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The Prisoner Page #5
- NOT RATED
- Year:
- 1955
- 91 min
- 228 Views
That's it, isn't it?
Let them see me in
the weakness of the flesh...
...and the meanness of the spirit!
That would be degradation.
to burn the past...
...and come through the fire free.
That's hysteria.
No. No, God...
Forgive me a moment.
I can't hypnotize you into saying
anything you think is wrong.
Remember that.
Do you believe that this is
what you must do?
Only this way.
Not drugged nor hypnotized...
...nor hysterical.
Sane and whole.
And with the courage,
with the grace of God.
To make restitution in my own way.
I can't believe he'll
confess to anything.
He won't, you wait.
He would never have staged a trial
if he wasn't ready to confess.
I knew him in the war.
He may have let them think
they've got him...
...but they will find he can put
this bullring to his own use.
It's better than the pulpit, you wait.
Has the prisoner read
the charges against him?
Yes, I have heard the charges,
and I confess.
Well?
He hasn't yet said what
he's confessing to.
First, we will take your
personal life as a priest.
You became a priest, did you not,
for your own glory?
Yes.
And all your service to the church
was to your own ambition?
Yes, my ambition.
How can you make people
understand that?
As a priest, did you misuse
money given to the church?
Yes, I confess to that.
The secrets of the confessional,
did you use those to extort blackmail?
Yes.
And did you sell such
information to the police?
Yes.
So all your life as a priest was a fake?
- Yes.
- Now, to make us understand that...
...tell us about your public life.
Tell us about your war record.
I worked for the Resistance.
Oh, yes, you worked for
the Resistance.
And in the end, you betrayed us.
Tell the court, Your Eminence...
...did you betray the Resistance
to the Gestapo?
The links with the Allies,
the chain that led out of the country.
In the end, I betrayed them all.
No one knew what kind of
a man you were, did they?
No one knew that you were
reporting to the Gestapo...
...did they?
You were still able to go on keeping
in touch with the Allies, weren't you?
Yes.
Do you deny that, since the war,
you have still kept secretly in touch...
...with foreign governments?
- No.
Have you received money from them
to foment sabotage and unrest?
Have you?
- Yes, I...
- Look at the people!
Your own people!
Before, during and since the war,
have you deserved their faith?
Have you betrayed them?
I have betrayed them.
It isn't true.
It isn't true.
Madness.
Do you want to start again,
as low as the gutter you came from?
Throw in enough politics...
... they'll eat it.
So you have confessed to every
charge of personal corruption...
...and public treason
brought against you?
I have confessed enough.
And that you aimed to set up
a government with yourself at its head.
The worst you can find to say.
Is it not enough?
Counsel for the defence?
After such a confession...
...the prisoner can only throw himself
on the mercy of the court.
Not on the mercy of this court.
Upon the mercy of God.
Oh, God...
...let me go mad.
Let me go mad.
How does he seem?
Interesting.
He was broken by a half-truth...
...a distorted truth.
He was too humble.
He believed it when I told him his
whole world was built on pride.
been more sceptical.
Have you seen the press, sir?
Congratulations.
Yes...
...l've trained you well.
I suppose, in time, you will
come to drive a brilliant mind...
...to pray for madness.
- It had to be done, sir.
- Oh, yes, it had to be done.
You're just feeling the
reaction after the trial.
Mustn't let a little squeamishness
spoil your triumph.
Been good as gold
these last few days.
Hey, you get back to your
murderer in number eight...
...leave my cardinal alone.
Not that he'll be anybody's
cardinal after 8:00.
Yours goes before mine, doesn't he?
Yes.
Double damask.
Patterned, both sides.
- You like it?
- Very handsome.
That's an expert's opinion.
Like altar linen, eh?
When I was a choirboy...
...if you used so much as a corner to
wipe your nose on, they'd murder you.
Appetite?
- I'll try and do it justice.
- That's the spirit.
Of course, there's a lot of waste
with these breakfasts...
...but we finish it up after.
My mate, he said,
"Let's give him kippers.
We've got to eat it, we might as well
have what we fancy."
I said, " No, he's gonna have what he
fancies for his last meal on earth.
Kidneys, that'll be his taste."
- You're a good soul.
- Oh, I don't know, a job's a job.
You've got to go to bed at night
with your mind easy.
What time is the execution?
Oh, no orders yet.
How long, as a rule, after breakfast?
Oh, half an hour maybe.
But there's another to go before you.
Since the war, we've been so busy,
everything's gone to pot.
You swallow all right?
We had a young chap once...
...he'd killed three sailors
with a handspike...
...in a fight on the docks.
He was a nice, quiet kid,
but he couldn't swallow.
Nervous stricture, the doctor said.
Hanging, you see?
I put that right. I said, " Lad...
...they've changed your sentence.
They've brought one of them
electric chairs from America."
He ate like a wolf after that.
Standing up, you know?
You don't want to waste
them good kidneys.
Shall I be allowed a priest
before I die?
Must tell the lads that.
Oh, you're a good sport.
I hate a man who can't
take it with a grin.
"Shall I be allowed a priest?"
Oh, I'll miss you when you're gone.
You've never been any trouble.
Well, hardly any.
What's this?
- Look here...
- Your instructions.
He's got to have time for his breakfast,
the man got kidneys.
- That's civilization, it always has been.
- Read them, outside.
Well?
I find it hard to forgive my enemies,
and I haven't long.
Have you forgiven yourself?
Oh, no.
But I believe I shall be forgiven.
He who will judge us
is he who made us.
Perhaps you should thank me.
The doctor who diagnosed
the weakness?
Perhaps I should.
Shall I be allowed
There'll be no need.
I beg of you, let me see a priest.
You're not to die.
No.
I am to be hanged.
Your sentence has been commuted.
What are they afraid of, martyrdom?
No one can make the world
see me as a martyr now.
It has been commuted.
I had so eased my mind
with the thought of death...
...I can't see beyond it.
You're free to go.
The gates will be opened,
you have only to walk out.
No, no, they wouldn't risk it.
- What I might say.
- What, that you were talked into it?
That you used my mother?
She was already in the hospital
when you were arrested...
...you haven't kept in very close touch.
Is there news of her,
is the disease fatal?
- They think not.
- Thank God.
Nothing you can say
can harm the government.
Dead, you might be a martyr.
In prison, you'd be an enigma.
But free, sane, walking the world...
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"The Prisoner" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2025. Web. 27 Feb. 2025. <https://www.scripts.com/script/the_prisoner_16260>.
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