The Worst Film Ever

People are voting emotionally.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

***SPOILERS*** George Orwell's film based on his book "1984" about a future totalitarian state is more shocking now then it was it was first released some 60 years ago. With new speak and thought police now so common in our everyday language it was Orwell who coined those phrases that are so accurate in today's society. In the film party member Winston Smith, Edmond O'Brian, tries to fight the totalitarian government that he works and slaves for but ends up a mind numbed zombie for doing it. It was with his fellow party, of Oceania, member pretty blond Julia, Jan Sterling, that Winston tried to start a revolution but sadly found that only he he besides Julia were wiling to risk their lives or sanity in doing it.***SPOILERS***Back-stabbed and betrayed at every turn by a number of so-call friends who claimed to be on board with them in the end both Winston & Julia were turned into the thought police by those that they trusted most inner Party man O'Connor, Michael Redgrave, and junk shop owner Carrington, David Kossoff, to be tortured and re-educated by the state. It was love, that was outlawed by the state, that first brought both Winston & Julia together but fear by those whom they most trusted most that in the end did them both in. And it was fear or rule by fear that the government, Oceania, kept it's citizens in line.P.S We never really get to see the "Big Guy" called "Big Brother" or "Be-Be", as he's so affectionately called by his terrified and enslaved people , who's running this entire ruthless and sleaze ball operation that causes so much suffering for it's people but we do see posters of him plastered all over the place. From what we see of the posters of "Be-Be" he look a lot like the then dictator-like Director of the F.B.I J. Edger Hoover!

After wanting to see this movie for about three decades and after teaching the book for almost two, I finally found a copy recently and was surprised by two things: 1) how surprisingly faithful this movie is at times, even more so in certain parts than the definitive 1984 version; and 2) just how painful it is to watch something that bowdlerizes a story you're intimately familiar with.On the one hand, the 1956 version gets the larger picture of Orwell's dystopia completely wrong. Much like the BBC version of two years previously, the movie ignores Orwell's descriptions of Airstrip One as a ruined and war-torn version of London for the most part, and such places as the Ministry of Truth and the canteen look like every other 50s sci-fi movie's version of the 1980s. (They even change Goldstein's name to something futuristic-sounding and unmemorable, though they may have been to avoid any hint of anti-Semitism.) No wonder Orwell's widow hated it so.It's also no surprise that both Julia and O'Brien (oops, sorry, it's O'Connor here, probably because of the lead actor's name being too close to O'Brien) are able to spot Winston as different: Edmund O'Brien plays Winston not as an intellectual stuck in a society antithetical to intellectual thought but as a bit of a gormless idiot, a man who has to be told repeatedly "That photo does not exist. Yes, that one in your hand. Yes, THAT one. It doesn't exist. What, are you deaf?" It's hard to imagine THIS Winston Smith lasting for very long in the actual novel, let alone the 1984 version of the movie. This Winston is also enough of an idiot to believe that the steely, vaudeville villain-eqsue O'Connor could ever be sympathetic - though, to be fair, that's more to do with Michael Redgrave deciding to play the part without an ounce of subtlety, and neither movie does a decent job of explaining why Winston trusts O'Brien in the first place. Of the three actors to play this part, it's definitely Burton first, then André Morell, then Redgrave far in the rear. And don't even get me started about trying to do a movie in the 50s about a society trying to abolish the orgasm...And yet the movie gets some bits absolutely right. Winston's visit to O'Brien's quarters, unlike the similar visit in the later version, includes Julia and includes her objection to O'Connor's suggestion that they may someday have to separate. (All these years, I thought that scene occurred in the later version, too, but rewatching it the other night revealed that it doesn't.) It also gets some of the broader strokes right, too: I hadn't expected the Two Minute Hate to work so well in this futuristic setting, nor to have the torture scenes make any sense. Still, give me the later version anyday over this one. This is definitely your grandfather's 1984, not Orwell's.

