Nature's Half Acre (1951) User Reviews

A great way to spend 30 minutes

[maccas-56367 · 8/10 · 28 May 2020]

These old Disney nature documentaries are great - especially at making you become more mindful of the world around you. There's something special about the way they're presented. The narration, the cinematography, the music - it's impossible not to laugh or smile while watching them.

It's easy to forget to take notice of the world (and animals, insects) around us - particularly as we grow older, or get caught up in the craziness of life. These little documentaries remind us of the constant battles, survival and miracles taking place around us all the time. It's quite humbling and helps the viewer see the world through child-like eyes again.

Nature's Half Acre focuses more on the smaller animals and insects around us. Bird life, plants and insects are the big features here. There's one particular bird that steals the show with his salsa dancing.

A good way to spend 30 minutes.

Showing future generations of documentary filmmakers how it's done

[Horst_In_Translation · 8/10 · 14 November 2017]

"Nature's Half Acre" is a 32-minute Technicolor documentary from 1951, so this one already had its 65th anniversary last year. It was directed by James Algar and he is also part of the writer team here next to Winston Hibler who narrates this one and he was the writer on several Disney classics. This one here may be too unknown to be called a classic, but still it won Walt Disney one of his over 20 Oscars. The title already gives away that it is a nature documentary of course, but it is not about regions in the world you will never see, but instead the forest close to your home. There's major focus on birds and insects in here and you will only see very few creatures that are not typical for densely populated ares like the carnivorous plant for example. I think this was a really good watch and the narration was informative, but also entertaining at times. Sure if you are a nature documentary addict, then you probably won't hear or learn or see anything in here you haven't seen before, but your chronology should not punish this film for the actual chronology as this one here came first before almost all of the others. That's why it also won an Oscar. Disney is not just a trailblazer in animation, but also in wildlife documentaries, an area most people don't necessarily make a connection with Disney. But it's true. This half hour is criminally underseen and I highly recommend for you to do your share to change that. One of 1951's very best short movies. Highly recommended.

One of the best of Disney's nature films from this era.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 8 November 2020]

"Nature's Half Acre" is the third installment of Disney's True Life Adventure nature films. They were very popular back in the day and even today they hold up quite well in most cases.

The film is supposedly set in some half acre plot...in order to show the amazing diversity of animal life there. My assumption is that many acres were actually used for the film....which isn't a major deal. But chameleons (featured in this film) don't live around Robins, Orioles and other animals often shown in the movie. After all, 100% realism isn't Disney's goal with these pictures...entertainment is first and foremost the point of the films. And, in the course of the picture, you see mostly tiny animals....which are often overlooked by people. Bugs, birds and tiny animals are the subjects of this film as well as some types of plants...particularly flowering and carnivorous ones.

In many ways, the film is like a nature ballet....with the actions of the plants and animals set to music. I was surprised that I actually liked the way this was done....and Disney really took great care to coordinate the music and film footage. Lovely to look at and filled with artistry...though something I am glad they didn't do too often in other films.

Overall, a lovely and well made film....possibly among the very best of Disney's nature films.



It's unfortunate that many of the older Disney True Life Adventure films posted to Disney+ have prints which are less than perfect. I cannot blame Disney....it looks like they tried to clean up the prints, but sometimes the animals in these films are a bit blurry or faded or too dark....as they sometimes are in "Nature's Half Acre". I mention this because the films were state of the art back in the 1950s....but today they've lost a bit due to film degradation.

As with all the True Life Adventures, the camera work here is simply fantastic, particularly the time lapse sequences

[llltdesq · 9/10 · 24 December 2006]

This short, which won an Academy Award for Live-Action Short, is one of the most fascinating things that Disney has ever released. It follows one particular natural area for an entire year, from one spring through to the next. Because I want to discuss some details, this is a spoiler warning:

The short begins by explaining that "nature's Half-acre" can be found anywhere, including your own backyard. It then focuses in on the life cycle for one particular "half-acre", with a predominant emphasis on birds and insects, with a couple of reptiles given a brief introduction.

