George Orwell’s most often cited work in a political context is Nineteen Eighty-four, his dystopian nightmare about a future Britain where lies are the truth, thinking is a crime and bureaucracy runs rampant. But his 1945 allegorical novella Animal Farm often feels more horribly pertinent, charting the rise of a dictatorial regime in the guise of what appears at first sight to be a children’s book, a coruscating satire that feels as relevant to the world of 2022 as it did to the immediate post-war years.

In 1954, it became the subject of the first British feature-length animated film, directed by John Halas and Joy Batchelor, two of the great pioneers of British animation. The credits would have us believe that the film was produced by Halas and Batchelor’s own company, but it emerged many years later that the rights to the book had in fact been bought by E. Howard Hunt, a CIA agent who had been despatched to secure permission to make the film by the Agency’s Psychological Warfare department with a view to making a piece of anti-Communist propaganda. Orwell said that the events of the story were meant to mirror those of the 1917 Russian Revolution and a satire on the Stalinist era that followed.

In both film and book, the revolution takes place at Manor Farm, a down-at-heel farm neglected by its bitter and drunken owner, Mr Jones. His abuse of his livestock reaches the point where Old Major, the prize boar and the oldest animal on the farm, rallies the rest of the animals in revolution, leading to the overthrow and casting out of Jones. Now dubbed Animal Farm, the operation is restored to some of its former glory through the hard work of the animals who live by a new set of codes, including the edicts that “No animal shall sleep in a bed”, “No animal shall kill another animal,” and most importantly “All animals are equal.” The bulk of the work is done by the workhorse Boxer and his donkey friend Benjamin who help to build a windmill to provide power. But the farm comes under attack from without and within – the humans attempt to retake the farm, destroying the windmill in the process, but are repelled. Harder to counter is the rise of the pig Napoleon, the film’s Stalin character who has the film’s Lenin/Trotsky composite Snowball executed. The commandments are changed without the animals’ permission (“No animal shall sleep in a bed with sheets”, “No animal shall kill another animal without cause”) as Napoleon and the other sheep move into Jones’ house, begin trading with the hated humans and tighten their grip on the workers. Finally, the regime decrees that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”, spurring the animals to once again rise up against their oppressors.

The film was much criticised in some quarters, particularly for the addition of a new, more upbeat ending – in the book, the story ends with the appalled animals watching the pigs playing cards with visiting humans and realising that they can now no longer tell the two apart. And it’s a fair criticism as it greatly softens the impact of Orwell’s angry satire, removing the dark hopelessness and turning the story into the simple propaganda piece that the CIA wanted.

Elsewhere, however, there’s much to enjoy here, from a refusal to back away from childhood-scarring tragedy – the fate of Boxer hits particularly hard – to Maurice Denham’s remarkable vocal performances (Gordon Heath acted as narrator but Denham voiced all of the animals) and it’s since become a staple of classrooms in English-speaking countries around the world. The art is beautiful throughout, be it the gorgeous watercolour backgrounds or the monstrous – almost Frankenstein monster-like in fact – appearance of the ghastly Jones. No matter what you might make of its politics, its funding or the changes made to the story, it remains a beautiful and stylish film that manages to convey so much of its story without any words at all.

At the start, it looks like the damage to the book might have been even more severs, with several forays into Disney territory – a cute, accident-prone duckling is particularly worrying – but it isn’t long before the real horror of Orwell’s story makes itself felt. The changed ending is a severe annoyance though as it has a scene where Benjamin sees the pigs transforming into men, if you’re quick with the remote control, you can head the happier denouement off at the pass, but the rest of the film sticks to at least the spirit of the book.

At the time, Animal Farm was welcomed warmly by the critics but proved to be a financial disaster, reportedly taking a full fifteen years to recoup its costs. It’s hard to see why the film failed to click with audiences at the time – despite its lapses in fidelity, it’s a fine and worthy adaptation of the book. Perhaps it was just too bleak a prospect for a Britain still rebuilding from the war and being dragged slowly into the emerging Cold War; or perhaps the world was happier with the cheerier approach of Disney (Animal Farm sits between the releases of Peter Pan (1953) and Lady and the Tramp (1955) than with a dour and serious political discourse. Either way, the film holds up well today and is more widely regarded as an important and significant addition to the world of animation.

In 1999, John Stephenson directed a live-action adaptation for Hallmark Films, with Pete Postlethwaite as Jones and Julia Ormond, Patrick Stewart, Kelsey Grammar, Ian Holm and Paul Scofield among the voices of the animatronic animals built by the Henson Creature Shop in London. Those who blanched at the changes that Halas and Batchelor made to the book will positively explode with rage at the changes inflicted on it here, from the addition of new characters to an even less impressive new ending.