Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 16

July 16, 1982 Minneapolis Star and Tribune 'NIMH' frosting has tasty cake beneath A review "The Secret of N.Mr." 4B. MA AAmAiAvL iBJ emmii zap 'y. i yr'j. Director Dsn Bluth Don Bluth, Gary Goldman i aod John Pomeroy Screenplay. Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, John Pomeroy aod Will Finn Story by Robert O'Brien Music by Jerry Goldsmith Mcodemua Derek Jacobi Mr.

Brisby Elizabeth Hartman Mr.Agea Arthur Malet Jeremy DomDeLulae Auntie Shrew. Hermloae Baddeley The Great Owl John Carradine Justin Peter Strauss Jenner PaulShenar MGMUA distributes "The Secret of NIMH," an Aurora film rated now showing at the Apache, Northtown, Eden Prairie, Edina and Brookdale theaters. Mrs. Brisby, her children and Auntie Shrew in "The Secret of NIMH." By Bob Lundegaard Staff Writer "The Secret of NIMH" Is not only a Wonderful film but an acronymic rebuke to the Disney people at precisely the time that Uncle Walt's heirs are unleashing "TRON," their own capital-lettered bid for the teen-age market. It seems to be asking: Why have you given up on the family-oriented picture? And the sweetest part of the rebuke may be that its heroine Is of all God's creatures a mouse.

No, not Mickey. This mouse is a courageous, gallant widow named Mrs. Brisby. Change the first letter of her name and you may recall her from "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," the award-winning children's story by Robert C.

O'Brien that Don Bluth and the other Disney defectors chose to adapt for their first feature-length cartoon. "NIMH" is being heralded as a return to the Disney style of classical animation. I don't pretend to understand what that means or how it works, but the results are tremulously beautiful: subtle shades of color (600 hues were used in the film), shimmering backgrounds that shift to reflect changes in lighting, more varied expressions on the characters' faces. All this, however, would be mere decoration, the frosting without the cake, If it didn't serve to enhance a strong, engrossing story line and vivid characters. And "NIMH" has an ample supply of both.

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Rate based hfotel on double occupancy. v2 7901 24TH AVENUE SOUTH BLOOTuiNGTON, MN 55420-0099 machinations it's as though he was created because the story has to have a villain and the rats' special powers are rather cursorily sketched for anyone who hasn't read the book. And I didn't understand why the people at NIMH would be calling Farmer Fitzgibbons about the rats why him in particular? but it's a wonderful scene anyway, with the rats spiriting an extension cord from his home while he's on the phone. Still, this is a wonderful beginning for Don Bluth Productions. It's in the Disney tradition all right but less sentimental and more matter-of-fact about the "evil" the animals face: simply a farmer plowing his fields.

In Its approach to nature, it's more like "Watership Down" than "Bambl." other side of the rock). Mrs. Brisby also gets help of sorts from a klutzy crow named Jeremy, the epitome of the well-intentioned meddler who won't take for an answer. Jeremy's voice is Dom De Luise In what is undoubtedly his finest moment in films. Is it because, for a change, he's not playing Burt Reynolds' sidekick or because we never see his face? All the voices, in fact, are marvelous: the silky purring of Jacobi (who starred In Claudius" on television), the sepulchral tones of Carradine, the busybody bluster of Her-mione Baddeley as Auntie Shrew, Arthur Malet's crotchety Mr.

Ages. There are a few boles in the adaptation by Bluth, John Pomeroy, Gary Goldman and Will Finn. The evil rat Justin, isn't given any motive for his the field where Mrs. Brisby lives, but she dasn't move because one of her brood is bedridden with pneumonia, so she seeks out some resident sages for advice. First she visits Mr.

Ages in his eccentric digs inside a threshing machine. Then the Great Owl (John Carra-dine) and finally Nicodemus (Derek Jacobi) and the rats of NIMH, a superintelligent species bred in the laboratories of the National Instl- i tutes of Mental Health. The rats became so smart that they figured out how to escape, and now most of them want to move to another valley where they won't have to steal in order to survive. First, though, they have to help Mrs. Brisby escape the plow (part of the charm of this rodent's-eye look at life is that this probably consists of moving her home all the way to the ummer feekend NIMH Continued from page IB 'A.

