The Prisoner On Blu-Ray! Neo-Noir, Scorsese's Faith & More

[@richardhart9204]

The Prisoner really spoke to me as a teenager, and had a profound impact on the person I am today, at the age of 59.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Not surprised. Freedom and the price of it is an eternal theme.

[@PhiloYT1]

I rewatched the entire Prisoner series a few years ago. I think it was here on KZbin. They hold up really well, probably because they are set in an isolated locale. I agree, Terry. He was John Drake.

[@terrytalksmovies]

100%

[@FukugawaUtake]

lots of interesting movies, I might need to check some of them out one day! I've got to get the Prisoner on Bluray, I have it on DVD but its definitely worth getting in 1080. I really need to check out Danger Man/Secret Agent Man since it feels like the two are related.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Both series are really binge-able. So many good character actors show up.

[@KarlBunker]

Quite a haul! Sorry to hear about Middle Aged Geek Girl getting food poisoning 20 hears ago! I had a fun distraction trying to identify the poster peeking out of the lower right of your video. Finally tracked it down to _Les Maitresses de Dracula_ with help from ChatGPT. 😄

[@terrytalksmovies]

Yep. I have a LOT of random movie posters around the house.

[@DavidPaulMorgan]

I remember The Prisoner (I think) from the original 60s showing. I know we visited Portmeirion as a child and have visited often since. It's probably the most unusual and striking series unlike anything else. Closest, I think, was eventually Twin Peaks. Last Temptation... we watch every Easter. It's just a superb film - very moving and superbly photographed. Excellent performances and a commentary on human nature. Love it.

[@terrytalksmovies]

It's definitely in the top 5 of 1960s cult tv series.

[@SneakyNinjaDog]

Secretary is a great movie in my opinion. It approaches the subject w little or no judgement.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Yes. Zero kink-shaming and it's a movie with a heart.

[@williamblakehall5566]

Secretary is worth an occasional return. Glad you're catching up on your Mamet. Neo-noir is tricky -- noble earnest efforts, but they don't always land. Thanks, Ter.

[@terrytalksmovies]

My pleasure, William. Neo-Noir is hit and miss but there are gems among the dross.

[@RamZar50]

*The Prisoner* (1967-1968) is absolutely one of the best TV series of all time. I have it on DVD from 2001 and as a digital purchase on Apple iTunes. The Blu-ray collection is very nice but pricey. Be Seeing You!

[@terrytalksmovies]

Thanks! The box set has a crazy amount of extras. ViaVision definitely has a lot of Prisoner fans there.

[@RamZar50]

@@terrytalksmovies It’s a cult classic with an ever-increasing fan base. I have a bunch of books on The Prisoner and music CD of the soundtrack. One of the best openings of any series with the uptempo theme. Be Seeing You!

[@RamZar50]

@@terrytalksmovies I checked my old emails for *The Prisoner* sets I've purchased in the past. The DVD set was purchased in October 2001 for $19.18 shipped and the Apple iTunes digital set was purchased in April 2017 for $29.99. The very nice Imprint Limited Edition set goes for about $120 shipped. I'll wait for it to go on sale. My DVD set from 2001 is on Amazon for $300! Nuts!

[@RamZar50]

@@terrytalksmovies I purchased my *DVD* set in October 2001 for $19.18 shipped and now it's still on Amazon for $300! Nuts! I purchased the *digital* copy from Apple iTunes in April 2017 for $29.99. The very nice Blu-ray set from [Imprint] Television in Australia is about $116+tax so I'll wait for it to go on sale around Thanksgiving.

[@JohnMinehan-lx9ts]

My parents were deeply into US Politics and, back in 1972, my whole family stayed up to watch George McGovern's acceptance speech at the 1972 Democratic Convention at 0300 or 0400 (I no longer remember why it was delayed that long, but it was part of many things that went badly wrong for him that year.) In any case, the local ABC Affiliate showed the episode of The Prisoner that was a sort of a Western parody. (It was not stranger than anything else that was happening . . . .). I assume the guy in charge of the station decided that their was no sense in signing off and just showed something to fill the time before CPT Kangaroo (No Australian stereotype intended, it was the first thing generally shown.)

[@RamZar50]

My personal take on Neo-Noir Movies is more like the following: - Chinatown (1974) - Taxi Driver (1976) - Thief (1981) - Body Heat (1981) - Blow Out (1981) - Blade Runner (1982) - Blood Simple (1984) - Blue Velvet (1986) - Pulp Fiction (1994) - The Usual Suspects (1995) - Fargo (1996) - L.A. Confidential (1997) - Memento (2000) - Mulholland Drive (2001) - Femme Fatale (2002) - Minority Report (2002) - Oldboy (2003) - Collateral (2004) - No Country for Old Men (2007) - Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) - Drive (2011) - Gone Girl (2014) - Nightcrawler (2014)

[@terrytalksmovies]

Good list there !

