Animal Farm (1954) on Netflix
Mr. Jones, a drunken farmer, neglects the animals on Manor Farm. The prize pig Old Major urges them to rebel, and Snowball leads them in driving Jones from the land.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.2/1022,166 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes67%
Trailer
Plot summary
Mr. Jones drinks and lets Manor Farm fall into neglect. Old Major, a prize pig, urges the animals to rebel and teaches them "Beasts of England" before dying of a heart attack. When Jones forgets to feed them the next morning, Snowball leads them into the storehouse and then in chasing Jones away. The animals rename it Animal Farm and break up the tools that had oppressed them. None of them wants to live in the farmhouse, though Napoleon, a Saddleback boar, is interested. Seven commandments go up on a barn wall, and the chief of them declares all animals equal. The animals work the farm together and it yields well, while the pigs, with Napoleon and Squealer at their head, do no physical labor and take extras such as milk, saying their brainwork entitles them to it.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Animal Farm (1954)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
De Rochemont, acting on behalf of the CIA, rewrote the film so it ends with the other animals successfully revolting against the pigs; director Joy Batchelor strongly opposed the change, though John Halas later defended it.- Digiview Entertainment released a DVD of Animal Farm assuming it was in the public domain; Halas and Batchelor's estate sued and won, and Digiview filed for bankruptcy later that year.
- One proposed scene would have shown Snowball in exile in a tropical country, where a benign-looking pig would suddenly reveal himself as one of Napoleon's dogs and tear Snowball's throat out, emulating the assassination of Trotsky.
- A memo declared Snowball must be presented as a "fanatic intellectual" whose plans would have led to disaster no less complete than Napoleon's; screenwriter Lothar Wolff objected, but the filmmakers agreed to rewrite his scenes to portray him as "more dominating and officious".
- De Rochemont collaborator John Stuart Martin partly rewrote the film's narration, and some of his contributions were cut as too heavy-handed; his line for the pigs to drink to Boxer's memory "with the whiskey they had bought with Boxer's blood" was toned down to "Boxer's life".
- Halas and Batchelor hired John F. Reed from Walt Disney Productions to lead a team of eighty animators, and the crew was kept unaware of the CIA's involvement in the film.
- Fredric Warburg, original publisher of the novel and a former MI6 agent, served as a consultant on the film and suggested Old Major be given an appearance similar to Winston Churchill.
