| STANDARD OPENING SEQUENCE
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Most episodes are preceded by a fast-paced title sequence which establishes and then re-states the events leading up the The Prisoner's abduction. The sequence first appears in "Arrival" and then in a slightly shortened form in subsequent episodes.
Menacing storm clouds, a crash of thunder, a jagged flare of lightning. More thunder merging into the high-pitched scream of a jet aircraft. We see a deserted runway stretching into the distance. The jet scream fades to absolute silence as a tiny speck hurtles towards us. We have only a fraction of a second to identify a yellow and green sportscar before it explodes into lens with a sound like the crack of the sound barrier being broken.We see a man's face in close-up, His face taut against wind pressure, hair swept back by slipstream and his expression grim. The focus changes to a series of exterior shots as the car moves through London and disappears down into the bowels of an underground garage. Cutting to the interior, we see the man walking purposefully down a long corridor. He crashes through a door at the end. He paces back and forth, holding an angry but onesided arguement with a bureaucrat behind a desk, finally hurling an envelope onto the desk. The man drives back through London, unaware that he is being followed. Back home, he packs quickly but a jet of vapour hisses through the keyhole and he falls unconscious onto the divan besides the window.  |
The underground garage into which the Lotus Seven drives, is located at Abingdon Road in London and is exactly where it appears to be, just off the Houses of Parliament. However, the corridor which echos to McGoohan's footsteps is part of a totally seperate car park a couple of miles away underneath Park Lane.  The double doors he throws open in that memorably defiant gesture are also under Park Lane but not at the end of that particular corridor. In fact, when he throws the doors open and apparently glares at the man behind the desk, he's really looking at the Lotus! The doors are actually the exit from the main parking area and about three metres in front of where he parks the car. All he's done is leave the car, exit left to right, go through the doors, turn around and open them again. The camera is now sited against the wall to the left of the door, with the cameraman crouched just about where the nose of the Lotus would be, and looking upwards, giving the illusion (and continuity) of left-to-right movement. The rest of the scene is done on a set back at Boreham Wood and it's the miracle of film editing which brings all these seperate locations together in one seamless sequence. The drive home in the Lotus is along Park Lane but ends in yet another locality, Buckingham Place, which is just behind Buckingham Palace. The part of the drive home where you can see Buckingham Palace in the background is therefore a bit strange as he's driving away from where he's heading!The tall buildings he sees just before passing out from the effects of knockout gas actually are the ones at the end of the road. The balding man at the receiving end of McGoohan's yelling is played, cameo fashion, by George Markstein who arguably co-created The Prisoner, wrote the first drafts and first script with David Tomblin and script-edited the first twelve episodes. |
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