A new Number Eight named Nadia arrives in the Village, and together she and Number Six plot their escape.A new Number Eight named Nadia arrives in the Village, and together she and Number Six plot their escape.A new Number Eight named Nadia arrives in the Village, and together she and Number Six plot their escape.
Jack Le White
- First Judge
- (as Jack Le-White)
Pauline Chamberlain
- Villager
- (uncredited)
Vic Chapman
- Orderly
- (uncredited)
Hugh Elton
- Orderly
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaPatrick McGoohan's daughter stood-in for Nadia Gray in the scene in which Number 6 and Number 8 pretend to get romantic. McGoohan refused to do romantic scenes with actresses due to his Catholic beliefs. Having his daughter in the scene prevented it from getting too romantic.
- GoofsWhen the box containing McGoohan and Nadia is opened up, it is obvious that their positions have been reversed from the shots during transit.
UPDATE: This is not a goof. Their positions never change. The crate has been opened from the bottom, not the top.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Prisoner: Free for All (1967)
Featured review
Audacious, Quintessential "Chimes" Is an Unabashed Triumph
Arguably the quintessential "Prisoner" episode, "The Chimes of Big Ben" is audacious for Number Six's escape attempt, Number Two's (Leo McKern) attempt to entice him into revealing why he resigned from his top-level intelligence-agency post, Vincent Tilsley's incisive script that brilliantly blends the two attempts into one, and, perhaps most of all, the riveting exchanges between Patrick McGoohan and McKern, which led to McKern returning as Number Two for the series' last two episodes.
The debut episode "Arrival" previewed what would be this revolutionary spy series' running feature: the frequent turnover of Number Twos, chairpersons of the Village, the cozy if Kafkaesque hamlet that is actually a high-tech detention center for intelligence personnel who had become inconvenient but whose expertise yet to be extracted from them precluded outright wetwork (as the KGB would put it colorfully). The Village shed Number Twos like a spy burning through disguises largely because of failed interrogations attempts of Number Six, who was always on his guard for all manner of subterfuge.
Thus, he becomes suspicious at the arrival of Estonian Nadia Rokovsky (Nadia Gray), dubbed Number Eight in Villagespeak, a high-enough number to suggest a high-ranking official, although her suicide attempts, and Number Two's veiled threats to keep the pressure on her, persuade Number Six to heed Number Two's insistence that he become a cooperative Villager by agreeing to participate in the upcoming art contest if Number Two lays off Nadia.
While Number Six works away at his woodworking abstract, he begins to trust Nadia, who tells him she learned accidentally that the Village is in Lithuania, and that she has contacts in the vicinity that can get them to England. Lo, Number Six's abstract sculpture, which nets him a special prize that he promptly redeems for another contestant's prize-winning giant tapestry, can be assembled into a makeshift sailboat with the tapestry acting as the sail, enabling him and Nadia to escape the Village under dead of night (or at least under day-for-night simulation). Nadia indeed has contacts, and they soon find themselves nailed up in a crate bound for London.
Tilsley's drollery manifests itself both verbally and visually. When Number Two, commiserating with Number Six that they both know too much and are thus "lifers" in the Village, states that his hope is that entire world will become the Village (one-world government conspiracy theorists take note), then asks Number Six what his hope is, he replies, "To be the first man on the Moon." The sole subject allowed to be depicted in the art contest is Number Two, a sly swipe at dictator worship of any ideological stripe made hilarious when the sailboat tapestry is unfurled to display the big giant head of Number Two. And, near the close, when the maniacally cheerful Village herald (the delightful Fennella Fielding) announces over the PA system what the subject of the next art contest is, laughter barely soothes the sting.
But the centerpiece of "The Chimes of Big Ben" is Number Six's return to England and how the titular timepiece figures into that. Tilsley must tread carefully in his narrative, and in hindsight it isn't hard to pick out contradictions in the characterizations, particularly Nadia's, but director Don Chaffey's brisk pacing is enough to carry an impressive conceit the first time through as McGoohan is nothing less than spellbinding at the climax. An unabashed triumph.
The debut episode "Arrival" previewed what would be this revolutionary spy series' running feature: the frequent turnover of Number Twos, chairpersons of the Village, the cozy if Kafkaesque hamlet that is actually a high-tech detention center for intelligence personnel who had become inconvenient but whose expertise yet to be extracted from them precluded outright wetwork (as the KGB would put it colorfully). The Village shed Number Twos like a spy burning through disguises largely because of failed interrogations attempts of Number Six, who was always on his guard for all manner of subterfuge.
Thus, he becomes suspicious at the arrival of Estonian Nadia Rokovsky (Nadia Gray), dubbed Number Eight in Villagespeak, a high-enough number to suggest a high-ranking official, although her suicide attempts, and Number Two's veiled threats to keep the pressure on her, persuade Number Six to heed Number Two's insistence that he become a cooperative Villager by agreeing to participate in the upcoming art contest if Number Two lays off Nadia.
While Number Six works away at his woodworking abstract, he begins to trust Nadia, who tells him she learned accidentally that the Village is in Lithuania, and that she has contacts in the vicinity that can get them to England. Lo, Number Six's abstract sculpture, which nets him a special prize that he promptly redeems for another contestant's prize-winning giant tapestry, can be assembled into a makeshift sailboat with the tapestry acting as the sail, enabling him and Nadia to escape the Village under dead of night (or at least under day-for-night simulation). Nadia indeed has contacts, and they soon find themselves nailed up in a crate bound for London.
Tilsley's drollery manifests itself both verbally and visually. When Number Two, commiserating with Number Six that they both know too much and are thus "lifers" in the Village, states that his hope is that entire world will become the Village (one-world government conspiracy theorists take note), then asks Number Six what his hope is, he replies, "To be the first man on the Moon." The sole subject allowed to be depicted in the art contest is Number Two, a sly swipe at dictator worship of any ideological stripe made hilarious when the sailboat tapestry is unfurled to display the big giant head of Number Two. And, near the close, when the maniacally cheerful Village herald (the delightful Fennella Fielding) announces over the PA system what the subject of the next art contest is, laughter barely soothes the sting.
But the centerpiece of "The Chimes of Big Ben" is Number Six's return to England and how the titular timepiece figures into that. Tilsley must tread carefully in his narrative, and in hindsight it isn't hard to pick out contradictions in the characterizations, particularly Nadia's, but director Don Chaffey's brisk pacing is enough to carry an impressive conceit the first time through as McGoohan is nothing less than spellbinding at the climax. An unabashed triumph.
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- darryl-tahirali
- Apr 2, 2022
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What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of The Chimes of Big Ben (1967) in Australia?
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