A drop-dead gorgeous female (Annette Andre, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum") sneaks into 6's house one morning and after getting the usual treatment from him proceeds to drop dead.
Actually, she's under the influence of perfectly-timed drugs. But her fainting-spell does make her, for the old-fashioned 6, a lady in distress and although he refuses to trust her he does hear her out. Her story is all about a threatened assassination of no.2. All told under the eyes and ears of a youthful no. 2 (Derren Nesbitt, "Where Eagles Dare." Nesbitt played some nasty characters in "Danger Man/Secret Angent" but here he's a delightfully funny no.2 doing lots of business with his glasses and maintaining an overall jolly tone).
We've met rebellious villagers before (try "Checkmate") but now we learn of an entire subversive movement called "jammers" who are so ineffectual Village authorities ignore them. Their attitude seems to be: let the crackpots have their fun.
But this time, 6 learns, a mastermind seems to be using a known jammer for an assassination of no.2. 6 is knowledgeable enough to recognize genuine plastic explosives when he sees them. And a device to fire them off.
Well, 6 hardly cares how many 2s get blown sky high, but he does worry about innocent villagers being damaged in reprisals. So he joins forces with the pretty young lady (named Monique) to thwart the assassination.
Here we learn more about how the village is run. Or do we? I'm fascinated by the interim 2s. There's genuine depth here. Or are they pulling another rug out from under us? It's interesting, either way.
Andre van Gysenghem portrays a world-weary actual Two on his way out.
So who is Derren's no.2? Why, he's an acting, interim no.2. Any viewer who doesn't properly absorb that will be hopelessly lost.
Van Gysenghem is the real Number Two, and it's clear he has been Number Two some time. Left ambiguous is whether he has been Number Two all along and even great Number Twos like Guy Doleman and Leo McKern are, like Nesbitt's character, merely "acting" (certainly they run old movies showing an interin 2 who looks like McKern, though his voice is way off).
If the retiring no. 2 is the real 2 they've had all along, he's been gone a long time. Number Six has never set eyes on him before. Yet van Gysenghem's Number Two acts as if he's been in the spherical chair quite a while.
Because of this ambiguity, this episode provides a new level of understanding (or confusion) to the Village's intense paranoia. I like it. It was a bold move on someone's part. It was like "The Prisoner" to produce this complication just when we thought we had the angles figured. It reminded me of the moment in "Arrival" when Guy Doleman is unaccountably replaced by George Baker.
Looking defeated (he knows too much about how things work in the Village) 2 declines to join 6 in trying to stop the assassination. It looks like the reprisals can't be stopped, either. But 6 and Monique doggedly press on, hopeless as it seems. It's a different sort of danger for 6, and Monique makes a fine companion. I wish they had more screen time together but apparently, according to tittle-tattle, McGoohan took against Andre.
However, "It's Your Funeral" is far from perfect. What confuses lots of viewers, I believe, is that it has an awful lot of plot. It really needs to be a "Prisoner" movie. As a result, the script takes short cuts. 2's assistant makes a dumb mistake that facilitates the climax. This would have been unnecessary in a longer version. But they only had so much time.
My late brother was a huge "Prisoner" fan from the time he was a boy but the fuss over the complicated plot here makes me wonder if "Prisoner" fans are as smart as they think they are. How many enjoy it for its own sake, as I do; as opposed to those who like it just because it's weird, or because they think it makes them look cleverer than other people? I don't ride a high horse. I like shows I find fun and for me this is a fun episode.
SPIOLER: As in "Checkmate" we see the masters who run the place keep the Villagers in such a state of paranoia no one is willing to trust anyone else enough to work together for escape or for a mass uprising. But the masters are in the same predicament.
The solid bottom of "It's Your Funeral" is a call for nonviolent resistance. This is a lesson that needs to be learned in the second decade of the twenty-first century, when violence is often a first resort to dissatisfaction, and as in the run-up to a recent American election where thugs violently seized large sections of cities, burglarized and set fire to shops and other buildings, set upon innocent citizens and finally threatened to burn down vast swaths of urban areas if they lost the election.
For those who don't quite get "It's Your Funeral," I feel your pain. I had to view it three times running before I got it all. But I so enjoyed the performances of all involved and the loveliness of Andre (who was in many good episodes of "The Saint") it was no hardship.
When I finally pieced it all together it quickly rose from the pack as my most cherished episode, even slightly edging out "Hammer into Anvil."
It's one of those episodes that for me is sheer fun from start to finish (I fast-forward through the technical stuff of "Schizoid Man" and there are parts of "A change of mind," "The General" and A. B. and C" (rounding ou my top 6; get it?) that are decidedly unpleasant. Once I cottoned on to the trick, I found "It's Your Funeral" a joy throughout. Look at the poster of the rising no.2. Very funny. Every little movement, as the old song says, has a meaning all its own.
