Page 23 - 1968 VES Meteor

of it
talented Herbert Harper with this point V.E.S. students cul- an occasion to display one of inary discretion still tended
October, 1968
The bell enshrined in its new home.
Continued from page 1, column 6 bell's distemper nearly demol-
which was located behind the ished .Ton Creasy, a present'
Television : The Prisoner
Britain's latest offering to the Vast Wasteland, The Prisoner, was liquidated last week in order to make way for the autumn return of the Great (only in girth) One, Jackie Gleason. During
its three month summer-replacement run, The Prisoner garnered a respectable amount of praise from TV critics, and the usual result of critical success-popular failure.
The Prisoner was unique in that it was an allegory on the plight of modern man in the over-emphasized, computerized society which he built. The credit for this novel idea goes to
east wing of Jett.
Serving as the school's only
trustee of the schooL It seems that young Tom was in the process of pulling the bell rope
means of mass communication,
the bell remained at this site when not only the rope, but
for many years, not without . also the twenty-odd feet of
problems however.
There were always the win-
that operation of the bell was concern at the other extreme. somewhat hampered by this, it On one of the nights during
is reported that most people final exams in May 1945, all within a five foot radius could seemed quiet on the V.E.S. quite readily detect that the dorms. This could be attrib- bell was, in fact, ringing. This uted mainly to the fact that feat however required extreme-
ly keen eyesight.
.
But snow and ice were not
all that could keep the bell away in a far corner of the
from ringing. Nights before school studying Spanish with vacations were some of the five of his cohorts. A few oth-
happier ones spent at V.E.S., ers were scattered about the
ter days when the bell, clapper,
and practically everything else
on campus became coated with making sure the bell would snow and ice. Despite the fact ring; Quite often there was
position. The school tried all means of valiant effort to save the bell, including admonitions to steer clear, which resulted
not only created and supervised production of the show, but also played the leading role. :"
In the first episode, the char- image is so limited, s1:.~~. acter that McGoohan portrays and two-dimensional, ti1~ view- is kidnapped after resigning er is compelled to complete
and often left the bell's chain
combination-locked to the tow-
er. This presented the multi- around the V-Ciub room. At
his less reknown abilities. Hacksaw in hand, he would be- gin his forty foot ascent of the
to be somewhat primitive. As a result the common nocturnal practice was to make frequent,
the Village an-I 3) exposing
and destroying those who run ing cry was much louder than · the Village.
cause it was irrelevant to him, and not because he failed to see his own position in the allego- ry, but because it was relevant;
tower, stopph1g as many as but covert midnight orders eighteen times to free the from a local establishment
the bell had ever been. The Prisoner accomplishes
The major drawback of the his primary objective: in each because he realized, at least
chain. Meanwhile the school
slept blissfully through break- -fast. The headmaster, failing to see the humor of the situa- tion often threatened to sus- Pend vacation unless the cul-
prits revealed themselves. Cul- prits being as they were, this Plan was soon abandoned.
There were even occasions When the bell itself refused to cooperate. ·Dr. Banks recalls hearing the supper bell on one o~casion begin "Ding, dong,
dmg · · .," a long pause, then
a thunderous crash. The rea- son behind the bell's plummet was never fully discovered but Dr. Banks, being a man of
good faith and adequate insur- ance, had the bell hoisted atop the tower once again.
Yet another instance of the
known as the Texas Tavern. Such was ~he occasion for the gathering at the V-Club.
Unknown to thes~ studious and hungry night watchers was the presence of uninvited
bell's new position was that it was continually falling on such various personalities as Head-
master Montgomery and Geof-.
frey Norwood. This, coupled .with complaints from one lady
episode, he is · victor of the game of wits he plays with the leaders of the Village. He only accomplishes the first of his secondary ai:r;ns in the final epi- sode of the show, when he is joined by two other prisoners who symbolize Rebellious Y outh and Disenchanted· Establish-
subconsciously, that it accu- rately portrayed ) his painful and stationary po~ition in soci- ety. What's more,iit offered no solution (the Prisoner never escaped) and this continuous lack of happy ending further repulsed the viewer.
Clearly, The Prisoner was doomed from the start, but that did not keep those who oc- casionally like to see something different and relevant from en- joying its brief ·existence.
chain which connected it with the bell detached itself and hur- tled down upon him.
to the leeward of its original Patrick McGoohan (Secret Agent a couple of year,. ago), who
Only half the problem was
most of the students were not on dorm. Head Counselor Rock
tween Jett and William King Field House and the school was forced to install an automatic
bell system.