[@r0kus]

Very interesting set of movies and TV. Most interesting to me is _The Prisoner_ box set. You're right about not bothering with a 4k of it if it comes out. It is very unlikely that 4k would add anything to an old show shot for television.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Absolutely. This edition is so chockers with interesting extras, there's nothing else to add.

[@Mark-lx6xj]

Dem bones, the last episode of The prisoner totally surreal.

[@terrytalksmovies]

The whole series is wonderfully surrealistic.

[@dogzdad123]

You’re one lucky fellow…it seems that every haul you procure, is a winner. As far as Patrick M…..with “Danger Man” and “Prisoner” in his resume, he was type-casted as a “spy”. For example, his role in “Ice Station Zebra”?????

[@terrytalksmovies]

I do select the movies I get sent from a Google Doc the distributors provide. Anything I don't think I can do justice to, I don't get. There's an upcoming boxset of movies from a director who is 100% repugnant to me, morally. I didn't tick for that one because I don't want to promote his work.

[@dogzdad123]

@@terrytalksmovies OK…you’ve peaked my curiosity…who is that “repugnant” director?

[@brianartillery]

Could that 'Repugnant' director be the guy who directed 'Repulsion', by any chance, he asked knowingly? 😆😆😆

[@garfieldsmith332]

Only the last two episodes of Dangerman were filmed in colour. Kiroshi and Shina Shinda. They were "stitched" together and released theatrically in some countries under the title Koroshi. In The Prisoner episode The Girl Who Was Death, the Bowler at the cricket was played by an actor name John Drake.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Danger Man really hits. Gritty and cool without needing the thirst traps of the James Bond films.

[@garfieldsmith332]

@@terrytalksmovies Agree. A great series. Solid stories, not a lot of fancy gadgets, over the top villains, comedic characters. Solid believable espionage.

[@kevjones5047]

Got to see the Prisoner in the early 70s 10 -11 yrs old... mind blown.

[@terrytalksmovies]

It still has that mindblowing quality about it.

[@thomasromanelli2561]

I have always loved the Prisoner, and I do recommend following the alternate sequence of viewing that has been advocated by other fans that essentially breaks up the episodes into 3 thematic arcs as follows: Futility: Arrival-Dance of the Dead-Free for All-Checkmate-Chimes of Big Ben-Many Happy Returns. No.6 is imprisoned and confronts the near-hopelessness of escape, and this is a test of his will; Resistance: Schizoid Man-The General- A,B & C-Living in Harmony-Do Not Foresake Me, OMD-It's Your Funeral. No. 6 begins to map the vulnerabilities of the Village and its operators, and discovers that they are not infallible; Subversion & Escape(?): A Change of Mind-Hammer Into Anvil- The Lady WWD- Once Upon A Time-Fallout. A remarkable turn of the power structure within the village and No. 6's ability to project his own agency, he comes to realize that he can escape, but begins to disassemble the Village from within (creating doubt among the warders about who No.6 may actually be in the very moody Hammer Into Anvil), culminating in such disruption that he is exposed to Degree Absolute to test/break him. What, exactly, happens after that remains open to considerable interpretation. Thank you, Terry! 🖖

[@terrytalksmovies]

My pleasure! The series really works. It was so influential.

[@erikbrobyn9763]

Love the hat! It's noteworthy that Secretary was made into a love story for the film, quite contrary to Mary Gaitskill's original short story, which was a lot more disturbing and deviant. It was originally published in her breakthrough short story collection Bad Behavior.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Yep. The love story lands really well and is incredibly feminist and sex-positive. Too many movies are critical of kink.

[@tomt55]

I missed many of the films you covered in this video. I added them to my list. I really enjoy your videos!

[@terrytalksmovies]

Thanks, Tom. I appreciate the support.

[@timeliebe]

SECRETARY is one of the best movies about BDSM out there, because it doesn't demonize it or mock those into it, and the main characters are flawed but sympathetic. It also shows a woman finding herself and her strength as a sexual submissive in a believable and sex-positive manner, which is not something generally shown in popular culture.

[@terrytalksmovies]

It's really kink positive.

