FREE FOR ALL
FREIE WAHL

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"I AM NOT
A NUMBER.
I AM
A PERSON."

"SIX OF ONE,
HALF A
DOZEN OF
THE OTHER."

SCREENPLAY: Paddy Fitz (= Patrick McGoohan)
DIRECTED by Patrick McGoohan
GERMAN VERSION by Frank Wesel
FIRST GERMAN BROADCAST: ARTE 31.07.2010

MORE: EN-TITLE-D
DIESE SEITE AUF DEUTSCH

APPRECIATIVE EXAMINATION

It's election time in the Village:Number Six is invited and urged by Number Two to be a candidate in the election campaign for the Number Two position in the Village, his position. He is even assigned a personal female assistant. Although hesitatingly and not totally out of his own will Number Six runs for office, easily wins the election - does he also win access to the controlsof power?

RANKED 3rd For the vivid use of the location, the wit of dialogues with Eric Portman’s Number Two and democracy sketched surrealistically as a nightmare. Just skip the logical weakness (why keep Numer Six arrested when a truth test can reveal thoughts?). A quintessential episode.

Don't read any further
unless you know THE PRSIONER already
and you want to delve more indepth
into theoretical discussions and facts
around the history of the production.
- Be seeing you!

By Arno Baumgärtel

"Election? In this place?" Strange enough that democratic elections should be held in the Village. The idea sounds odd in Number Six' ears. And also television audiences should have been aware. Actually, it's about one or two episodes further, in "Dance Of The Dead", that Number Six is confronted with (a different) Number Two talking of democracy that they had "dispensed with. An irritation we've dispensed with. Even its best friends agree democracy is remarkably inefficient."

Arguably, "Free For All" ist the very PRISONER episode with the strongest intellectual input. To McGoohan it is one of seven that "really count". According to Max Hora's "The Prisoner Of Portmeirion" the playlist of this McGoohan mini-series would read as shown below:

1. Arrival
2. Free For All
3. Dance Of The Dead
4. Checkmate
5. The Chimes Of Big Ben
6. Once Upon A Time
7. (The Conclusion) Fall Out

Patrick McGoohan wrote the script to this episode and he also directed it. He used pseudonym "Paddy Fitz" - Fitzpatrick being his mother's name of birth. "Free For All" is one of four episodes, together with "Arrival", "Dance Of The Dead" and "Checkmate", which in 1966 were the first to be shot on location in Portmeirion. Because of the scenes that involve plenty of people it is also the most colourful and most lively episode that makes the most of the visuals of the Portmeirion location.
We get an outline here that it was less George Markstein but McGoohan who'd put a spin to the series action, away from the straight-foward story of one abducted agent towards an allegorical conundrum.

At first sight the story appears to be quite clear but "Free For All", in parts, is a surreal nightmarish and disconcerting story, full of twistings and with lose ends that the viewer must grasp all by himself. The issues raised are painted with rather broad strokes with the ostensible realism of the action having been abandoned.

It is about democratic rituals like election campaigns, it is about the power of manipulation as it is about being manipulated by power, the use and abuse of the word by the press. And, as always, it is about self-determination and individual identity. Those issues just weren't quite popular with the German public in 1969. Little wonder that this episode didn't make it to the German screens.

Because this episode was never dubbed German viewers were unaware of the fact that there is a pub in the Village, the Cat & Mouse Club, where non-alcoholic drinks are served that "look the same and taste the same". One scene was deleted before the episode was finished. It showed a singing Number Six inside the pub entertaining the guests.

RA! RA! RA! ... THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN SLOGAN
(PIC. RIGHT: SOUNDTRACK COVER OF 1986)

Because this episode wasn't shown on German TV initially people also didn't know about the possibly most delicious exchange of words in the whole series. It is at the beginning of "Free For All" when Number Six' telephone rings:

Number Two: (on the telephone) Any complaints?
Number Six: Yes. I'd like to mind my own business.
Number Two: So do we. Do you fancy a chat?
Number Six: The mountain can come to Mohammed!
Number Two: (that very moment at the door) Mohammed...?
Number Six: Everest I presume.
Number Two: I've never had a head for heights.
Number Six: Where's Number One?
Number Two: At the summit.
Number Six: Play it according to Hoyle?
Number Two: All cards on the table. You may rely on that.
Number Six: Whose move?
Number Two: Yours only. Confide, and we concede.
...
Number Six: Elections? In this place?
Number Two: Of course - we make our choice every 12 months. Every citizen has a choice. Are you going to run?
Number Six: Like blazes, the first chance I get.
Number Two: I meant run for office.
Number Six: Whose?
Number Two: Mine, for instance.
Number Six: You have a very delicate sense of humour.
Number Two: Naturally. Humour is the very essence of a democratic society.