The new location of the bell
did not deter the visits from
town. It did slow their prog-
ress until the jesters discov-
ered how the bell worked in its
new location. One unfortunate taining his personal integrity, depict reality, and particularly soul, reaching under the bell to is primary; secondary aims are unpleasant reality. Therefore, pull the clapper back, failed to 1) rallying other Villagers to Mr. American TV Viewer re- remove his hand before the follow him, 2) escaping from jected The Prisoner not be-
Lee, for example, was tucked
campus studying, but the main- stream of activity centered
The old belltower
guests on campus. A contigent of around nine from an area high school, having as usual nothing better to do, deemed it necessary to see if the bell was working. It was, and did a re- markably thorough job of wak-
m• g everyone on campus. The master-in-charge, unaware of the proper procedure, decided to make a bed check.
This unfortunately revealed the fact that over half the school was elsewhere. Little is
known about the subsequent meeting between head counsel- or and headmaster, but .Mr. Lee's presence on the faculty today says something about his eloquence.
After this incident, midnight pilgrimages to the bell became more frequent, much to the dis- may of one resident of third Jett. One night, being more up- set than usual at the pranks- ters, he took it upon himself to
launch a one man aerial attack with drink bottles. Though the assault garnished no casualties,
it sent the invaders scurrying back to town for reinforce- ments. The near riot which en- sued however was quickly dis- persed.
The bell continued to serve the school until the construc- tion of Banks-Gannaway be- gan. There had been no pre- determined plan to disassem- ble the bell and tower until one of the more skilled bulldozer operators smashed his machine
against the tower. This left the
tower some twenty-five percent
Paramount
Oct.ll-17-Helga
Oct. 25-31-Any Gun Can
Play
W arner
Oct. 16-22-Big Gundown Starring Lee Van Cleef
Oct. 23-Nov. 5 Duffy Starring James Coburn
and James Mason Nov. 6-12-The Boston
clapper almost did. The result-
on Rothiwood
Road who
claimed the bell disturbed her mentarians. His other two sec-
morning slumber, led to dis- mantling the bell and placing
it on a concrete slab.
Austin Montgomery often
spoke of a permanent home for the bell. When Scott Shanklin was killed in the spring of 1966, many friends wanted to do something in the way of a
ondary objectives remain un- realized for although he es- capes the physical confines of the Village in the final show
(without ,discovering who his captors were) he finds Village- type repression in the every- day life of society. So in the end the · Prisoner remains a prisoner in a stifling system over which he has no control
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F'i"tlt Gentlemen'• Apurel
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memorial for him, and thus and in which he still must fight
arose the idea of a tower to house the bell.
Architects were consulted
to maintain his·individual iden-
tity.
Why did The Prisoner fail?
.
and construction began in the that television is participatory summer of this year. The tow- medium : that because of video
The renowned media theorist, for design and cost estimates,. Marshall McLuhan, asserts
On the ground, silenced.
er is in the center of the side- walk connecting Jett and the gym.
Once again the bell rings at V.E.S. Jt is controlled auto- matically and sounds off for chapel and meals. And as it chimes many a head turns to hear the unfamiliar sound of a very familiar bell.
Oct. 10-16
Starring Rod Taylor
in large congregations beneath from the British Secret Serv- mentally the TV picture him-
and around the leaning tower. It soon became obvious it would have to come down.
ice, and is incarcerated in the Village, location unknown, a rather luxurious, computerized
town-prison, f o r . drop-outs
self, and thus to participate in the medium. If one accepts this theory, then it follows that a popular television show will be one which is enjoyable for the
The bell was placed over a
small stand on the lawn be- self. The Prisoner resists the viewer to participate in, and
from the spy business like him-
sometimes subtle and some-
times outlandish efforts of his
unknown captors to break his
will and extract information
from him. In the Village, where
any type of noncomformity is
taboo, the Prisone:r struggles
to assert his individuality (his
cry, "I am not a number. I am
a free man", is met with scorn-
ful laughter). This goal, re- identify with) to those· which
Piazza Plaza
Strangler
The Hell with Heroes
Oct. 17-23-Barbarella Oct. 24-31-A Lovely Way
to Die
Boonesboro
Oct. 11-15 High
Commissioner
Starring Rod Taylor and Christopher Plumber
Oct. 16-29-lnterlude Starring Oskar Werner and
Barbara Ferris
Oct. 23-29-Hot Millions
The Lantern
one in which the viewer can identify himself with the tele- vision "hero". However, tele- vision rating systems, such as the Nielson's, tend to prove that the American public pre- fers escapist TV shows (i.e., programs which present un- real but pleasant people and situations for the viewer to
Retail era .