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 began to write for the American "Partisan Review" which linked Orwell with The New York Intellectuals who were also anti-Stalinist, and contributed to Gollancz anthology "The Betrayal of the Left", written in the light of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (although Orwell referred to it as the Russo-German Pact and the Hitler-Stalin Pact). He also applied unsuccessfully for a job at the Air Ministry. Meanwhile, he was still writing reviews of books and plays and at this time met the novelist Anthony Powell. He also took part in a few radio broadcasts for the Eastern Service of the BBC. In March the