BTW, not only does it have Andre as Monique, it also has a small part for Wanda Ventham.
Actually, she's under the influence of perfectly-timed drugs. But her fainting-spell does make her, for the old-fashioned 6, a lady in distress and although he refuses to trust her he does hear her out. Her story is all about a threatened assassination of no.2. All told under the eyes and ears of a youthful no. 2 (Derren Nesbitt, "Where Eagles Dare." Nesbitt played some nasty characters in "Danger Man/Secret Angent" but here he's a delightfully funny no.2 doing lots of business with his glasses and maintaining an overall jolly tone).
We've met rebellious villagers before (try "Checkmate") but now we learn of an entire subversive movement called "jammers" who are so ineffectual Village authorities ignore them. Their attitude seems to be: let the crackpots have their fun.
But this time, 6 learns, a mastermind seems to be using a known jammer for an assassination of no.2. 6 is knowledgeable enough to recognize genuine plastic explosives when he sees them. And a device to fire them off.
Well, 6 hardly cares how many 2s get blown sky high, but he does worry about innocent villagers being damaged in reprisals. So he joins forces with the pretty young lady (named Monique) to thwart the assassination.
Here we learn more about how the village is run. Or do we? I'm fascinated by the interim 2s. There's genuine depth here. Or are they pulling another rug out from under us? It's interesting, either way.
Andre van Gysenghem portrays a world-weary actual Two on his way out.
So who is Derren's no.2? Why, he's an acting, interim no.2. Any viewer who doesn't properly absorb that will be hopelessly lost.
Van Gysenghem is the real Number Two, and it's clear he has been Number Two some time. Left ambiguous is whether he has been Number Two all along and even great Number Twos like Guy Doleman and Leo McKern are, like Nesbitt's character, merely "acting" (certainly they run old movies showing an interin 2 who looks like McKern, though his voice is way off).
If the retiring no. 2 is the real 2 they've had all along, he's been gone a long time. Number Six has never set eyes on him before. Yet van Gysenghem's Number Two acts as if he's been in the spherical chair quite a while.
Because of this ambiguity, this episode provides a new level of understanding (or confusion) to the Village's intense paranoia. I like it. It was a bold move on someone's part. It was like "The Prisoner" to produce this complication just when we thought we had the angles figured. It reminded me of the moment in "Arrival" when Guy Doleman is unaccountably replaced by George Baker.
Looking defeated (he knows too much about how things work in the Village) 2 declines to join 6 in trying to stop the assassination. It looks like the reprisals can't be stopped, either. But 6 and Monique doggedly press on, hopeless as it seems. It's a different sort of danger for 6, and Monique makes a fine companion. I wish they had more screen time together but apparently, according to tittle-tattle, McGoohan took against Andre.
However, "It's Your Funeral" is far from perfect. What confuses lots of viewers, I believe, is that it has an awful lot of plot. It really needs to be a "Prisoner" movie. As a result, the script takes short cuts. 2's assistant makes a dumb mistake that facilitates the climax. This would have been unnecessary in a longer version. But they only had so much time.
My late brother was a huge "Prisoner" fan from the time he was a boy but the fuss over the complicated plot here makes me wonder if "Prisoner" fans are as smart as they think they are. How many enjoy it for its own sake, as I do; as opposed to those who like it just because it's weird, or because they think it makes them look cleverer than other people? I don't ride a high horse. I like shows I find fun and for me this is a fun episode.
SPIOLER: As in "Checkmate" we see the masters who run the place keep the Villagers in such a state of paranoia no one is willing to trust anyone else enough to work together for escape or for a mass uprising. But the masters are in the same predicament.
The solid bottom of "It's Your Funeral" is a call for nonviolent resistance. This is a lesson that needs to be learned in the second decade of the twenty-first century, when violence is often a first resort to dissatisfaction, and as in the run-up to a recent American election where thugs violently seized large sections of cities, burglarized and set fire to shops and other buildings, set upon innocent citizens and finally threatened to burn down vast swaths of urban areas if they lost the election.
For those who don't quite get "It's Your Funeral," I feel your pain. I had to view it three times running before I got it all. But I so enjoyed the performances of all involved and the loveliness of Andre (who was in many good episodes of "The Saint") it was no hardship.
When I finally pieced it all together it quickly rose from the pack as my most cherished episode, even slightly edging out "Hammer into Anvil."
It's one of those episodes that for me is sheer fun from start to finish (I fast-forward through the technical stuff of "Schizoid Man" and there are parts of "A change of mind," "The General" and A. B. and C" (rounding ou my top 6; get it?) that are decidedly unpleasant. Once I cottoned on to the trick, I found "It's Your Funeral" a joy throughout. Look at the poster of the rising no.2. Very funny. Every little movement, as the old song says, has a meaning all its own.
BTW, not only does it have Andre as Monique, it also has a small part for Wanda Ventham.
