessor Number 12. P and 12 vow to discover who The General truly is and to put at stop to it’s antics. It being the keyword, considering The General turns out to be an evil AI, which predates HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey by a couple years. (Fun fact: McGoohan and The Prisoner shared MGM Borehamwood studios with none other than Stanley Kubrick himself during the production of 2001!)
Next up at 10 PM we have Nightmare On The Village with A,B and C.
After The P foils his attempts in the previous episode, The General, Colin Gordon’s Number 2 gets a second chance at breaking Number 6 – this time with mind altering drugs and a machine, which allow him to manipulate Number 6’s DREAMS. With the assistance of Number 14, they program 3 individuals from Number 6’s past to slip into his dreams, aptly named A, B and C, to pump 6 for information regarding his resignation. All of these dreams seem to occur at a fancy dress party, held by Madame Engadine. Always nice to see Black Tie McGoohan in his could-have-been-Bond splendor.
So please, join us on twitter for a Dreamy Party on Wednesday April 29th at 9 PM EDT. Use and follow the hashtag “#PrisTweet.”
Be seeing you!
Sixes and 007s: Patrick McGoohan and The (De)Construction of Spy-Fi’s Golden Age – Part 1.
PART ONE: THE PROTOTYPE.
“They’ve given you a number and taken away your name.”
The above quote is part of the chorus from Johnny Rivers’ hit Secret Agent Man. A song that peaked at the number 3 position on US Billboard Charts in 1966. It was an easy hit – the guitar riff was unforgettable and the lyrical content glamourized a subject that was very en vogue at the time – espionage. Super spies with their cool cars, gadgets and adventures in exotic locals with equally exotic women. Considering the cultural behemoth that it was, it’s reasonable even among the glut of imitators to attribute the song and source of the most prevalent tropes in Spy-Fi Television and Cinema to James Bond. It’s a fair assumption, but it’s not an entirely accurate one. In the case of Secret Agent Man, it’s downright incorrect.
It is true that James Bond creator Ian Fleming struggled to make his character a proper film sensation in the 1950s, barely culminating in a 1954 CBS television production of Casino Royale with Barry Nelson as “Jimmy” Bond. Fleming collaborated with Kevin McClory and Jack Wittingham on a screenplay called James Bond, Secret Agent in 1958. The results of that collaboration are well known and have plenty of commentary. Thankfully due to Fleming’s persistence and input, by 1960, television finally had a proper super spy to call its own.
That secret agent was not James Bond.