[@brianartillery]

It's a rather sweet, positive movie about what happens when a lonely masochist meets a lonely sadist. You'd never think that this sort of subject matter could be life-affirming and, indeed, charming, but Secretary manages it. It's a lovely movie, which, to me has a very similar 'odd couple' vibe as the weird, and absolutely wonderful 'Harold & Maude'.

[@Randall1001]

Number Six was absolutely John Drake. I've got much of Danger Man on DVD, and there are SO many parallels in the two characters and how they relate to their jobs and their superiors. And then as I recall in one of the official Prisoner novelizations from the 60s, Number Six is referred to as "Drake" at one point. Although I can't confirm that. The real question is... which side ran the Village? I'd vote for it being "our" side of course. But then... it was really just an allegory all along.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Maybe both sides ran the Village as a collaborative storage place for errant agents.

[@Randall1001]

@@terrytalksmovies I've thought that as well. But the hints given were never hugely consistent. But it would work with the whole "down deep both sides are the same" thing.

[@johns950]

I learned about The Prisoner in the 1980's. Found it in a book at the time about classic TV. I rang around the Movieland and other video shops around Adelaide, asking if they had any copies, had to travel for some of them. They were two episodes on one VHS tape. Managed to see all episodes. The only copy of the conclusion/finale I could find was on Beta, so I hired a Beta VCR for 7 days so I could watch it. No question, The Prisoner is the king of cult TV, name checked in popular culture including The Simpsons, Hi Fidelity and Killing Zoe, that I'm aware of.

[@terrytalksmovies]

If you can find them, the novelizations of The Prisoner are really cool and interesting, too.

[@JohnMinehan-lx9ts]

Always good to find new things and think about things you have a general interest in differently.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Absolutely. Different viewpoints always teach us.

[@MrC-o5y]

The Prisoner is great.Like the singing detective and Twin Peaks

[@terrytalksmovies]

Yep, it's an iconic tv series that stretched the boundaries.

[@m.e.3862]

Really like Homicide. It was the movie that got me interested in Mamet. Minimal budget but great dialogue and acting about a guy who can't escape who he is (my interpretation). That prisoner box is great. One of my coworkers was so upset at the new management that he hung up a map of the Village at work as a statement of how much he hated the new bosses and their new policies. I think I was the only one who got the joke lol

[@terrytalksmovies]

I have a map of The Village from my visit to Portmeirion. It's a great one!

[@timeliebe]

"Oh, that Gene Hackman! He's good in everything...." While MST3K made a running gag of it because all Hackman got to do in MAROONED (SPACE TRAVELERS was the re-edit MST3K got their hands on) was sit in the middle chair and look worried, he really WAS better than either Richard Crenna or James Franciscus, given they had just as little to do! When I was taking acting classes, we had an exercise where one student would have to sit in a chair and do nothing while two other students improv'd a scene around them. The point of the exercise was to react to what was going on without using voice, gestures, or even obvious facial expressions-to take away all the "crutches" actors use while still showing the audience who the character was and what they were thinking. It's a lot harder than it sounds, and requires being able to listen and react without obviously doing either-if you weren't "in the moment", the scene would become either unintentionally comical because your reactions didn't match what your co-stars were doing, or dull because you were thinking of lunch or going out for a beer later rather than what was going on around you. Alec Guinness had a genius for that kind of "do less" acting, and while Gene Hackman could certainly "go big" (and often did when the part called for it, or he was bored at how stupid the movie he was in was!), he was likewise a master of letting the audience know what was going on inside his character's head without making it obvious.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Hackman was even great in small early roles like Banning, with Robert Wagner. The character's self-disgust when other characters are talking to him is really apparent. Love that kind of acting.

[@revdrjon]

By chance scored a copy of the general release of Last Temptation on Blu-ray in a little church op-shop this morning!

[@terrytalksmovies]

Bonus! Well done, mate.

[@davidpirkola1547]

I must be satisfied w/ my Prisoner DVD set.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Format doesn't matter all that much. The extras are sweet but ultimately, you have the 17 episodes of the series in a really watchable format.

[@kevjones5047]

McHattie! Canadian treasure. Last temptation, also has an amazing soundtrack by Peter Gabriel, I also have his album of sources for last temptation, all sorts of music from several cultures .

[@terrytalksmovies]

McHattie was also great in Pontypool and a lot of other flicks, too.

[@grantman7181]

the only movie that's missing in the after dark set is Matt dillions drugstore cowboy Terry thanks good sets

[@terrytalksmovies]

My pleasure, Grant.

