NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: BFI Blu-ray (March 2022): BFI have transferred Rudolph Cartier's Nineteen Eighty-Four to Blu-ray. It is cited as "newly restored by the BFI using original film materials from the BBC archive". Nineteen Eighty-Four was originally broadcast on BBC Television in December 1954. Until the 1960s, the overwhelming majority of the BBC's television was performed live recorded on 35mm TeleCine equipment directly from a television screen (405 lines of resolution), generally known as Kinescope, but there was some pre-shooting (usually externals) shot on film and used as inserts during the television broadcast. This is similar to Cartier's Quatermass and the Pit and this Blu-ray is also, accurately, 1080i in PAL 25fps as was the original broadcast. So on a small CRT (cathode ray tube) post 1954 the disparity was not overwhelming. Unfortunately now, with HD resolution the differences between these production features reach a highly noticeable  level of distraction. However, I will say, I didn't mind it as the rougher looking image - fraught with artifacts and softness - seemed to add to the viewing experience giving the whole thing a vérité feel. I don't consider it a negative - it is accurate to the original but there is still some damage (see one frame sample below) usually in the form of vertical scratches and speckles. The majority of the production is the 'live' weaker visual quality (banding, suboptimal contrast and often appearing blown-out and video-like) accentuating the superior-looking pre-film scenes demonstratively.    

NOTE: We have added 78 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, BFI use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original English language. Nineteen Eighty-Four has limited aggression effects and hence modest depth throughout. There isn't much music but a score credited to John Hotchkis (Crucible of Horror but predominantly worked in TV), sounding clean with the TeleCine sequences having a slight sync issue which, as I understand, was a function of that production feature. BFI offer optional English (SDH) subtitles on their Region 'B'-locked Blu-ray.

The BFI Blu-ray offers many extras starting with a new commentary by television historian Jon Dear, host of Nigel Kneale podcast Bergcast with Toby Hadoke (actor, writer, comedian) and Andy Murray (author of Into The Unknown: The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale.) There is variable sounds quality as they record it from their individual homes. They discuss the 'missing paperweight' (an important symbol in the novel), the love/hate relationship of its original broadcast, plenty of Nigel Kneale, director Rudolph Cartier, Peter Cushing co-stars Donald Pleasence, André Morell, Yvonne Mitchell and much more. It is excellent. Nigel Kneale: Into the Unknown is new and runs 1 1/4 hours where writer, actor and stand-up comedian Toby Hadoke is in conversation with Kneale biographer and programmer Andy Murray. Together they try to unpick who Nigel Kneale was, what he did and why his work still matters today. BBC's Late Night Line-Up is from 1965 and runs almost 24-minutes as members of the cast and crew look back on the controversies surrounding this adaptation of Orwell's classic. The Ministry of Truth is new (2022) and is a 24-minute conversation with the BFI's Dick Fiddy, and television historian Oliver Wake who dispel some of the myths that have grown up around the groundbreaking drama over the course of the past half century. There is a gallery of rare images from the BBC Archives, an original script (downloadable PDF in the root of the Blu-ray) and the package has an illustrated booklet with new writing by Oliver Wake and David Ryan and we get newly commissioned sleeve art by Matt Needle.  

I really liked Rudolph Cartier's 1954 Nineteen Eighty-Four. Initial complaints about the "horrific" content would not be addressed by today's audiences. Predictably the Michael Radford version, Nineteen Eighty-Four with John Hurt, in regards to Room 101 is far more graphic although, I understand, this BFI Blu-ray is the second performance. The first, made 4 days before, was not recorded and the source of much of the controversy. The irony of censoring this drama was probably lost on the BBC. In a BFI 2000 poll of the '100 Greatest British Television Programs' Nineteen Eighty-Four was ranked 73rd. Performances of Cushing, Mitchell and Morell are highly effective as is the sterile atmosphere. Despairingly a number of the inhuman practices depicted in Nineteen Eighty-Four are already in full force under totalitarian-leaning régimes, sadly without abatement. It had seven million viewers and was the largest television audience in the UK since the Coronation the previous year. It wasn't until, 1977, twenty-three years later, that it received a repeat broadcast. I really enjoyed this BFI Blu-ray - a wonderful historical adaptation, commentary, over 3-hoursof other supplements plus a booklet. We give this our highest recommendation!

Gary Tooze