Category: Year: 1954
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Animal Farm. Dir. John Halas, Joy Batchelor. Pathe, Universal, RKO . 1954.
Halas and Batchelor’s 1954 Animal Farm holds a firm place in cinematic history as Britain’s second animated feature. The film is based on the 1945 novella by George Orwell and is often read as an allegory for communism and Stalinism. The unrest of the animals and desire for revolution also has echoes of Marxist ideas about the…
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Godzilla. Dir. Ishirō Honda. Toho. 1954.
Synopsis “If we continue to test nuclear weapons, another Godzilla may arise.” The closing line of Honda’s Godzilla, emphasised by a prolonged close-up of the speaker’s face, is proudly overt in its political overtones. Produced in the wake of the 1945 bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Godzilla’s use of an indestructible, prehistoric creature as a metaphor for nuclear warfare…