The Prisoner (1955)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Purely Joyful Movie!

just watch it!

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Interesting play by Bridget Boland loosely based on the notorious fake trial of Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary after a month of brainwashing by the communists in 1948. Alec Guinness was himself a catholic and is really living out his catholicism in this great performance of the live dissection of a catholic priest, extremely actual in today's situation with the church immersed in scandals of pedophilia. Bridget Boland makes a very different story from the Mindszenty drama, making the interrogator (Jack Hawkins) an equal to the Cardinal as opponent and prosecutor and seems to be winning but actually loses in the end against the honesty of the Cardinal realizing his own futility, while the prosecutor- interrogator as a victor is the real loser and takes the consequences. Fascinating drama, which should be returned to again and again. In reality, Cardinal Mindszenty's brainwash process only lasted for less than a month and was chiefly conducted by the use of drugs and physical exhaustion. The only parallel torture that Alec Guinness is exposed to is forced insomnia. He is imprisoned for longer than three months with only private talks with the interrogator as a method and finally released, when the "state" thinks it has won by ruining his reputation and exposing him as a fraud, while Cardinal Mindszenty was sentenced for life. The film was made in 1955, the year after saw the Hungarian revolt, and Cardinal Mindszenty was then set free and lived a long life, even writing books and his memoirs. He is still one of the most important icons of Hungary and will remain so. His shrine is at the ancient basilica of Esztergom north of Budapest, a very beautiful place by the Danube.

It is difficult to understand why the producers thought that this talky snail pace drama was more appropriate to the cinema than TV.Didn't cinemas already have enough problems without screening this hall clearing feature.In fact the only reason that I watched it was to see one of my favourite actors,Wilfred Lawson.there sure enough he was acting his socks off whilst Alec Guiness was doing his silent bit.He lights up every scene he appears in.He has this funny knack of starting each sentence on a high note and working his way down.As for the rest of the film,sorry to say it is a total bore.Jack Hawkins was always watchable but Alec Guiness I find a little of him goes a long way.Guiness is not necessarily good for you.

Though the wonderful Wilfred Lawson gives a good turn as a jailer, this is basically a two-man show, based on a play. The two men are fine actors: Alec Guinness, as the beloved Cardinal arrested by the state in a generic Eastern European Cold War setting; and Jack Hawkins, as the state inquisitor, trying to coerce the Cardinal into making untrue confessions for a show trial.Both men are brilliant, though Guinness is perhaps too impenetrable, not only for his inquisitors, but for the audience. Hawkins' character and Guinness's worked together in the Resistance against the Nazis; since then, Hawkins has become a high Communist official trying to eradicate the church from public life.At first, the movie seems like a cat-and-mouse game between two fanatics, though erudite and educated fanatics, one believing in the church and the other in the ultimate power of the state. Hawkins keeps his well-practiced geniality, though, while Guinness, under mental torture (Hawkins knew Guinness had suffered physical torture under the Nazis and was inured to it) begins to show cracks.While the movie is hardly a cliff-hanger, and doesn't discuss religion or even totalitarianism in any great depth, the performances by the leads are intense, and worth watching for the acting alone, even though one may be puzzled by what it's all about.

This film is often overlooked but if you can find it, it is well worth your while. Adapted from a stage play it is admittedly slow and talky, but it does challenge the intellect. Guiness and Hawkins are brilliant as a churchman consumed with self doubt and a zealot consumed with the state. Their battle of wits forms the crux of this many layered work. A rather pale love story added to the screen play simply detracts from the films power. This is a film that will challenge you to think. It requires work on the part of the viewer and, as a result, is not everyone's cup of tea. Any fan of great acting shouldn't miss it.