Animal Farm (1954)

Animal Farm is a 1954 British-American animated comedy-drama film produced by Halas and Batchelor, based on the novel of the same name by George Orwell. It was the first theatrical British animated feature.

Release history
The film was released in the United Kingdom on VHS by BBC Video and Polygram Video in 1985 and 1999, respectively; Universal Pictures first released it on DVD, on August 18, 2003. A restored version of the film, which costed $25,000 to produce, was released on theaters in July 1998 by Blue Dolphin Films (which later licensed it to PolyGram and Universal). A 60th Anniversary Edition print was released on Blu-ray, DVD and iTunes by Network Distributing, on October 27, 2014.

The first was released on VHS in the United States|link by Vintage Video in 1985. The film was first released on DVD in said country, by Home Vision Entertainment in November 2004, a year before Image Entertainment bought the company (thus obtaining the rights to its catalog). Digiview Productions coincidentally released it on DVD on April 4, 2004; since the film had received Super 8 releases in the 1970s, it was assumed that the film had fallen in the public domain. The estate of Halas & Batchelor, who kept the copyright to the movie, ended up filing a lawsuit against Digiview, and won, resulting in Digiview filing for bankruptcy; it was later revived as Digiview Entertainment.

The PolyGram, Home Vision and Network Distributing releases are accompanied by a Stay Tooned special, presented by Tony Robinson, charting the history of the film and Halas and Batchelor in general.

International versions

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