better than I expected (spoilers )

First, per your opening paragraph, I did not say that any ending of 1984 was "happy". I was, very clearly and specifically, discussing the "happy ending" of the 1955 British film production of Animal Farm. Next time, please read the post correctly.

Second, of course there is no "happy ending" to Animal Farm -- the novel. But there absolutely is such a false ending substituted for the written one, in the '55 film I referred to, made by Halas and Batchelor Cartoon Films Ltd., the premier animators in the UK in their day. In that version, the enslaved animals finally revolt against their animal overlords and throw them out. Obviously, that's not at all what Orwell wrote. (I have not seen the 1999 made-for-cable version of the book, so I can't say how faithful it was to the novel.)

Last, as to the 1956 film version of 1984, I have finally tracked down a description and discussion of the ending you and the OP refer to -- where Smith (and Julia) are shot after they recant their "love" for Big Brother. (Basically.) Now, as I wrote three years ago, the only version of that film I ever saw or heard of ended showing Smith (Edmond O'Brien) having a chance, cold, and soulless meeting with Julia (Jan Sterling), where the two do not even face one another. In this scene, Winston does not say that his feelings for Julia haven't been destroyed -- he explicitly acknowledges that they have, in fact, been eradicated, just as in the book. He hears a triumphant bulletin on the telescreen, rushes over to it, and after hearing the news briefly notices that Julia has gone. He then turns his attention back to the news, and runs around calling out "Long Live Big Brother" to approving bystanders. The actual ending dissolves from his cheering to an aerial shot of London and a narrator stating that this could be our children's future if we don't work to preserve our freedoms. (Perhaps, in the British film, this sequence is also excised -- it does sound rather more American than British.)

This was the version released in the United States, and, apparently, most of the world. The oddly upbeat (definitely not "happy") alternate ending, where Smith and Julia are killed, but not before renouncing their allegiance to BB and finding one another again -- thereby demonstrating that the human spirit can remain free, even if at the ultimate price -- was insisted upon by British film distributors who feared the real ending was too downbeat, offering no redemptive hope for mankind. As it was, this revised ending drew harsh criticism in the UK and did not find favor with audiences there in 1956.

The 1956 film from Columbia has had only a limited, non-mainstream release on DVD in the US, and is difficult to obtain, since the Orwell estate had fought successfully to keep it off the market for years. I understand it might be more readily available in the UK, though when I looked for it when I was in London a month ago I could find only the 1984 film version. I first saw this movie in 1962 and had never seen or heard of any ending beside the one I mentioned. I would certainly like to see the British ending, which was not the original, scripted, intended ending to the film. That end is in the American version.

Curious that in the cases of the '50s film adaptations of both Animal Farm and 1984, it was the British filmmakers who opted to make their conclusions more "upbeat", thereby robbing the meaning from Orwell's original endings. I now suspect that it was because of this tampering that Orwell's widow and family have long opposed releasing the 1956 1984 onto home video -- they may be reacting to the revamped British ending instead of the intended one, the one actually seen in most of the rest of the world.

I like your signature quote from The Crimson Pirate, by the way.