Likewise, German audiences never knew about the Cat & Mouse Club, a secret pub of sorts, where non-alcoholic beverages are served that "look(s) the same, taste(s) the same." Another scene was cut before the release of the episode. It would have shown Number Six in that club as singer in front of people.

2010: ARTE DUBBING OF THE PRISONER (PDF)
MORE: NUMBER TWO'S TERM IN OFFICE

Omitting this episode withheld German audiences one particular scene, one of the strangest ever in the series - the Rover cave. After the new Number Two (Rachel Herbert) has shown herself to Number Six he runs around rather headlessly and into one room, a veritable cave. Like Number Six viewers see a Rover balloon around which four people appear to be sitting either devoutly or meditatively. This shot comes all of a sudden and without an explanation. Similar to other instances in the series we experience what can be called the placelessness of space which is a strategy of disorientation. Although it appears to be a subterranean cave with visible rocks Number Six reaches it from the Control Room which it at ground level, just underneath the Green Dome cupola.

It isn't that Number Six were forced to be an election candidate. But there is Number Two's insinuation that Number One would be no mystery to him that was also a temptation. Each of his steps he moves he does so as if being under remote control. And in a sense this is true. He gets mangled mentally and physically. After which viewers get the impression that he must have become a different person.

After his "rotten cabbages" speech, as an announcement to run for office for the Number Two position, which is held in a relatively serious manner Number Six later fully manifests the campaigner who promises heaven on earth:

There are those who come in here and deny that we can supply every conceivable civilised amenity within our boundaries. You can enjoy yourselves and you will. You can partake of the most hazardous sports and you will. The price is cheap. All you have to do in exchange is give us information. You are then eligible for promotion to other and perhaps more attractive spheres. Where do you desire to go? What has been your dream? I can supply it. Winter, spring, summer or fall - they can be all yours at any time. Apply to me and it will be easier and better.

The two campaigns meet a short time later in the Village. A battle of words ensues in front of the enthusiastic audience:

Place your trust in the old régime: the policies are defined, the future certain. The old régime forever... and the old Number 2 forever? Confession by coercion, is that what you want? Vote for him and you have it! Or, stand firm upon this election platform and speak a word without fear! The word... is "freedom". They say "six of one and half a dozen of the other"... not here.
It's "six for two and two for nothing" and six for free... for all... for free for all! Vote! Vote!

NOTHING REALLY DID NUMBER SIX TELL THE TALLY HO REPORTERS,
BUT HIS INTERVIEW SUBSEQUENTLY APPEARS IN THE NEWSPAPER

Number Two asked by Number Six what he would do in his sparetime replies he couldn't afford sparetime. Number Six exaltedly turns to the crowd:

Do you hear that?
He's working to his limit! Can't afford spare time! We're all entitled to spare time! Leisure is our right!

Number Two:

In your spare time, if you get it, what will you do?

Number Six:

Less work... and more play!

the cowd:

Six! Six! Six! Six!

NUMNER SIX' ELECTION SPEECH ON THE STONE BOAT,
A FAVOURITE RE-ENACTMENT AT THE PRISONER CONVENTIONS

Nobody ever had a real choice in the election. The entire campaign was staged from start to finish to teach Number Six a lesson of what the Village would be capable of doing. And one thing is clear: if Number Six had been in the Village for quite some time he wouldn't have been so amazingly unsuspicious of Number Two's invitation to becoming a candidate. At the beginning of the episode. Also, Number Two introducing him before the crowd as a "recent recruit" leads us to the assumption that this episode would have to be one very early on in the series, second, third at the most. If ever there had to be a real continuity of the action. The new Number Two's demeanour, who was Number 58 just moments before, "Will you never learn? This is only the beginning" at the episode's finale gives a hint as to how she would probably act in the case of Number Six for duration of her terms in office. But we do not witness more about it.

The end of this episode leaves no illusions. Election winner Number Six is allowed to enter Number Two's famous control room - just to turn the switches. But still this doesn't mean he's in control now.

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