1984 (1956 film) 1984 (1956 film) 1984 is a 1956 British black-and-white science fiction film, based on the novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell, depicting a totalitarian future society. This is the first cinema rendition of the story, directed by Michael Anderson and starring Edmond O'Brien as protagonist Winston Smith, and featuring Donald Pleasence, Jan Sterling, and Michael Redgrave. The character O'Brien, the antagonist, was renamed "O'Connor", due to the shared surname of the actor Edmond O'Brien. The film was distributed in 1956 on a double bill with another British sci-fi film, "The Gamma People". After the customary distributor agreement expired, the film
George Orwell bibliography before he could support himself as an author. These pieces include first-hand journalism (e.g. 1931's "The Spike"), articles (e.g. 1931's "Hop-Picking"), and even a one-act play—"Free Will". (He would also adapt four plays as radio dramas.) His production of fiction was not as prolific—while living in Paris he wrote a few unpublished stories and two novels, but burned the manuscripts (Orwell routinely destroyed his manuscripts and with the exception of a partial copy of "Nineteen Eighty-Four", all are lost. Davison would publish this as "Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Facsimile of the Extant Manuscript" by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in May 1984, .)