El prisionero

For a man with such extensive Shakespearian stage experience, Alec Guinness certainly didn't show movie audiences the depth of his talent. You can catch a few movies if you know where to look, but in general, his usual fare doesn't leave a lasting impression. Perhaps that was why he donned disguises so often; maybe he feared just being himself wasn't good enough? My hypothesis notwithstanding, you must know he wasn't knighted because of his work in Star Wars. If you want to see his real talent he kept bottled up for the rest of his film career, find the forgotten drama The Prisoner.

It's a cat-and-mouse film with virtually two players: Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins. Alec plays a cardinal arrested on suspicion of treason, and Jack plays the interrogator bent on extracting a confession. For political reasons, Jack and the men of his fictional fascist government need Alec to confess. If he dissolutions his followers, they'll be easier to control. To avoid Alec's martyrdom, Jack has to be very careful in his interrogation tactics.

Depending on your point of view of the story, either of the men could be considered the lead. With nearly equal screen time, it's a toss up. Alec is obviously the focus, as he's imprisoned and psychologically tortured; but Jack soon looks at his assignment as more than just a job and becomes obsessed with making Alec break. Both men do exactly what is asked of them in the script and show talents they didn't usually show in their other movies. Their timing, chemistry, and feed off each other's energy is very engaging, even if the genre doesn't usually appeal to you. I wasn't expecting to like the film, but I couldn't tear my eyes away. I can't count how many times I said, "I didn't know he had it in him," when Alec would scream or cry. Can you imagine Alec Guinness crying? Here at the Hot Toasty Rag, we love rewarding three types of performances: the "what does it take?" performance, the obscure performance, and the best performance of one's career. As Alec's falls in all three categories, we were very happy to honor him in 1955.

A classic sadly almost ignored and forgotten probably because of it's small scale being a quite simple screen version of the popular stage play. Alec Guinness is the Cardinal arrested by the state during the Cold War, Jack Hawkins is the state inquisitor trying to break him. Ex comrades in arms, fighting in the Resistance against the Nazis; they now find themselves on opposing sides of Church and State. An intense battle of wills ensues, superb performances all round including Wilfred Lawson as the jailer. Highly recommended.

Believed to be inspired by the post-war communist show trials of Cardinals Stepinac and Mindszenty this brilliant play by Bridget Boland opened in 1954, directed by Peter Glenville with a cast headed by Alec Guinness, Noel Willman and Wilfred Lawson. Glenville was entrusted with directing the film version the following year with Guinness and Lawson reprising their roles whilst Willman was replaced by Jack Hawkins.

As has been well documented it proved to be extremely controversial and was not only banned from both Venice and Cannes for fear of offending the communists but was also accused in some quarters of being anti-Catholic! Sixty-five years on of course, such 'sensitivities' seem insignificant and all that really matters now is how it stands up as a film.

Although Glenville, making an assured directorial debut, has chosen to take a few scenes outside the proscenium arch, it still remains 'filmed theatre' and is no less effective for that. It is essentially a two-hander between the Cardinal of Alec Guinness and the Interrogator of Jack Hawkins. The lighting, settings and clever camerawork have combined to make their wordy exchanges as 'filmic' as possible.

Guinness is superlative and bearing in mind his subsequent conversion to Catholicism, I would imagine that he put more of himself into this role than any other. His performance as an extremely clever man reduced to a quivering, grovelling wreck by solitary confinement and psychological torture is brave to say the least. He is very much an 'interior' actor of course and I would say that his detachment is inclined to lessen ones sympathy for his character. The casting of Jack Hawkins is a masterstroke as this character's undoubted cunning is tempered by this actor's innate sensitivity. Although he succeeds in his job of breaking the Cardinal down, disgracing him in the eyes of his followers and diminishing his spiritual power, his is a Pyrrhic victory as he too will suffer the consequences.

The playwright herself has written the screenplay and in keeping with the infernal compromises of film, has been obliged to tack on a romantic sub-plot between a prison guard and a married woman which is undeveloped and utterly superfluous.

One cannot fail to mention Wilfred Lawson as the jailer whose character has been cleverly written by Boland to provide a contrast and to fulfil the role of a Shakesperean Fool. Lawson's casting is inspired and he is simply superb.

Purely as a film, it is not without its weaknesses but is easily the best of the Guinness/Glenville collaborations. The scene that lingers longest is that in which the Interrogator observes those praying in the church and realises that although the symbol of the faith represented by the Cardinal has been tarnished, the faith itself can never be destroyed.

The Cardinal's plea:" Do not judge the priesthood by the priest" is devastatingly timeless.

Inspired by the plight of Catholic Cardinal Josef Mindszenty behind the Iron Curtain – already the subject of a worthwhile low-budget Hollywood film, GUILTY OF TREASON (1950; see above) – this prestigious British production (based on a Bridget Boland play, who adapts her own work for the screen) boasts two powerhouse performances by Alec Guinness (as the proud Prince of the Church) and Jack Hawkins (as the wily Interrogator). Their interaction is a beauty to behold and one cannot help but be reminded how these formidable actors had already worked together in, curiously enough, MALTA STORY (1953) and, of course, would go on to do so again under David Lean's Oscar-winning direction in THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957) and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962). Although much of the running time is devoted to their rigorous one-on-one sessions (enough for it to be deemed a two-hander), the film allows (at least) another fine actor to shine: Wilfred Lawson as Guinness' jailer who grows to respect his prisoner with time. The small cast also includes Kenneth Griffith as Hawkins' eager-to-learn subordinate – incidentally, the latter also appeared in two episodes of Patrick McGoohan's later cult TV series of the same name but which bore no relation to this movie! – and Raymond Huntley as Hawkins' impatient superior. Conversely, the romantic subplot between doubting Communist Ronald Lewis and his Catholic girlfriend Jeanette Sterke seems forced and intrusive – almost like an afterthought (whereas it had been far more effectively handled in the aforementioned Hollywood treatment). But, as I said before, the film's trump card is its gradual depiction of the evolving relationship between the two leads, which really has no equivalent in GUILTY OF TREASON (where Charles Bickford's tormentors were various and generally shrouded in darkness). Although the main characters and the setting remain unnamed throughout (lending it a pretentious air of political allegory also missing from the earlier film), the controversial subject of THE PRISONER got it banned from participating in both the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals – although it did get nominated for 5 BAFTAs and, eventually, won a couple of other international awards.

Though the wonderful Wilfred Lawson gives a good turn as a jailer, this is basically a two-man show, based on a play. The two men are fine actors: Alec Guinness, as the beloved Cardinal arrested by the state in a generic Eastern European Cold War setting; and Jack Hawkins, as the state inquisitor, trying to coerce the Cardinal into making untrue confessions for a show trial.

Both men are brilliant, though Guinness is perhaps too impenetrable, not only for his inquisitors, but for the audience. Hawkins' character and Guinness's worked together in the Resistance against the Nazis; since then, Hawkins has become a high Communist official trying to eradicate the church from public life.

At first, the movie seems like a cat-and-mouse game between two fanatics, though erudite and educated fanatics, one believing in the church and the other in the ultimate power of the state. Hawkins keeps his well-practiced geniality, though, while Guinness, under mental torture (Hawkins knew Guinness had suffered physical torture under the Nazis and was inured to it) begins to show cracks.

While the movie is hardly a cliff-hanger, and doesn't discuss religion or even totalitarianism in any great depth, the performances by the leads are intense, and worth watching for the acting alone, even though one may be puzzled by what it's all about.