The Secret of NIMH (alternatively spelled The Secret of N.I.M.H.) is a 1982 animated film adaptation of the Newbery Medal-winning book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (Mrs. Frisby's name is changed to "Brisby" in the film due to trademark concerns with Frisbee discs), written by author Robert C. O'Brien. The title of the movie was later used for newer editions of the book. It was directed by Don Bluth, produced by Aurora Pictures, and released by United Artists, in the summer of 1982.
Plot
Mrs. Brisby, a shy and timid field mouse, lives in a cinder block with her children on the Fitzgibbons' farm. She is preparing to move her family out of the field they live in as plowing time approaches; however, her son Timothy has fallen ill. She visits Mr. Ages, another mouse and old friend of her late husband, who provides her with some medicine from his laboratory. Mr. Ages warns her that Timothy cannot go outside for at least three weeks or he will die. On her way back home she encounters Jeremy, a clumsy but compassionate crow.
The next day spring plowing begins, and though Mrs. Brisby is able to stop the tractor, she knows she must come up with another plan. With the help of Jeremy she visits the Great Owl, a wise creature living in the nearby woods, to ask for help. He tells her to visit a mysterious group of rats who live beneath a rose bush on the farm and ask for Nicodemus.
Mrs. Brisby goes to the rats' home, where she is amazed to see their use of electricity and other human technology. She meets Nicodemus, the wise and mystical leader of the rats, and Justin, an extremely kind and friendly rat who is the Captain of the Guards. She learns that her late husband, along with the rats and Mr. Ages, was a part of a series of experiments at a place known as NIMH (which stands for the National Institute of Mental Health). The experiments had boosted their intelligence to human level, allowing them to easily escape. However, the rats have concocted "The Plan", which is to leave the farm and live without stealing electiricity from humans. Nicodemus then gives Mrs. Brisby an amulet that gives magical power when its wearer is courageous.
Because of her husband's prior relationship with the rats, they agree to help Mrs. Brisby move her home out of the path of the plow. Mrs. Brisby volunteers to drug the Fitzgibbon's cat, Dragon, so that they can complete the move safely. Only mice are small enough to fit through the mouse hole leading to the house, and Jonathan was killed by Dragon while trying. Later that night, she successfully puts the drug into the cat's food dish, but the Fitzgibbon's son Billy catches her and convinces his mother to let him keep her as a pet. While trapped in a birdcage, she overhears a telephone conversation between Mr. Fitzgibbon and NIMH and learns that NIMH intends to come to the farm to exterminate the rats the next day. She manages to escape from the cage and runs off to warn Justin.
Meanwhile, the rats are completing the move during a thunderstorm. However, Jenner and his hesitant accomplice Sullivan, who wish to remain in the rose bush, kill Nicodemus, making it look like an accident. Mrs. Brisby arrives and tries to convince the rats that NIMH is coming and that they must leave immediately. Jenner becomes angry and knocks her down. Justin rushes to Mrs. Brisby's aid, and a sword fight between him and Jenner ensues, which ends with Sullivan, himself mortally wounded, killing Jenner and saving Justin's life.
Mrs. Brisby suddenly realizes that the house is sinking in the mud it landed in. Despite the best efforts of the rats, they are unable to pull it from the mud. However, Mrs. Brisby's will to save her children gives power to the amulet, which she uses to lift the house out of the mud and move it to safety from the plow. The next morning, the rats have already gone to Thorn Valley with Justin as their new leader and Timothy has begun to recover. Jeremy also finds "Miss Right", an equally clumsy crow, and the two fly away together.
Cast
* Hartman's final role before her retirement from acting, and eventual suicide.
Production
Mrs. Brisby meets Nicodemus. Backlighting techniques are used in this scene to give Nicodemus's eyes a bright glow.
