Fantasia Obscura: ‘1984’

There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.

Sometimes, ignorance is strength…

1984 (1956)
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Directed by: Michael Anderson

No book written in the Twentieth Century has had quite the impact or exerted as much influence as George Orwell’s last novel, released in 1949. The book gave the world one of the bleakest, most recognizable dystopias ever put to paper, and the society found in the work became the basis for the word “Orwellian” when compared with any oppressive society, fictional or real-

No, must. Resist. VERY. Obvious. Comments…

The book received mostly positive reviews on publication, and was a best seller from the get-go. So of course someone had the bright idea to acquire the film rights to make a major motion picture.

How the producer secured rights to the film and what they did with those could practically have been a chapter in the novel itself…

Please note that there will be spoilers for both all versions of the film and its source material.

We get the following title card just as the credits finish:

We’re then immediately treated to footage of various nuclear tests while the narrator describes what happened during the far off year of 1965: an exchange of nuclear weapons (called “raids” by the narrator) set off a wave of calamities that ultimately led to the creation of Eurasia, Eastasia, and Oceania.

We then get a close-up of the capital of Airstrip One (formerly Great Britain), where the different governmental ministries have built bomb-proof offices atop the ruins of the city:

As the streets are cleared during a Eurasian rocket bomb air raid, we find Winston Smith (Edmund O’Brian) looking for cover. He finds shelter in the foyer of a shop, which he soon shares with a woman who was following him, Julia (Jan Sterling).

This doesn’t make Winston all that happy, as she’s been following him around for some time. He’s convinced she’s a member of the Thought Police, the internal security organization for Oceania, although the creepy stalker vibes she gives off are probably enough of a turn-off in and of themselves.

Winston’s life is pretty limited. He’s starting to burn out from his job at the Ministry of Truth, where he’s responsible for correcting old speeches so that no one could get caught in a ‘gotcha’ moment by going back to the files, and his one drinking buddy Parsons (Donald Plesence) is a bit of a bore to be around, letting his daughter Selina (Carol Wolveridge) terrorize the neighborhood by leaning too hard into playing “Junior Thought Police.”

Which especially worries Winston, as he’d just recently acquired a blank diary from 1960, which he repurposes. This act is illegal, and thus makes Winston a thought criminal, though by now he’s so over following the rules that he’s willing to risk it.

And as any moralist will try to convince you, once you commit one crime, it’s easy to go on to build a criminal record from there. Or at least Winston does, as he goes round to the antique shop he’d gotten the diary at and asks the owner, Carrington (David Kossoff), what else he has to sell.

While his superiors are unhappy to find out that he’d been wandering around all night in areas he shouldn’t have (thanks to information from the Thought Police, who know everything), he’s given a pass by a superior, O’Brian O’Sullivan (Michael Redgrave, whose character name was likely changed so as not confuse audiences with watching O’Brian as Smith…). O’Sullivan is one of the few people that doesn’t creep out Winston, although he does learn quickly to trust others…

…such as Julia, whose motives become clear when someone passes a note to Smith on her behalf, saying that they should meet, and that she loves him. Soon, the relationship develops the same way one would between two middle school kids, both of then sneaking off somewhere where no one is watching them as they explore the mysteries of love curiosity-fueled-attraction.

As we watch, Julia calls just about all the shots as the relationship deepens, though as time goes on, Winston becomes less of a follower than a doer, right up until the affair has to come to an end:

From here on, we follow Winston as O’Sullivan oversees his torture and brainwashing. Despite all resistence, Winston is brutally torn down, to the point where he has become a total shamble, as O’Sullivan shows him:

Ultimately, O’Sullivan and the Party win in the end, and as we watch we see Winston having been fully rehabilitated by the Party. We leave him meeting Julia for the last time just as screams “Down with Big Brother” before getting shot by the Thought Poli-

Wait, what…?

