Can anyone add anything to the entry in "Alternate Versions" in the IMDB entry for the 1956 version of 1984? Why were there two versions?
Paul Murphy
London UK.
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no there was one version made in 1954 made by the bbc with peter cushing as winston this is the best version which stays very close to the book, with the john hurt version a close 2nd, this version had big changes i have all three versions if your interested
shareHi fish4spider,
I would be very interested to obtain a copy of the Cushing-version, preferrably on dvd. Please let me know how much you're asking for it. Maybe I have something to trade with you. My e-mail adress is [email protected] .
Hope to hear from you soon.
Regards
Thomas
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If you can make a DVD copy of the 1954 version (BBC with Peter Cushing) please contact me at [email protected] about cost.....Thanks I would be very interested.
My understanding is that two different *endings* were shot for the 1956 film, one for British audiences, one for American audiences. This is what the note under "Alternate Versions" is referring to. See also the TV Guide review:
http://online.tvguide.com/movies/database/showmovie.asp?MI=30554
The 1954 version with Peter Cushing is a separate issue entirely.
I also heard the 1956 version (both endings!) had been withdrawn from circulation for some reason and is officially unavailable at present, a la Kubrick's "Fear and Desire". Is this true?
I've heard that George Orwell's widow bought the rights to one of the versions and had it banned because she was furious about them changing her husbands work. The banned version has a happy ending, completly different from the novel.
shareI haven't seen either version, but the TV Guide review makes it sound like both endings are "unhappy".
sharedear fish4spider,
looks like you are running something of a buisiness.
please can you tell me whch is the best version of 1984?
"dear fish4spider,
looks like you are running something of a buisiness."
lol, that's so ironic when you think about it. Have any of you read "Orwell's Revenge" by Peter Huber? It's, more or less, a rebuttal to "1984" in that the telescreens, rather than a device of oppression, in the end are used by the Proles, illicitly mind you, to facilitate free enterprise (much like the web).
Basically it starts out with a few tech savvy prole youths in London using the network to trade jelly beans or something for some football cards with other prole kids in Surrey. Before long everyone including their grandmother starts using the useful devices to establish an intricate credit system (Big Brother's moneys no good) to facilitate a vast network for trading goods and services. Enabling the proles to overcome the Party's planned war-time shortages, and raise their living standards.
Before long the proles become self-aware and the Party becomes to preoccupied with holding down emerging crime syndicates and counter revolutionaries to bother spying on peaceful law-abidding proles or Outer Party members.
Good for her!
I saw the version in which the state's attempt to brainwash Winston Smith fails and he dies defiant: a total cop out. For some reason they showed a version in the US with an ending closer to that of the book.
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I realize this is 5 years later but if you still have the Peter Cushing version, preferably on DVD, I would like a copy. Please advise price and shipping costs.
I am in the USA so pls advise on format.
Thanks in advance
Cliff
I am Karlis from Latvia and to be honest I am very interested in this version as well. So if anyone has this on dvd, I might be interested in buying this copy DVD
[email protected]
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