HAMMER INTO ANVIL
HAMMER ODER AMBOSS

 

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Production circumstances result in a different GB and USA order of episodes. The German order, in turn, is also different for no apparent reason.
The so-called English standard episode order is given here.
But as for the episode action no particular running order is required. Almost every country would have an order of its own.

More order of episodes... (English PDF available)

 

 

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

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

 

 

SCREENPLAY Roger Woddis
DIRECTED by Pat Jackson
GERMAN EPISODE 10
GERMAN VERSION by Joachim Brinkmann
FIRST GERMAN BROADCAST: ZDF 28.02.1970

MORE: EN-TITLE-D
DUBBING DIRECTOR JOACHIM BRINKMANN
DIESE SEITE AUF DEUTSCH

APPRECIATIVE EXAMINATION

Number Six accidentally witnesses the suicide of a desparate female Village inmate during an interrogation conducted by the power-obesessive new Number Two. Keen on taking revenge, he sets up an intricate scheme to thwart Number Two. A cukoo-clock might help him. Number Six achieves a rare victory.

RANKED 10th Well-made, neat and witty story, but hardly more than that, as is the use of a cukoo-clock. Patrick Cargill as Number Two delivers his part between obsessiveness and over-the-top acting.

 

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

The diagnose is quite unambiguous: If THE PRISONER's episodes, all or the majority of them, were like "Hammer Into Anvil" the series would have long since gone, relegated to the television museum. One doesn't go too often to visit a museum, once in a while only. THE PRISONER would be just one among a vast number of TV series that people mostly have fond memories of, thinking like how good it was made, perhaps with a knack or so. But one would hardly watch it a second, let alone a third time. Been something nice. That was that.

"Hammer into Anvil" is one of the simplest as well as being the most straightforward of the 17 episodes of ‘the Prisoner. It consists of one single story, with no sub-plots, and never once deviates from its clinical path. There is no attempt of escape. No resistance, or revolt.

Number 6 is like a knight in shining armour, seeking to revenge the death of a damsel who had been in distress, it is an act of chivalry on his part. And it is a story which is just about as far away as any storyline can get from the central concept of ‘the Prisoner.’

Basically ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ is one of what are called “filler” episodes, another is ‘It’s Your Funeral,’ and ‘A Change of Mind,’ however the use of the term “filler episode” does not malign these three episodes. We revel in the episode as Number 6 weaves a web of intrigue through his acts of jamming {although we do not get to know about jamming until the following episode} as he sets about driving Number 2 to the edge of madness! As for Number 2, his paranoia, and mistrust of anyone, even of his assistant Number 14, is his own downfall. And it could be said that this particular Number 2 is simply the most nasty, bad, and disagreeable man who ever held the position." - David Stimpson in his blog (January 2015).

GERMANISMS IN THE PRISONER
PRISONER'S PORTMEIRION - AS SEEN IN THE SERIES [German]
TAXI: DRIVE ME AS FAR AS YOU CAN!
MORE: MUSIC SAYS IT ALL see also German article!
MORE: THE NEW NUMBER TWO
MORE: NAMES AND NUMBERS
SPECIFIC IRONY: TONGUE-IN-CHEEK

However, this episode has more to offer than Number Two actor Patrick Cargill's over-the-top, almost camp performance and Patrick McGoohan's 'controled offensive' (Otto Rehagel, German ex Bundesliga coach) acting style. Now, this is what "Hammer Into Anvil" is too: a theatrical staging, the actors delivering their parts effusively, a veritable pas de deux with Cargill and, as Chris Gregory [1] puts it, McGoohan "at his cynically controlled best."
But yet, it isn't a match for what happens in the penultimate episode "Once Upon A Time". The title, arguably, is a strong one with the episode having its, as one could call it: predetermined breaking point. Because usually it's the hammer that will break more often than the anvil. Something that the episode gives proof of.

