Nineteen Eighty Four (1954 TV Sci-fi drama)

About

In the near future in 1984 (well, it was back then), in a society that has eliminated many imbalances, surplus goods, and even class struggle, there are bound to be deviates; Winston Smith is one of those. He starts, due to his inability to double-think, with thought-crime. This is in a society that believes the thought is as real as the deed. He soon begins to break out from that oppressive cycle when he meets and falls for Julia, another of the citizens who wants free from this Communist style yoke of control, and together they plot to escape it and bring down it's oppressive regime.

Starring Peter Cushing, Yvonne Mitchell, Andre Morell, Donald Pleaseance, Wilfred Brambell, Arnold Diamond, Hilda Fenemore, Campbell Gray, Pamela Grant, Keith Davies, Leonard Sachs and Peter Sallis among the cast. This was adapted from the famous 1949 novel by George Orwell by Nigel Kneale, who would later have success with other chilling works, The Quatermass Experiment (1955) and The Stone Tape (1972). This is from a recording of mine when it was repeated on BBC4 last year and is a rare and very early recording from the early days of TV in Britain. It made a name for Peter Cushing, while the production was apparently so harrowing that it shocked many audiences at the time - hence why you have the announcer at the beginning of this programme. Apparently one viewer even died while watching it! A critique of the Communist system in the old Soviet Union and a warning for the future, it may of dated in manners and acting technique now, but it is still mightily effective and an important work and warning on future governments and their ways to control. It's remarkable in itself that this TV show survives, as many of the shows back then were recorded live and few were preserved on tape, which is why I feel it is so crucial that old TV programs deserve to be saved and my reason for uploading this to the Internet Archives so that it is saved for future generations to see - both as a historical relic of TV's past and an important statement of controlling governments of the future.

Human-made No record of this work says a model made it. What this means.

Archive

Internet Archive, in The VHS Vault

Licence or status

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Credit

George Orwell

Language

English

Who can watch

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