[@taker68]

I've seen Secretary, good film. I recall Rambling Rose and Fresh, movies I put on my mental list to get to someday but still haven't (very long list). I went into a theater in 1988 with protestors next to us to see Last Temptation. I saw Kundun after seeing the similar themed film Seven Years in Tibet so I felt Kundun was more austere. Silence I liked but felt it was a bit too long and I got the point soon enough. Maybe I need a rewatch of all 3. Homocide is really good. Love The Prisoner, I have the old DVD set from years ago, would love to upgrade if I can. Be seeing you.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Thanks. This month's releases are a really interesting group of movies.

[@fuzmanchu]

If you ever watch it, it will be interesting to me to see what you think of "Silence". Scorsese's mom's meatball is too rich for my taste, sorta like "Goodfellas", she uses a 50/50 beef/lard mix.

[@terrytalksmovies]

I will be checking out Silence.

[@nealepaterson3496]

Last Temptation is a curious film. It spent a long time in its various attempts to get made, and I feel that Scorsese rather overthought it in the process. It's a real curate's egg of a movie. Even at the time of its release I recall a certain disappointment at the fact that its Jesus was another blonde white guy (everyone thought he would cast Pacino), although Dafoe is undoubtedly very good. The highlights for me are Keitel as Judas in a curly red wig, speaking in a Bronx accent and beating up Jesus like in the Three Stooges; and Harry Dean Stanton playing St Paul like a Southern Bible Belt shyster. I wish Scorsese had leant into this anachronistic comedy rather more. The Peter Gabriel soundtrack is fantastic, and kickstarted the whole modern 'World Music' scene. It would make an interesting double bill with Jhon [sic] Huston's Wise Blood - which I consider to be one of the greatest and most truly weird and beautiful 'films of faith' ever made, that went to places Last Temptation didn't dare. I feel that what elevates Wise Blood above Last Temptation is that Huston was an unashamed atheist, and ironically that gave him a better understanding of true faith than Scorsese's slightly tepid lapsed Catholicism...

[@terrytalksmovies]

I keep hearing good things about Wise Blood. I'll have to check it out.

[@timothybarnett1006]

_Dirty Pretty Things_ is a great watch, doesn't pull any punches with great performances from Ejiofor & Tautou, script from Steven Knight, creator of _Peaky Blinders_ Apart from hazy memories of watching the 80s Channel 4 screening as a child, VHS rentals was my first experience of _The Prisoner,_ have it on DVD and having seen the price, it's not high on my list.

[@terrytalksmovies]

The Prisoner plays well for adults. Keep looking around eBay you may see people flogging off their DVD versions as they upgrade. It happens a lot.

[@marqsee7948]

would be a funny in-joke to have no disc one in there, start them as disc two and on. 'Where is number one?'

[@terrytalksmovies]

Nooooo! 😉

[@marqsee7948]

@@terrytalksmovies hey, your response has a 'translate to English' tab. Is Australian English really that different to algorithms? It does translate to 'Nooooo!', but without a noticeable accent.

[@davidhealey3138]

I think the issue people had with Last Temptation of Christ was it portrayed Judas as a sort of hero and making Christ look too milquetoast

[@marqsee7948]

and perhaps the explicit violence and gore. No religious person I know watched it because of exactly that, the sensationalism of torture.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Both valid choices, however.

[@davidhealey3138]

@@marqsee7948 The same could be said of Mel Gibsos film. Too violent

[@marqsee7948]

@@davidhealey3138 oops, that's the one I was thinking of. Now to refresh my memory of Last Temptation... Oh yeah! Definitely the other one, the Passion of the Christ. I do like Willem Dafoe but don't remember scrutinizing that one in a while, so I retract my initial reaction, and apologize for crucifying the wrong christ. film.

[@williamwilson5127]

It would be next to impossible to find a behind the scenes photo of Patrick McGoohan not smoking. He would chain smoke during TV interviews. I don't think any TV or movie scene he ever appeared in dragged or wasted time, he needed to spark another one up.

[@terrytalksmovies]

So many people in the 60s had that. I remember so many nicotine stained fingers in the adults around me.

[@damianmagee1581]

I couldn't get into the Last Temptation of Christ. Kudan is very interesting film well worth watching. The Silence, which I read the book, the author is a Japanese catholic very interesting. The film, second version, there was Japanese version made in the 1970's. I found the film some interesting aspects how the hidden Christians in Japan helping the priests, also how Shogun government destroying Christianity in Japan. This is one interest about history of Japan. I'm going say too much about the film until you see it. I have first vol After dark. I have Network version of the blu ray, transfers were great. The extras are same and different.

[@terrytalksmovies]

Films of Faith aren't my particular favourites, but I like Scorsese having the guts to do a different version of the Jesus thing.