The Secret of NIMH
Short description
Mrs. Brisby is a widowed field mouse living in a cinder block with her four children on a farm belonging to a man named Fitzgibbon. When she learns that the field is about to be plowed, she sets out to move her family, but her youngest son, Timothy, is ill with pneumonia and cannot be taken outside. Seeking help, she turns to a crow named Jeremy, an owl, and a colony of unusually intelligent rats who have built a society beneath a rose bush near the farm. Their cooperation with her is complicated by disagreement among the rats themselves.
The Secret of NIMH was released in 1982 and runs 83 minutes. It was the first feature directed by Don Bluth after The Small One, and he wrote and produced it with Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy. The voice cast includes Elizabeth Hartman as Mrs. Brisby, Derek Jacobi as Nicodemus, Arthur Malet as Mr. Ages, Dom DeLuise as Jeremy, Hermione Baddeley as Auntie Shrew, and Shannen Doherty as Teresa.
Made for about 7 million dollars, the film took roughly 15 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.5/10 from 50,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.4/10 from 984 votes. A critics' rating of 7.6/10 from 70 reviews places it slightly above both audience scores, indicating solid approval on all sides.
What's left behind the scenes
- According to the farmer’s wife, the abbreviation N.I.M.H. stands for the National Institute of Mental Health.
- The film used 1078 backgrounds.
- The film used over 600 colors. 26 colors were used solely for the image of Mr. Ages.
- The main character's name was changed from Mrs. Frisby to Mrs. Brisby to avoid legal issues with Frisbee manufacturers. Unfortunately, this was done late in the production, and because it was impossible to rewrite all the lines with the character's name, the change from Frisby to Brisby was carried out by two sound editors.
- The sword fight scene between Justin and Jenner is largely copied from the duel between the heroes played by Errol Flynn (1909-1959) and Basil Rathbone (1892-1967) in Michael Curtiz’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938). Some of its elements are copied from fight scenes in Richard Fleischner’s “The Vikings” (1958).
- Animators Don Bluth, John Pomeroy, and Gary Goldman left Disney for this project. They made the decision after the project was rejected there as “too dark” to be commercially successful. Soon after, another 20 animators resigned. They were all dubbed “Disney defectors” by the industry press.
- Initially, $6.5 million was allocated for the film's production, but the budget was cut during the process. Gary Goldman and the film's producers mortgaged their own homes to raise the necessary $700,000 that was lacking. In any case, the film's budget was less than $7 million, i.e., approximately half of what the company Disney spent on each animated film.
- At the time of its release, "Secrete N.I.M.H." was the largest non-Disney animated project.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
