The Prisoner (1955)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Peter Glenville

Writer:

Bridget Boland (writer)

Release Date:

11 December 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Which One is the Prisoner?

Plot:

A cardinal is arrested for treason against the state. As a prince of his church, and a popular hero of this people...

Awards:

Nominated for 5 BAFTA Film Awards. Another 2 wins

Cast

Alec Guinness	...	The Cardinal
Jack Hawkins	...	The Interrogator
Wilfrid Lawson	...	The Jailer
Kenneth Griffith	...	The Secretary
Jeanette Sterke	...	The Girl
Ronald Lewis	...	The Guard
Raymond Huntley	...	The General
Mark Dignam	...	The Governor
Gerard Heinz	...	The Doctor

Runtime:

Netherlands:95 min | USA:91 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:U (video rating) (1997)

Company:

Facet Productions

Trivia:

Deemed suitably controversial enough to be banned from both the Venice and Cannes Film Festivals.

Quotes:

[Speaking about the "art" of interrogation]
The Interrogator: It's a pity it's a sport that has to be played with living men.

Movie Connections:

Version of "ITV Sunday Night Drama: The Prisoner" (1963)

"The Result Of Human Weakness"

Alec Guinness got to repeat one of the roles he did on the London stage with the screen adaption of Bridget Boland's The Prisoner which was directed by Peter Glenville who also did the original stage production. It was one of Guinness's personal favorites among his parts because of the Catholicism of the actor.

In fact the role really hit close, maybe too close to home, because like the character he plays in the film, Guinness was a child of a prostitute mother who escaped into acting as a refuge from a really bad childhood. Just as his character the Cardinal of an unnamed Balkan country now ruled by a Marxist dictatorship went into the church as a way of rising above the station he was born in life.

Jack Hawkins plays the state inquisitor, a psychologist by training who probes and finds the weakness in Guinness and uses it to get a confession of treason out of him. Pride and vanity are the trickiest of human sins, we're all guilty of it in one way or another.

In making this film Guinness, Boland, and Glenville were all adamant about keeping the main character Catholic and not some Christian preacher of an unnamed denomination as what the producers originally wanted to do, the better for a broader appeal they reasoned. Catholicism and the special burdens and duties it places on its clergy is precisely what makes the story valid.

According to a recent biography of Alec Guinness though it was never going to be anyone else but him in the role of the Cardinal, Noel Willman had done the inquisitor part on stage. Several people like John Gielgud and Peter Bull were considered for that part before Hawkins was signed for the role.

If the subject matter does seem familiar, the role is obviously modeled on Josef Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary. And director Peter Glenville would have his greatest screen triumph in Becket, the story of another troublesome priest several centuries earlier.

Guinness does lay bare his soul in this film. For fans of Alec Guinness this film is a must.