For one, there's the erudite use of one Germanism that would most likely please those lovers of theatre of the spoken word, perhaps enabling THE PRISONER - in Germany - to find new friends: Because Germany's greatest poet, Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749 - 1832), is quoted for the very episode title and in German, the final line in particular (suggesting this pedestrian translation of mine):
"Go! Obey my advice,
Use your days so young,
Early enough learn to be wiser:
On the big weigh of fortune
The needle ("tongue") seldom keeps the balance;
You must rise or fall (sink),
You must rule and win (prevail),
Or serve and lose,
Suffer or triumph,
[You must] Be anvil or hammer."

"Geh! Gehorche meinen Winken,
Nutze deine jungen Tage,
Lerne zeitig klüger sein:
Auf des Glückes großer Waage
Steht die Zunge selten ein;
Du musst steigen oder sinken,
Du musst herrschen und gewinnen,
Oder dienen und verlieren,
Leiden oder triumphieren,
[Du musst] Amboss oder Hammer sein."

Script author Roger Woddis, among others, was a writer of sociocritical poems. "He was more known as a humorist", says PRISONER scholar David Stimpson [2]. "He wrote for the Daily Herald newspaper, and wrote scripts for a few television programmes. I think it highly unlikely that he was given the task for writing the script for ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ by Patrick McGoohan, he had little to do with the scriptwriters, it would be more likely that Woddis was approached by script editor George Markstein, but that is only my opinion." One paragraph of anonymous PRISONER blogger Moor Larkin's [3] enties seems to support this notion. After his death news came out that Woddis had been a member of the Communist Party of Britain.
His most influential work, Wikipedia writes, would have been the poem "Ethics for Everyman" which is about double morality of ethical principles. Remarkable, the name of McGoohan's production company was "Everyman Films". Internet blog writer Brian J. Robb [4] maintains the issues therein resonate "in what McGoohan was trying to achieve with THE PRISONER."

Second, and essential, not neglecting its shortcomings, "Hammer Into Anvil" surprisingly is an episode about Portmeirion, the shooting location, thus aligning with some of the strongest episodes which are also Portmeirion based: "Arrival", "Free For All ", "Checkmate", "Dance Of The Dead" and "Many Happy Returns".

IMAGE NOT FROM A SCENE, PHOTO TAKEN BY GUNTER KLUG IN 1996

After the first location shooting in September 1966 a small production unit went to Wales in March 1967 to do further filming. None of the principal actors were present except of Patrick McGoohan himself and Frank Maher, his regular stand-in and stunt double.

Although the time being early spring, with little sunshine and a bit dreary, only scarce green foilage around, some shots made day-for-night, but with a variety of Village images from different angles, this Portmeirion footage is displaying a stark contrast to those shots made of "exterior" props on the Borehamwood studio sets. They (not just these) simply look cheap by comparison. One should let these filmed places pass before the inner eye, like the Village Band concert at the Bristol Colonnade, the space next to Watch House, at and on the Battery Steps, at or on the Stoneboat or next to the former swimming pool and the boat landing leading down to the estuary in front of what is Portmeirion's hotel building. Those images of structures and their weathered colours seem to tell their own and much more profound story, perhaps about transitoriness and the duration of Number Six' stay in the Village? Perhaps about the absent alternative, metaphorical Village here?

Again, like in "Arrival", we experience the Village topography being synthesised, distances contracted and ambiences rearranged. Thus, the studio-based Village café is now some place else than it was before. Number Six, walking near the Stoneboat, hears Number 73's cry in the hospital and hurries towards it only in a matter of seconds while in real-life Portmeirion one can hardly think of a greater walking distance (about 15 minutes) than here.

BELLOWS OR BUNS?
HAMMER INTO ANVIL (1966)
AND GOLD RUSH (1925)

It's the facets that count although the episode suffers from being too simplistic plotwise and its exaggerated revenge story leaving almost no space for a discourse to connect with it. But it is diverting like the moment the bomb expert has the two small bellows of the dismantled cukoo clock "dance"; not quite as elegant as Charlie Chaplin's buns but funny. Taking one thought further, Number Six's subversive strategy of battering Number Two could be regarded as the invention of the so-called "Jammers'" activities of the "It's Your Funeral" episode. Unforeseen irony.

