Song of the South

Song of the South (1946) is a Disney live-action and animation hybrid you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Harve Foster and Wilfred Jackson. Young Johnny arrives at his grandmother's Georgia plantation after his parents separate, miserable and out of place — until he finds Uncle Remus, played with warmth and authority by James Baskett, who spins tales of Br'er Rabbit outsmarting everyone who underestimates him.

The animated Br'er Rabbit sequences were a technical achievement for their era, blending hand-drawn characters into live-action settings in ways that Disney's effects team had never attempted before. Bobby Driscoll as Johnny and Luana Patten as his companion give the film a natural, unforced emotional centre that the fantasy sequences build around.

James Baskett received an honorary Academy Award for his performance — the first Black male actor so honoured. The film has been out of wide release for decades, making it genuinely rare viewing; its treatment of the antebellum South has fuelled long-running debate about what Disney's archive owes its audience. Stream Song of the South (1946) online on iFILM.