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Inside the Prisoner: Radical Television and Film in the 1960s

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The disparity between the contents of this book and its title may be judged by comparing a comment on the back cover with a section of the main text:

Back cover:
"Rakoff - who was intended by McGoohan to play a key role in the scripting of future episodes - now reveals how the series could have developed, then and now."

Main text (p.176, col. 1)
"McGoohan's promise that I'd have four episodes in the next tranche of the series was perhaps not seriously meant. It was probably only a well-meaning apology for having abandoned me in order to be free to go to Hollywood."

In order to get this book in perspective you need to take full note of the subtitle - "radical television and film in the 1960s".
An even more accurate subtitle would have been "Ian Rakoff, an autobiographical account of how I came to England and worked on a few films, and served as assistant editor on a couple of episodes of 'The Prisoner', during the 1960s".

As Rakoff himself admits, he came "in at the tail end of things" (p23) as far as the making and editing of The Prisoner was concerned, and apart from a few brief and highly uncommunicative meetings with McGoohan, whatever he (Rakoff) knew about the series was gossip and hearsay.
His version of the nature of the original 'Rover', for example, is clearly not from personal experience, and conflicts with evidence that there really was a blue VW 'beetle' with flashing light.
He also suggests, for no good reason, that production manager Bernard Williams came up with the idea of using weather balloons; which doesn't tally with the more widespread report that McGoohan fortuitously spotted a weather balloon in flight and gave Williams the task turning this into a practical replacement for the VW bug.

Not surprisingly, then, even that section of the main text that deals with the TV series (pages 23-100) consists almost entirely of vague anecdotes that are more likely to be of interest to film and TV technicians than to fans of the TV series. Nor is this section of the book entirely given over to items related to the making of The Prisoner, but regularly wanders off into pure autobiography, as in Chapters 5 and 7, for example.

Having said all that, it might seem that Rakoff is still a key witness as regards the concepts and philosophy behind the TV series. After all, he did work as a writer on the series, didn't he?

Well yes, sort of. It turns out that Rakoff wrote the basic story for the episode 'Living in Harmony' - but had very little to do with the final script. Indeed, on viewing the initial screening he comments:

"For a moment I couldn't believe I'd written any of what I was seeing. It seemed familiar but from somewhere far away and long ago. Dialogues struck chords." (p.98)

The fact is that Rakoff based his own story on material in Gene Autrey (cowboy) comics of the 1950s. It's relevance to the central themes of The Prisoner was, (given his very limited time on the project), almost entirely co-incidental. And the episode as it was filmed and screened, owed nearly everything to series producer David Tomblin - who is credited as producer, scriptwriter and director on this particular episode.

In short, if you're keen to lay your hands on 'anything' that relates to The Prisoner then you'll pobaby want to own this book as well.
If, however, you're looking for material that provides genuine insights into this most enigmatic of all TV series then there are far better ways of spending your money.

Rakoff, an assistant editor on the show, does his best to describe what it was like to work with McGoohan, Markstein, Tomblin, et al., but he only worked on a few episodes, and really saw only a sliver of the total picture. Too much of the book focuses on the rest of Rakoff's career as a writer and filmmaker, which is marginally interesting, but not Prisoner-related.

A very deceptive title. Ian Rakoff worked on only a few episodes and his accounts are limited to a few encounters with McGoohan and trivial gossip around the show. The book should've been titled "Ian Rakoff: A bunch of stuff I did that had nothing to do with the Prisoner." Maybe 25% of the book is about working on the show, the rest is about his career before and after which makes for poor reading. I didn't even finish it because after the sections about the Prisoner it completely lost my interest. Anything worthwhile about the Prisoner has been written about in other books. Avoid dissapointment.

Readers expecting a straightforward look at the classic 1968 television show should look elsewhere (probably towards PRISONER: A TELEVISIONARY MASTERPIECE)-- while Ian Rakoff has many interesting things to tell us about the making of the show, and fascinating insights into Patrick McGoohan, this is much more autobiography than television analysis. But if this visionary show taught us anything, it is to not accept the easy binaries and divisions of form too often foisted on us. Imagine, then, the publishing industry as "The Village," and Ian Rakoff as its No. 6, using the show as a pivot point to explore TV and Film in Britain in the sixties, race and class as issues within the counterculture, and Mr. Rakoff's own split existence as white South African artist and revolutionary AND commercial editor and screenwriter. It doesn't all work-- in particular, Mr. Rakoff's firm moral viewpoints, while deeply admirable, sometimes cause a bit of tunnel vision, not allowing him to see that, especially on a show like THE PRISONER, "politics" can take many forms, and have many sides (hectoring Lindsay Anderson, then, should not be the end all and be all of conscientous film, not in the age of the Beatles and the New Wave). Still, this is an insightful and unique take on a crucial bit of mass culture, and, per its subject, a fittingly quirky and personal one. One more complaint-- Overlook Press does magical things when it comes to film criticism and history, but they desperately, DESPERATELY need a copy editor or two-- there are punctuation errors everywhere, and even a page gets transposed. Shoddy, and shame, given the generally outstanding qualities of the actual text and graphic layouts.

It's misleading to call this book "Inside the Prisoner" since probably about half of it concerns the author's other TV and film experiences, culminating in his work on "If......." But when Rakoff does tell us about McGoohan and The Prisoner, he's transfixing. Most of the other books I've seen on The Prisoner amount to episode guides; few give you a sense of what it was like to work on the series. Rakoff was there and tells us. I don't recall any other book that explains in detail, for example, the strained relations between McGoohan and George Markstein, or what it was like to work around David Tomblin. By giving us these details, Rakoff adds depth not only to his story but to other accounts we've read about the series. This is one of the few books I've seen about The Prisoner that was genuinely original.

What the others have said. The Prisoner content is minimal, but what there is slightly furthered my understanding of the series and its origins.

If you're interested what it was like to be a peripheral character in the film industry in London in the Swinging Sixties, this is worth a look.

First and foremost, this is not a book with new insights into the series. Nor does it shed new light on the series and its meaning. Rather, this book is more of a snapshot of the era in which the series was made, from the perspective of a writer and filmmaker whose greatest involvement in the series was being the writer for an early draft of the episode, "Living In Harmony."

Instead, the author, Ian Rakoff, writes extensively of his own filmmaking experience, from his anti-aparthied experiences in South Africa (of which he refers to frequently), his brushes with notable radical filmmakers, to his involvement in 'leftist' films and other projects, such as The Prisoner.

For fans of The Prisoner, his few interactions with Patrick McGoohan are the most interesting. In these few passages, the reader is treated to Rakoff's perception of the actor/producer, both from production rumors to actual interactions, and how McGoohan appeared to be affected by the troubled production of the series. But before more can be digested of the possible impact on the development of the show, Rakoff wanders off on his own personal and professional development as a filmmaker in 60's Europe.

While the author often returns to the development of his episode script, he is more interested in revealing the radical filmmaking culture that The Prisoner eventually became a flagship for. And this is where the book finds its value; not for his association with the show.

It is fascinating to read about the variety of people that were involved in the show, the different kind media culture that bred the type of filmmaking at that time, and what impact, if any, these same people may have had in the show's development, or demise.

For students of the development of radical filmmaking, this is a fine companion book. For fans of The Prisoner who must have it all, look for it used and refer instead to the more interesting Appendices and the Episode Summaries. All other fans might want to look elsewhere.

NB: The episode summaries are adverstised as being produced "in collaboration with Six of One, the official Prisoner Fan Club."