As always, the photography is breathtaking and the narration, though still occasionally to precious, is excellent. There's only one gimmicky sequence and they don't seem to have played around with the footage, but simply inserted musical scoring to something they caught on film, in an attempt to inject a comical note.

There might be a good reason to add some levity, because the overall point which is reinforced repeatedly in this one is that, in nature, most, if not all, creatures are on someone's dinner menu and predator can quickly become prey. Birds eat insects to survive, insects eat insects to survive, plants eat insects to survive and the list goes on. What matters to nature is that species continue and that the natural life cycle also continues.

There's a great deal of focus on death here, with caterpillars being kept in check because there are birds which thrive on them, spiders who thrive on flies and bees, chameleons who eat just about any kind of insects-almost everything is vulnerable.

But there's also an emphasis on the "life" part of "the life cycle", with scenes of flowers in bloom and the emergence of a butterfly from its chrysalis. A lot of this is shown through the use of time lapse photography, where something which may actually take hours or even days to happen can be shown in seconds or minutes. There are some exceptional sequences here. This is one of Disney's best.

This is available on Volume 4 of the True Life Adventures Series, which made up the first wave of the new Disney Legacy series of DVD releases. I recommend all four of the titles.

Classic Walt Disney Nature Documentary

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 6 May 2000]

A Walt Disney TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURE Short Subject.

NATURE'S HALF ACRE could be anywhere - a backyard, a corner of an abandoned orchard, or a patch of wildflowers. Wherever, it teams with a myriad of life. Focusing on the domestic lives of birds & honeybees (plus looks at spiders, mud dauber wasps & chameleons), this superior & compelling little documentary climaxes with superb time-lapse photography of blossoming flowers.

`This is one of a series of TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURES presenting strange facts about the world we live in. These films are photographed in their natural settings and are completely authentic, unstaged and unrehearsed.' Winston Hibler is the narrator.

Nature's glorious acre

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 31 January 2022]

Between 1948 and 1960, Disney made fourteen nature documentary films, seven of them short subjects and seven of them full length and all narrated by Winston Hibler. Starting with 'Seal Island' and ending with 'Jungle Cat'. This series was called True Life Adventures, seen as a big fan of Disney and nature documentaries and after wanting to see some older nature documentaries. The True Life Adventures series is a more than worthwhile one and of consistently high quality (especially the short subjects) and do prefer all of them over most of the recent years DisneyNature films.

All of the seven short films in the True Life Adventures series are must watches. 'Nature's Half Acre' certainly fits my definition of a must watch and manages to make what doesn't sound at first glance like the most appealing of subject matters actually quite fascinating and very beautifully. Was expecting to not like 'Nature's Half Acre' quite as much as the other short films for some reason, it actually ended up being one of my favourites of the series.

While everything is glorious about 'Nature's Half Acre', the best aspect is the photography. All the documentaries in the series are beautifully made and hold up very well visually, but 'Nature's Half Acre' is one of the most beautiful. It's beautifully shot in vivid colour and the scenery is completely natural and is gorgeous and unyielding in equal measure. The time lapsing photography really blows the mind and quite unique for the series. The music fits more than ideally too, in one of the series' few perfect marriages of visuals and music. Didn't think that it was overused or intrusive, things that have been problems in some documentaries that exist.

'Nature's Half Acre' is very educational, did find myself learning a lot and being riveted by a subject that isn't always as interesting as ought in documentaries. It doesn't shy away from showing the dark side of what the nature depicted here has to adapt to and struggle with daily, though the emphasis on death and gloom isn't laid on as thickly as it sounded like researching it prior to watching. There are also some welcome more comedic moments, but without falling into jokiness that eluded at times the series' feature length films.

The footage is fantastic at its best and it doesn't look manipulative or staged. The time lapsing sequences are a wonder. Winston Hibler's narration delivery has always divided those that have watched the True Life Adventures films, personally had no problem with it in all but one. Here it is good natured and even the more deadpan delivery doesn't come over as that monotone.

Overall, glorious. 10/10.