http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/1984-195...on-p-13421.html
^Is this a legit release? I remember the Kneale version was going to have a great restoration from BBC video until the Orwelle estate blocked it. Now this has come out PAL, region 0... it doesn't say anything about being restored; and I'm not familiar with Orbit Media. Is this just a bootleg, or...?
Anybody know?

Rights to all versions of 1984 (including the BBC version, and this one, the 1956 film) are apparently under control of the Orwell estate.

They apparently loathe the 1956 version, and it's unlikely to ever receive a legitimate release. (I'm reasonably certain that it's not been seen on British television in the last twenty years, whereas the BBC version has aired a few times since it was originally transmitted).

They've refused permission to allow the release of the BBC version on DVD, apparently because they didn't want to cannibalise sales of Michael Radford's film version.

Orbit are a bottom-feeding outfit which releases a lot of material that they would claim is in the public domain (the Rathbone Holmes films, AFRICA SCREAMS, etc, for example). The reality is that it often isn't, but there isn't anyone around with the willpower or legal clout to challenge them.

A list of their shameful tat can be found here: Sendit.com

They're usually none-too fussy about their source material, and sometimes watermark their presentations, to further add insult to injury (which is, as another reviewer most eloquently put it, "like a spaniel piddling up a tree to stake a claim on it").

The BBC version was due to be released by DD Home Entertainment, and at least some of the restoration work had been carried out (the original film inserts - which, miraculously, still exist - had been inserted into the telerecording, and the video sequences had been processed with VidFire, to restore the original video look of the play).

Since then DDHE has had financial problems, and is now under new ownership. I'm sure they would still like to release (the BBC 1954) NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR, if they were allowed to. It may require re-negotiating with the BBC, and it's possible that the BBC wouldn't now license it to them, anyway.

Since the Orwell estate don't apparently have any fundamental objection to the release of the BBC adaptation, I wouldn't completely rule out its release at some point.

The BBC's 1965 adaptation of 1984 (starring David Buck as Winston Smith) apparently no longer exists.

There was a 1965 BBC version? I've always wondered what I saw on American TV as a kid sometime between 1966 and 1969. I think it was on PBS, but I'm not sure, and I vaguely recall it as looking like a B&W TV production, like the versions of state plays my father watched on PBS, rather than like a film. And it ended with the rats and a very haggard Winston-Smith declaring he loves Big Brother.

Even when I was that young, I read TV Guide, even the letters section, and I seem to recall someone there protesting about the rat scene and how it shouldn't be shown to children.

So, it was definitely not the Edmund O'Brien film. All these years I'd been wondering if I'd seen the Cushing version, but it didn't seem likely that PBS would be airing that over a decade after it was shown in Britain.

Dibs on that for a band name.