Number Six places a classified ad aimed at Number Two in the Tally Ho. He quotes from Cervantes' "Don Quichotte": "Hay mas mal en el aldehuela que se suena." - Saying "There is more evil in the little village than is heard." Clearly a verdict on the Village. But on the contrary there's the mysterious radio message of "Dance Of The Dead" saying "Nowhere is there more beauty than here..." The message obviously leaving it open whether the target is Number Six' whereabouts. We've got facets here, two facades in reality. Portmeirion's Gate House [German language] has two facades and a number of further buildings too. As Janus-faced as it is ambivalent.

In the episode "Many Happy Returns" Patrick Cargill performes as the character Thorpe. It remains a disputed aspect among PRISONER fans whether or not he's the same personality as Number Two here. Not much can be put forth in favour of the claim. Because Number Six and he would certainly have acted differently when they first encountered had they known each other already. Besides, most likely the Village powers would take care in order not to have one of Number Six' acquaintances on a position of authority. From the television production point-of-view casting their contractual actors in many roles was a standard routine.
Anyhow, here Number Two appears to have been acting before the start of the episode. He had given top priority to Number 73's interrogation. And he had an article printed in the latest edition of the Tally Ho: "Increase Vigilance Call From New No. 2". Paranoia, the Destroyer (The Kinks, 1981).

73

Only here, for once in the series, do we get to see the figure 7 which otherwise seems to be inexistent, a "numerus non gratus" in other words. At the most the 7 comes rather in disguise. Now here it is quite overt, spoken about and displayed at the tombstone of the deceased 73.

"Music begins where words leave off" seems to be the English translation of the German saying "Wo die sprache aufhört, fängt die musik an" by ETA Hoffmann (1776 - 1822). Little and easily missed out references to the various sources of THE PRISONER, not just the literate ones. In "Hammer Into Anvil" it's a music piece by George Bizet, "L'Arlésienne", that plays a major role in the deliberate confusion caused by Number Six in his crusade against Number Two.

'Where there aren't any more arguments the fists rule' could be a suitable proverb for one remarkable scene when it comes to a fight between Number 14 and Number Six whose living quarter is thereby heavily damaged. This scene of about one minute length, without spoken words but with noise, has been choreographed to disarming Vivaldi music arranged by Albert Elms. Cleverly and in a restrained way it brings some balance to the over-the-top paranoid Cargill character, such is tongue-in-cheek. The camera positions are unusual: partly from the ceiling, high above the heads the view on the apartment battlefield is displayed which is far more than just metaphorical and not dissimilar to the "Checkmate" shot of the Butler.

GERMANISMS IN THE PRISONER
PRISONER'S PORTMEIRION - AS SEEN IN THE SERIES [German]
TAXI: DRIVE ME AS FAR AS YOU CAN!
MORE: MUSIC SAYS IT ALL see also German article!
MORE: THE NEW NUMBER TWO
MORE: NAMES AND NUMBERS
SPECIFIC IRONY: TONGUE-IN-CHEEK

Downright silly. The fight scene in Number-Six' quarter is pleasantly self-ironical whereas the trampoline game called "Kosho", conceived of by McGoohan himself, arguably is very dynamic while at the same time rather devoid of meaning and an end in itself. The whole sequence was specifically shot for "Hammer Into Anvil". However, Number 14 who is defeated by Number Six isn't even dumped into the water which, eventually, would be the game's end.

Instead he is generously spared. Therefore, the only reason for it would seem to be the intention to extend the episode's running time. Strangely, in the episode "Its Your Funeral" the quantity of the "Kosho" footage used is even bigger than here. Perhaps due to the slimmer and even more contrived story that needed ever more padding.

[1] Chris Gregory, "THE PRISONER Episode by Episode" https://chrisgregory.org/blog/2009/09/09/the-prisoner-episode-by-episode/#10
[2] David Stimpson is the author of the book "THE PRISONER Dusted Down" (Quoit Media), published in 2018

[3 Dec. 28th, 2011 https://numbersixwasinnocent.blogspot.com/search?q=woddis]
[4] Brian J. Robb https://theprisonerepisodebyepisode.wordpress.com/2017/12/01/10-hammer-into-anvil/


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