The Prisoner
- NOT RATED
- Year:
- 1955
- 91 min
- 226 Views
Am I allowed to know on what charge
you're arresting me?
Treason against the state.
Try to remember.
Any confession I may be said to have
made in prison will be a lie...
...or the result of human weakness.
We've got to collect your valuables,
you know. Regulations.
Watch, wrist, one.
- Gunmetal.
- Gunmetal.
Cigarette tin.
Beads, rosary, one.
Ring.
Look at it.
One.
Cross.
Jewelled.
One.
That's where the money goes, eh?
You've no need for larceny,
have you?
Petty larceny, that is.
And if you do rob your own
poor boxes, who's to know?
- Come on.
Right hand.
- You've been in a fire?
- Of a kind.
Won't spoil your fingerprints,
you know.
Thank you.
Here, if you want it.
we've had to put you through.
I imagine this is more awkward
for you than it is for me.
- Well, hardly that, I suppose.
- I don't know.
In spite of your political creed,
it's you who are the gentleman.
No titles nowadays, of course,
You are a prince of the church.
- And you to interrogate me.
- Times have changed.
You were a hero to me in the
Resistance, as you were to all of us.
Do you ever miss those days?
At least one was on the same side
as all one's fellow countrymen.
I make no distinction
between my fellow men.
Their service demands everything,
and, I warn you, permits everything.
Is there a particular plot...
...or counterrevolution
you hope to unmask?
Not unless you know of one.
You believe us harmless,
yet require us discredited.
And the point of arresting me?
- A cigarette?
- No, thank you.
If I may smoke my own,
while they last?
Come, now.
Drugged cigarettes already?
You see, you represent a religion...
...which provides an organization
outside the state.
In your pulpit you are more
dangerous than a politician.
With your war record,
you're a national monument.
You are outside the party,
and that monument must be...
Destroyed?
Defaced.
You see? I show you
my hand from the start.
Do you want to see mine?
I am difficult to trap
and impossible to persuade.
I am tenacious, wary and proud.
- Proud?
- Quite sinfully.
Of my record in dealings
with your predecessors, the Gestapo.
I am tolerably inured to physical pain.
Your masters are in a hurry,
I fancy.
People who plan to make
heaven on earth usually are...
...so hadn't we better
come to the point?
Steven, bring me the completed
confession, will you?
Already?
It'll give us some sort of agenda
to work from.
You wouldn't care to sign it right away
and save us trouble?
- You know, you might just as well.
- I'd love to read it first, if I may.
Steven, I shall want you
to stand by tonight.
Sit down...
...Your Eminence.
Come on, now. No dozing off.
You can't do that, you know.
Very strict, your interrogator.
No dozing off.
Walk up and down a bit,
I should.
No talking to anyone
but me and him.
Psychology, they call that.
It's very modern.
Still, they say he always gets
what he wants in the end...
Does he indeed?
- You're being difficult, are you?
- I hope so.
Not guilty.
"Not me, I'm not like the others,
officer. I'm not guilty."
- You neither, I suppose?
- That's right.
Yeah.
Whatever they're in for, they've always
got something on their conscience.
Political, that's your line.
Not a very interesting one.
But you've got something
on your conscience too.
Confidence trickster.
That's your line.
- Why do you say that?
- You hide yourself up your sleeve.
Yes, that's your line.
And what are you guilty of?
Don't be silly.
I'm in the prison service.
- Not guilty?
- Of course not.
Come on, now.
Shall I switch on the microphone, sir?
Will you want all this
early stuff recorded?
"All this early stuff" he calls my
fascinating psychological approach.
It is fascinating, sir.
I'm learning all the time.
All that easy manner
and apparent friendliness.
Not just apparent,
you have to be friends.
Which I have been.
Which I am.
Hypnotic nonsense.
I only wish that physical exhaustion
wasn't so essential in the early stages.
All right, Steven, that's all.
Your Eminence, come in.
- Have some coffee.
- No, thanks.
Some coffee, Your Eminence?
Thanks.
My health.
Afraid I shall slip you a truth drug?
Surely it's a confession you're after,
not the truth.
I could drug you into stumbling
out some form of words...
...but the foreign correspondence
wouldn't be at all impressed.
And we shan't be needing any drugs.
Older methods?
Racks and thumbscrews?
Old...
...but not so long outdated.
Who do you think you're dealing with?
Some mad, sadistic moron
in the Gestapo...
...with power to play with flesh
and blood for his own lust?
I was a lawyer.
Your body is sacred to me.
No drugs, no torture.
- What can you hope for?
- Conversion.
It's your mind we want.
For the first time...
...since I've come into your prison...
...l'm afraid.
We can't talk here.
- You didn't answer my letter.
- It's hopeless.
We can't go on
seeing each other like that.
I love you, but you can't
do this to a man!
Why do we always quarrel?
Yes, he got results in the past,
but his methods take too much time.
Yes, and the people
are getting restless.
Churches are full again.
They're falling back on their old ideas
outside the regime.
He's got to be discredited, and soon.
- We shall be late for the meeting.
- I warned the Ministry of Justice.
God, they know he's not guilty
of anything. Well, you know he isn't.
Well, that's not for me to say.
My husband was right. There's no
freedom here even to think.
So he got out, and you heard
the last of him.
You love me, or you wouldn't
have come here.
I shouldn't have come.
I tried not to come.
Surely it's a confession you're after,
not the truth.
Confession.
He's got another eight-hour session
in half an hour, sir.
Surely it's a confession you're after,
not the truth.
You getting anything you can use
from these recordings?
Just a word here and there
at the moment, sir.
Confession, the truth.
Well, that won't take us very far.
The general is asking for results.
It's bound to be a slow process, sir.
He's looking for a weak spot
in his defences.
He'll find it.
If the church isn't deliberately
obstructing the state...
...are you prepared to say
it supports it?
It renders to the state the things
that are the state's...
...and to God, the things
that are God's.
You know you'll tire yourself out
with this eternal being on your guard.
- On my guard?
- Stop thinking of me as the inquisitor.
How do you wish me
to think of you?
As your doctor.
To me, you're on a couch
in my consulting room.
You're an enemy of society...
...like the schizophrenic
or the paranoiac.
You're dangerous because
you mislead the poor...
...the uneducated and the silly.
But only because
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