Number Six knows the REAL truth about the balloons over America...

 

OBSERVATION: The Prisoner "Chimes of Big Ben" Ship Painting

Ever since The Prisoner first aired on television in 1967… FIFTY FOUR YEARS AGO… people have been arguing whether or not the main character, Number Six, was actually John Drake, aka Danger Man and/or the Secret Agent. 

Personally, I lean toward the opinion YES, Six is Drake… UNLESS the two characters were simply just that similar to Patrick McGoohan himself.

I am not into long, drawn out arguments on ANY topic, especially ones where there are only a handful of people who could ever settle things. There may not even be that many, since we no longer have McGoohan to ask. Does his wife Joan know? Probably, but I bet she won’t tell, either. Maybe some day his daughters will spill the beans.

I am rather new to the Prisoner world, and recently fell into the what-does-it-all-mean trap when I began to wonder why a massive copy of a painting depicting a sea battle was so prominently featured in the Prisoner episode “The Chimes of Big Ben”.

Six and Nadia have escaped the Village and are in an office Six "knows very well" in London, apparently that of Fotheringay, played by Richard Wattis, who was one of John Drake’s bosses in the first incarnation of Danger Man (... so why does Fotheringay leave Six alone with the colonel if it is his office and he is senior enough to know of Six's reappearance?). There are quite a few ship-related items on the shelves. Largest is a big print of a sea
battle. You can’t help but see the thing!

Now, Sir Francis Drake was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, naval officer, and politician. So was that artwork of a Drake sea battle? Hence a hint to Six being Drake?

Using various online reverse-search tools, I discovered that the original painting was painted in 1799 by Philip de Loutherbourg. It is called “The Battle of Camperdown” and does not depict Francis Drake, but a battle between Admiral Adam Duncan and Dutch ships. The painting measures 5x7 feet.

A black & white engraved print was made by James Fittler in 1801. It is this print that is depicted behind Number Six.

And so my theory that all of the office’s nautical doo-dads were a hat tip to “Drake” seems to be “blown out of the water”. Still… the prop people put an awful lot of ships and things on that set…

No doubt, Prisoner fans have already beat this dead horse senseless after FIVE DECADES…

Now.......... what's the deal with THIS painting??

Philip James De Loutherbourg, The Battle of Camperdown (1799)
Photo © Tate
CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported)
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/de-loutherbourg-the-battle-of-camperdown-t01451

OBSERVATION: Number Six & Captain Kangaroo Sporting PRISONER Jackets

While not exactly the same, discovering that Cpt. Kangaroo had a red jacket similar to Number Six's was a bit of a shock!  I mean... they don't exactly look "separated at birth", do they?

REVIEW: Columbo - Publish or Perish (1974)

COLUMBO: Publish or Perish

S3/E5 1974

This episode is the second of three with Jack Cassidy playing the murder. Part of the small group of most entertaining guest-killers, Cassidy is always charming and witty, but also a little slimy at the same time.  His ever-present cigarette is a bit depressing to see, given the manner of his real-life death.

This time around, Cassidy plays Riley Greenleaf, a publisher who "owns" novelist Alan Mallory, played by real life writer Mickey Spillane. Mallory plans on taking his latest book to a new publisher, but Greenleaf will have none of that, and hires a Vietnam veteran named Eddie Kane to kill the writer as Greenleaf sets up his own, very drunken, alibi of crashing his Cadillac into a car (actually a VW van) in the parking lot of a bar.

Eddie thinks Greenleaf is going to publish his book about making bombs in return for the murder. Of course, he has no intention of doing so, and turns Eddie into the perfect fall-guy.

But, as we all know, there is no perfect murder, and our hero Lt. Columbo solves the crime. In the meantime we are given some classic one-liners and quotes.  From Cassidy's fake-drunk act, to his feigning relief upon learning of his alibi, to Peter Falk's unorthodox meal with Jacques Aubuchon and Mariette Hartley.  The audience doesn't (or at least shouldn't) feel any sympathy toward the murderer in this episode, either.

While the whole bomb-making thing may seem a little unnecessary to modern audiences, remember this was actually during the Vietnam conflict, not to mention an era of home-grown American terrorists who did indeed try to blow the "establishment" up.

"Publish or Perish" is a great episode, if not for it's plot, then for Jack Cassidy alone.

"Bravo, Eddie!"

"... those poor kids, those amateurs, planting bombs and blowing themselves up..."

"... the holy trinity..." (Jacques Aubuchon, Mariette Hartley, Mickey Spillane)

"... buy yourself a personality..." Greenleaf begins setting up his drunken alibi.

Mallory dictates... Greenleaf spies his quarry... Eddie prepares to kill...

"... and YOU, madam, SHUT UP!"

"... madam, in your condition I'd call a plastic surgeon..."

Columbo drinks some "brutal" coffee at the crime scene.

Listening to Mallory's dictation... what is that strange noise in the background?

"All I can say is, thank God..."  Greenleaf's attorney informs Columbo that his client has an airtight alibi for the night of the murder.

"Do you have any chili? ... with beans, without..."

"I wanted to get those saltines..."