Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Nonureva Really Surprised!

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

wnstn_hmltn Teaming the ultimate speculative-fiction scenarist (Nigel Kneale) with two of the most monumental actors to have ever had a command of the Queen's English (Peter Cushing and Andre Morell) has resulted in a dynamic trio striking this unflinching rendition of the Orwell classic with sparks aplenty. Later to become living legends over at Hammer Films (particularly Cushing), it was this momentous pairing of Morell and Cushing that led the Hammer powers-that-be to reunite them seven years later in the truly remarkable "Cash on Demand" (see my review). The lovely, inscrutable Yvonne Mitchell acquits herself well as Cushing's forbidden love interest, and the atmosphere of foreboding and dread is so thick you could cut it. Last but not least, watching Kneale apply his inimitable touch to Orwell's concepts is a tremendously exciting foretaste of the wholly original yarns he would later spin ("Quatermass," etc. ) A superlative production all the way around.....don't miss it!

hugh1971 I had heard of this programme but never seen it so was very pleased when BBC4 screened it recently. In many ways the play was shockingly 'modern' with its allusions to sex and pornography...even the word 'orgasm' is mentioned which must have caused a few raised eyebrows in English drawing rooms! ('ask your father, dear....')What struck me more though was how BBC drama has changed since this was broadcast in 1954. While the production values are minimal (the sets of Victory Mansions for example look like something out of a primary school play, and the opening 'exterior' shot of the Ministry of Love looks like it was drawn with crayon) the acting is superb and unlike anything you would get on a modern tv drama. The sense of claustrophobia is intense and the 'stagey' feel adds to this. Cushing is brilliant as are the majority of the cast. While set in 1984 the atmosphere is clearly that of bombed out, austere post war London - the dinner lady 'Them's stew with salt; them's stew without' has an Edwardian proletarian twang which has now utterly gone from English speech. My one dislike was the scene when the 'proles' were reading a pornographic book - this looked like three RADA students pretending to be 'common'. Wilfred Brambell as the old man was suspiciously like 'Steptoe' - did Galton and Simpson get the idea from this, I wonder...!And Orwell's story comes across excellently - the sense of hopelessness in the face of grinding totalitarianism - he would have been proud.

Prof_Lostiswitz This version seems to be at least as good as the Burton one from the 1980's, which was made at much greater expense. TV movies have the room to be experimental, when they want to be. The cheap sets and black-and-white photography actually contribute to the effect, although the countryside scenes of course suffer. The actors deliver their lines with conviction, natural enough since they were closer in time to Orwell, Stalin, McCarthy and the rest.One problem is that some of the best lines are delivered far too quickly, presumably because this was a live-on-air performance. Julia's final lines should be muttered in a halting voice, not rattled off as here.The ratings of the various versions are 1. 1954 (Cushing) 2. 1984 (Burton) 3.1956 (which was suppressed by Orwell's estate, it was so bad). Brazil (1985) is better than any of these, because it was designed for cinema; and Orwell's novel is better than all of them.

lordwoodbine This is quite the best version of this over-rated fable due in great part to Peter Cushing's subtle and moving reading of Winston Smith. He was an actor of only a very few identities but he was very good at 'playing the text' which means that even the most fantastic tale is utterly believable and gripping.Save for a few filmed inserts, this is a live performance and that also adds something quite magical to the piece. For once the story becomes a compelling adventure rather than the clumsy and misdirected polemic that it is sometimes staged as.Subsequent versions have been grounded too much in designer's desire to create a 'nightmare world' in which the action takes place. In the 1980s version the impact of the 'message' is lessened by unconvincing filth and modish gloom. Here the barren sets and simple costumes leave more space for the action.A little confusion may arise because Wilfred Bramble appears in two parts but in general, as was often was the case at the BBC, the low budget actually adds to the thing.