The Secret of NIMH was the first feature film to be directed by Don Bluth. In September 1979 he, fellow animators Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy, and eight other animation staff left Walt Disney Productions animation department to set up their own independent studio, Don Bluth Productions. The studio worked at first out of Bluth's house and garage, but moved to a two-story, 5,500-square-foot (510 m2) facility in Studio City several months later. After completing work on several shorter projects, including a two-minute animated sequence for the film Xanadu, the studio forged a deal with Aurora Productions, a film-making partnership established by former Disney executives.[1]
The rights to the book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH had reportedly been offered to Disney in 1972 but turned down.[2] At Bluth, Goldman and Pomeroy's request, Aurora Productions acquired the film rights, and offered Don Bluth Productions a budget of US$ 5.7 million and 30 months to complete the film, tighter in both budget and schedule than most Disney animated features at the time. The studio set out with the explicit goal in mind of returning feature animation to its “golden era”, concentrating on strong characters and story, and experimenting with unusual and often more labor-intensive animation techniques.[3] Bluth believed older techniques were being abandoned in favor of lower production costs, and the only way animation could survive was to continue traditional production methods. Among the techniques experimented with on The Secret of NIMH were multiple passes on the camera to achieve transparent shadows, and backlit animation (where animated mattes are shot with light shining through color gels to produce glowing areas for artificial light and fire effects), multiple color palettes for characters to fit in different lighting situations, from daylight, to night, to warm environments to underwater. Mrs Brisby had 46 different lighting situations, therefore there were 46 different color palettes, or lists of color, for her. Two modern, computerized versions of the multiplane camera were also manufactured for this production.[4]
To achieve the film's detailed full animation while keeping to the tight budget, the studio strove to keep any waste of time and resources to a minimum. The crew often worked long hours with no immediate financial reward (though they were offered a cut of the film's profits, a practice common for producers, directors and stars of live action films but never before offered to artists on an animated feature); producer Gary Goldman recalled working 110 hour weeks during the final six months of production.[2] Around 100 in-house staff worked on the film, with the labor-intensive cel painting farmed out to 45 people working from home.[5] Many minor roles, including incidental and crowd voice work, were filled in by the in-house staff. The final cost of the film was US$ 6.385M. The producers, Bluth, Goldman, Pomeroy and the executive producers at Aurora mortgaged their homes collectively for $700,000 to complete the film, with an agreement that their investment would be the first money to be repaid.
During the film's production, Aurora contacted Wham-O, the manufacturers of Frisbee flying discs, with concerns about possible trademark infringements if the "Mrs. Frisby" name in O'Brien's original book was used in the movie. Wham-O rejected Aurora's request for waiver to use the same-sounding name to their "Frisbee", in the movie. Aurora informed Bluth & company that Mrs. Frisby's name would have to be altered. By then, the voice work had already been recorded for the film, so the name change to "Mrs. Brisby" necessitated a combination of re-recording some lines and, because John Carradine was unavailable for further recordings, careful sound editing had to be performed, taking the "B" sound of another word from Carradine's recorded lines, and replace the "F" sound with the "B" sound, altering the name from "Frisby" to "Brisby".[2]
Release
Home media
The Secret of NIMH was also released to home video. It was released in Brazil on VHS for the first time on January 11, 1994 from Abril Vídeo.
It saw a DVD release for the first time on November 17, 1998.
In 2007, Don Bluth and Gary Goldman oversaw a high-definition restoration of the film which was released on June 19, 2007 in a 2- disc DVD and Blu-ray Disc set under the "Family Fun Edition" label. Improvements in the transfer from the 1998 DVD and Blu-ray include some color correction, and dirt and dust removal from the cells.[6]
Internet
In the last week of May, 2009, The Secret of NIMH was made available for viewing on Hulu, an internet-based, commercial supported, video on demand service.
Reception
The film garnered critical acclaim for being one of the most vibrantly animated films of its time and has earned a 94% "fresh" approval rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website.[7] Despite good reviews, the film only did moderately well at the box office, attributed to a combination of poor promotion, regionally-staggered release dates and competition from the Steven Spielberg blockbuster E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.[8] There was some controversy[citation needed] over the perception that the film was perhaps too frightening and violent for most young children despite its MPAA "G" rating (the Walt Disney Company originally rejected this project because it was perceived to be "too dark" and complicated to be a financial hit).[citation needed] Today, this film is widely seen[who?] as Don Bluth's magnum opus and a masterpiece.
Soundtrack
The Secret of NIMH: Original Soundtrack contains songs from the film written by Jerry Goldsmith, and performed by Paul H. Williams and Sally Stevens. It was released on July 2, 1982 on Vinyl and audio cassette and re-released on March 3, 1995 on CD.
- Main Title - Instrumental
- Allergic Reaction/Athletic Type - Instrumental
- Flying Dreams Lullaby" - Sally Stevens
- The Tractor - Instrumental
- The Sentry Reel/The Story of NIMH - Instrumental
- Escape from NIMH/In Disguise - Instrumental
- Flying Dreams - Paul H. Williams
- Step Inside My House - Instrumental
- No Thanks - Instrumental
- Moving Day - Instrumental
- The House Rising - Instrumental
- Flying High/End Title - Instrumental
References
External links
