Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954)

A man who works for 'The Party' (an all powerful empire led by a man known only as 'Big Brother') begins to have thoughts of rebellion and love for a fellow member. Together they look to help bring down the party.

Date of release
1954-12-16
TMDB
7.3 / 10 (44)
Runtime
1h 47m
Genres
Drama, Science Fiction, TV Movie
Director
Rudolph Cartier

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a British television adaptation of the 1949 novel of the same name by George Orwell, originally broadcast on BBC Television as part of BBC Sunday-Night Theatre on 12 December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial, with questions asked in Parliament and many viewer complaints over its supposed subversive nature and its graphic depiction of totalitarianism. It starred Peter Cushing, Yvonne Mitchell, Donald Pleasence and André Morell.

Production

Until the early 1960s, the vast majority of the BBC's television was performed live. Nonetheless, there was a certain degree of pre-shooting in the form of inserts on film, which could be played into the studio and broadcast as part of the play to cover changes of scene or show location material which would have been impossible to mount live in the studio.

Further location shooting took place on 18 November which were exterior scenes featuring Smith's travels in the proletarian sector. According to Peter Cushing, speaking on Late Night Line-Up in 1965, these scenes were filmed on the demolition site that became BBC Television Centre. Following the filming, rehearsals for the cast began at Mary Ward Settlement, Tavistock Place from 22 November (moving to 60 Paddington Street from 29 November).

The cast and crew moved to Studio D at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios on Saturday, 11 December 1954, for a full camera rehearsal and run-through. Rehearsals continued the following day until shortly before transmission, which began at 20:37 Sunday, 12 December, and continued for the best part of two hours.

Kneale's script was a largely faithful adaptation of the novel as far as was practical. The writer made some small additions, the most notable being the creation of a sequence in which O'Brien observes Julia at work in PornoSec and reads a small segment from one of the erotic novels being written by the machines.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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