In a recent review of Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil,' I confidently referred to the film as a "weird, twisted, fantastical tale of the sheer absurdity of an Orwellian society." In all honesty, at that time, I wasn't even certain of what constituted an "Orwellian" society, since I had never read the novel, and was only repeating fragments which I had extracted from other sources. Not more than three weeks ago, I decided to finally get my hands on George Orwell's famous dystopian story to see what it was all about, and was somewhat surprised to discover that it was one of the most engaging pieces of literature I had ever read. Eager to find out how the film adaptations treated Orwell's themes, I immediately tracked down copies of Michael Radford's timely version (released in 1984), as well as Michael Anderson's harder-to-find '1984,' released in 1956.Michael Anderson's '1984' was not, in fact, the first adaptation of George Orwell's novel, following a 1954 BBC television Sunday Night Theatre broadcast, which I've heard is phenomenal. I had expected that a 1950s adaptation would sugarcoat some of the novel's darker and more pessimistic themes, and yet I was pleasantly surprised to find that screenwriters Ralph Gilbert Bettison and William Templeton have followed Orwell's story quite closely. Edmond O'Brien plays Winston Smith, a lowly member of the Outer Party at the Ministry of Truth, where he works every day at "revising" history to correspond with Big Brother's most recent declarations. Winston secretly harbours a resentment towards Big Brother and his totalitarian government, a crime that is punishable by death should he be observed by the all-powerful Thought Police. However, Winston is not alone, and he soon discovers that the beautiful young Julia (Jan Sterling) also shares his reservations, and the two strike up a romantic relationship, meeting in locations without surveillance and always toying with the risk of capture.Inevitably, both are arrested by the dictatorial government, and Winston falls into the hands of Gen. O'Connor (changed from O'Brien in the novel, possibly to avoid the name clash with the film's main star), played by Michael Redgrave. Slowly but surely, O'Connor sets about destroying Winston's will, persisting with his torturous punishment, not only until Winston obeys Big Brother, but until he loves him. An alternative ending reportedly had Winston and Julia screaming "Down with Big Brother" as they fell before the firing squad, a conclusion that I suspect would have infuriated George Orwell. Fortunately, the version I saw stayed much truer to the spirit of the novel, ending with a "rehabilitated" Winston proclaiming his genuine love for the almighty leader. There is also a brief, ten-second epilogue in which the narrator practically spells out the film's moral – as if it wasn't clear enough already – but this minor slip-up is easily forgiven.The performances in the film are very well done. Edmond O'Brien does not look how I had originally pictured Winston Smith – perhaps a bit plumper than expected – but he did an excellent job, most impressive in the scenes of his torture. There is one brilliant long-take in which we see O'Connor pacing back and forth across the screen, periodically holding up four fingers and trying to convince Winston that there are five. Winston, pictured on a television monitor behind O'Connor, vigilantly maintains that "two and two equals four," before the latter's persistent torture finally breaks him. The acting here from both parties is sublime, and we can really feel the agony that poor Winston is enduring. Also notable is actor Donald Pleasence, who plays R. Parsons, an average workman who is hopelessly devoted to the Party and its leader, even after he is arrested for alleged thought-crimes.Perhaps one of the few complaints that I can make about the film is how Room 101 was dealt with. Though I was most impressed with O'Brien's acting during this sequence, it was all over much too quickly to be effective, and we don't even see a thing, treated only to the frantic squeaks of a mass of hungry rodents. Whilst it is often true that the less the audience sees the better, here didn't seem to be one of those moments, and the whole scene would have worked much better, in my view, had we been subjected to what Winston could see; to be face-to-face with "the worst thing in the world." Other than this, I can certainly recommend '1984' for its fine treatment of a challenging piece of dystopian literature. This one is well worth tracking down.

......is even better. One might be tempted to call this a remake, and I suppose it is, but it was the first theatrical rendition, enabling audiences to watch Big Brother (watching them) on a bigger screen than was possible via the BBC/Peter Cushing version (1954) of two years earlier. I agree with previous commentator "bux's" observance that, while Edmond O'Brien and Jan Sterling may not have been Orwell's first casting choices for Winston and Julia for the reason stated, the sterling performances generated by the leads and their supporting cast more than compensate. As a huge fan of the late, great Hammer Films luminary Michael Ripper, I was especially pleased to see him helping to take up the rear as an Outer Party Orator, exemplifying the tender loving care with which producer N. Peter Rathvon saw fit to cast even the smaller roles.