This adaptation gets off to an awkward start with two ministry officials sounding a bit too much like aliens in a science fiction film when they talk about Winston Smith – but then it kicks in and it’s a fine version of Orwell’s masterpiece. The ideas are still as relevant now as ever – “peace is war”, reducing vocabulary to stop thought, using war to keep people happy, the power of propaganda, the importance of suffering to keep power, Room 101 which contains the worst thing in the world. Richard Widmark plays Smith, very well – he and some of the cast are obviously American, it’s a shame they couldn’t have changed the story to be set in America instead of Britain (it would have been an easy change to make, and given the story extra resonance). But it was still terrific.
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