Note: Only a German dubbed copy of this scene is readily available for viewing

No, this is not how the book ended. And in fact, outside of the UK and West Germany, most of the rest of the world got an ending that was much closer to the source material, where a hollowed out Winston and Julia separate for the last time before Winston fully embraces Big Brother.

Admittedly, there’s a lot the film changed from the book, such as Winston’s separation from his wife Katharine, his other troubles with sex in general, changing the enemy during Hate Week from Eurasia to Eastasia in mid-speech, and a few character name changes (i.e., changing the name of the traitorous leader of the resistance from “Goldstein” to “Kalador”). This, however, was a big slap in the face to the source material, one that Orwell’s widow Sonia Bronwell objected to, leading to a decades-long campaign to pull this version of the film out of circulation.

A version of the film that was insisted on by the company that bought the rights to the film. In fact, it was insisted upon by the Company…

In 1950, the Congress for Cultural Freedom (and its American counterpart, the ACCF) were formed using funds that were part of the Marshall Plan, in an effort to promote Western ideals in competition with those emanating from the Soviet Union. The cultural body, under National Security Directive NSC-10/2, was organized clandestinely by the Central Intelligence Agency, as part of an effort to win hearts and minds for Western freedom. While the directive covered worldwide operations, funding the CCF was directed particularly at Europe, which was more willing to question Western ideals and compare them with what was on the other side, making them a theater of concern.

One of their efforts involved putting Orwell’s work on screen, both 1984 and Animal Farm. Soon after Orwell’s death, Carleton Alsop, an executive at Paramount Pictures and business manager for Judy Garland, was sent to England to purchase the rights from Sonia Bronwell. Undisclosed until the 1970s, Alsop’s efforts were being overseen by E. Howard Hunt, the CIA operative in charge of the psychological warfare division.

(And yes, we’re talking about the same Hunt who in later years would have a career change, from producer to plumber…)

The other film adaptation secured and funded by the CIA

Both projects shared a number of things. Their source material was written by the same author, with both books being well received at the time of their publication. Both films had funding provided directly by the Company to insure completion of the picture, in the case of 1984 to the tune of $100,000.

They also both had new endings put on them, endings where the efforts by totalitarianism regimes could not succeed and the (obviously English) heroes would prevail. And both new endings would end up being roundly criticized by both film critics, and everyone else who actually read the books.

(Insert “lie back and think of England” joke here…)

The film is certainly fascinating as a piece of propaganda, but deserves to be looked at as a piece of art. On that ground, there are clearly issues. Putting aside the problems with the ending noted above, the script by William Templeton and Ralph Bettinson (which is noted in the credits as “Freely adapted from the Novel”) captures much of the spirit of the novel, but without some of the nuance in Orwell’s book. The result is a serviceable retelling that feels clunky at times, with its heavy-handed re-workings of the story made glaringly obvious by Malcolm Arnold’s overwrought score.

Anderson’s direction overall is fairly middle of the road until Winston’s capture by the Thought Police. At that point, he works with lighting and angles that deftly convey how long and arduous Winston’s been worked over by his captors, with an admirable economy and directness in execution. In terms of the cast, we see the best results from Michael Redgrave’s O’Sullivan and Carol Wolveridge’s Selina, both of whom embody Airstrip One at its worst, engaging us with their characterizations the way the rest of the cast (including the two American leads) never quite manage to do.

Orwell, of course, would have hated the new ending. He apparently left specific instructions not to have the ending of either work altered if adapted, which judging by the protests Bronwell raised for years after release, the CIA apparently ignored.

Considering the secrecy that enwrapped the producers, though, with money not coming from Hollywood by Langley, VA, it might be possible that Orwell might have had a chuckle when he realized that it was the Ministry of Truth that had sent notes to the set. Mind you, it’d be a chuckle buried within a horrific shock at seeing his warnings about the state controlling what we see and read being adulterated by the state.

Considering who was putting up the money, the change to the film’s ending was inevitable, no matter how double-plus-un-good it ended up being…