For years no one understood 'The Prisoner'. Now we might. No. 6 is back, and Hollywood's got him

The North Wales village of Portmeirion, immortalised by the cult Seventies television series The Prisoner, has been waiting 33 years for actor Patrick McGoohan to turn one his many inscrutable lines from the show into serious action.

"Be seeing you," was the calling card of McGoohan, alias No 6, the prisoner who would not be brainwashed. Despite his frequent promises, the Italianate model village built by Clough Williams-Ellis has never again seen McGoohan, the series' producer and part-scriptwriter who played the government agent trapped in a land where no one had a name.

But yesterday, after years of rumour and hope, it seemed McGoohan was ready at last to go back. Hollywod has announced plans for a film version and there is considerable evidence that Portmeirion will be the location.

McGoohan, who wrote the script at least six years ago, will be executive producer for a film to be made by Universal and British directed by Simon West, whose previous films include Con Air and The General's Daughter. Producer Barrie Mendel said: "With Simon West and [scriptwriter] Chris McQuarrie it's going to be a cool and commercial movie."

Universal will not discuss locations. Preparations, it says, are too premature for such speculation. But the North Wales film commissioner, Hugh Edwin Davies, has already contacted the backers in Los Angeles to try to persuade them about Portmeirion.

McGoohan's passion for the village was demonstrated six years ago, in a letter to Richard Llywelyn - Williams-Ellis' grandson and managing director of Portmeirion's village and gardens. "You were eight years old when we invaded," he wrote from California. "I am touching 70 now. A movie is in the works. I wrote the script. Most of it, with your permission, will be filmed in the village."

Two years ago, he faxed a note to the Prisoner Convention, the annual Portmeirion gathering of 500 zany followers. "Who knows? You may be at Portmeirion once more ... when the movie, now in preparation, comes to the big screen."

Yesterday, excitement at the prospect was unquenchable. Though filming on the original series lasted just six months - September 1966 to March 1967 - 24,000 people, 10 per cent of the annual visitors, still flock to see Portmeirion just because The Prisoner was filmed there.

Mr Llywelyn tried to keep the mouthwatering prospect in perspective. "We had contact with Mr McGoohan a couple of years ago but nothing since," he said. "It would be good news."

In the dedicated Prisoner shop, "Be seeing you" sticks of rock at 65p share the shelves with "No 6" coasters and £8.99 T-shirts bearing another McGoohan catchphrase: "A still tongue makes a happy life".

Behind the counter, Heulwen Vaughan-Hatcher, 58, an extra in the series when she was 24, mused over her suitability for another part. "I was a bikini-clad girl, drove a Mini-Moke and doubled for No 2," she said. "I guess they'd have me down for a pensioner now."

The income a film generates would be appreciated, said Mrs Vaughan-Hatcher, who earned £2/10s (£2.50) for a nine-hour day, "and an extra 10s if it was so cold we went blue in our bikinis. Mr McGoohan was very good like that. I got a three-piece suite out of it."

Rather more people than might be expected know about Hollywood riches in this remote corner of rural north-west Wales. When First Knight, starring Richard Gere and Sean Connery, was filmed down the road in Trawsfynydd, all the catering staff at the Bont Ddu Hall, Dolgellau, were sent home on full pay for a holiday while Gere's catering crew moved in.

"They do bring a lot of money in," said Gareth Evans-Williams, of Harlech, visiting Portmeirion yesterday. "And what's good is that they go away again when they've finished. If you can control [film crews'] movements it's fine." It seems Mr Williams-Ellis was equally happy for his creation to fulfil a commercial purpose. He emerged from private viewing of the series - arranged by Mr McGoohan in the local town of Penrhydeudraeth - to declare his Portmeirion "seemed to steal the show from its human cast". He said the TV series "stands alone in its alluring presentation of the place".

Fame has occasionally come at a price here. Portmeirion was damaged during a Prisoner Society convention several years ago and for a time it seemed the cult's followers would not be welcomed back. No convention was held last year but next year the event will be moved from the peak summer season - when 2,000 visitors a day are packed in - to March.

The Portmeirion estate has also now taken over control of the Prisoner shop - in No 6's old quarters - which the convention has traditionally managed, bringing in greater revenue and a more upmarket range for Prisoner merchandise.

In the shop yesterday, Kenneth Lawrie of Edinburgh, holidaying in North Wales and visiting Portmeirion just for the love of The Prisoner, was with his baffled 10-year-old daughter. "Who was No 1?" she asked her father. "Well, that would be telling," he said adroitly.

There may be odd sights for visitors to a film set. One letter to a newspaper in 1967 read: "Portmeirion is a fascinating place. Somebody around the corner on a penny-farthing bicycle might come to meet you, ridden by a man in a jogging suit and a crash helmet."