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Their first job was "Banjo, the Woodpile Cat," a half-hour cartoon that was shown on ABC television In May. (Actually, the three of them had been working on the film In their spare time while they were still working for Disney. Disney executives have accused them of being more interested in that project than their studio work, a charge Goldman denies. reason we made 'Banjo' was to make ourselves better for our jobs at Disney," he says. "When you go Into the Disney training program, you don't ever have questions.

But once you've got a problem, then you have a question. So we did the picture just to bring up problems and then solve the The three of them each worked 110 hours a week, Goldman says. "We're slave drivers, but we're usually paying most people more than we're paying ourselves. That's one problem we didn't lick by leaving Disney: We're still not getting much money. But if the picture does well, we'll be collecting residuals after a few years, which is great because I myself am not looking forward to eating dog food on a fixed income when I'm 68." The 37-year-old Goldman joined the Disney studio in 1972, six years after Disney's death.

When he left, he and Pomeroy had become directing animators (he held that post for "Pete's and the 44-year-old Bluth, regarded by many as Disney's spiritual successor, was a producerdirector. "We'd become so frustrated because we'd been given the responsibility of putting films together but no authority. We had people below us who did not want to take direction from us and people upstairs who were listening both to us and to the little tots who were running upstairs, wailing. The day after the three of them walked into the president's office and resigned, eight animators quit Eventually, 17 former Disney animators signed on with Bluth. "They're all green, very young and very aggressive.

They want to be the best Now that the film's over, everyone's quite proud of it We brought it in almost two months before the deadline and right on budget $6.3 million, which is half what 'The Fox and the Hound' (Disney's most recent animated feature) cost." The defectors first set up shop in Bluth's garage (much like Disney himself began in the 1920s), with Disney characters hung on the walls and showings of early Disney films Cities one week after "TRON," Disney's highly publicized stab at. the teen-age market that forms the bulk of the movie public. And, ironically, while "TRON" is rated PG, "NIMH" drew a rating, Goldman has mixed feelings about that "We didn't ask the board for a PG," he said. "We just took the film In and let them make their own judgment. I know a rating has the kiss of death in the Industry, but I don't believe It I think there are families out there who are mad as hell because they go to a film that's rated PG and there's swearing and seminudity and things that may be realistic to one genre of people but another genre says, 'I didn't come here to be demoralized.

I came here to be lifted On the other hand, "We had arguments with the people marketing the film. We wanted a PG, but they said, 'You're wrong. You want kids and their parents to come see if and we said, 'We made this film for us, We're entertained by it so why shouldn't a teen-ager or an adult like it?" "We said, 'you're aiming at the wrong audience, because there are going to be people that have to go out and get refunds because their 5-year-old is frightened by the caves or the special And (composer) Jerry Goldsmith fired his best shot. He wrote some very intense music." The film, based on Robert C. O'Brien's Newbery-award-winning story, "Mrs.

Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," tells of a widowed mouse seeks the help of a colony of iJSlghly intelligent rats to save her home from being destroyed by a Tractor. Downtown Louisiana Avenue V-44 Minneapolis-Sf. Paul Int I Airport Don Bluth 'Bambl and 'Pinocchio' were done with. Each frame of film is shot three times one with red, one with yellow and one with blue. Then they're spilt and combined.

It's a dye process rather than a photography process. That's why those old films look so vivid and rich." "NIMH" is also a return to classical animation in its incredibly detailed use of backgrounds. Goldman said 1.5 million drawings were combined to get the 120,000 finished drawings shown on the screen. Goldman blames a familiar villain-television for the decline in animation. "There's so much television product going through.

Why should they order 800 or 1,000 prints for movie theaters when they can order two prints one for backup and one for videotape to show on television? Saturday morning is a fiasco every child in the city getting up at 6:30 and 7 In the morning so they can watch all the cartoons on television. It's taken animation to the point where it's just kiddie fodder." 1 9jr I WrrrW Ir ri Japanese Steak House 850 Louisiana Ave. Golden Valley All Major Credit Cards. A Hardwicke Company missnc, snasi BbbbBbssbSBBs 9 4 Dinner Theowesv In the film, the heroine's name was changed to Brisby to avoid licensing problems with the people who make Frisbees. "We'd already recorded John Carradine as the Great Owl calling her Frisby," said Goldman, "but we have a sound effects editor who can make the characters say anything he wants.

He took the off Frisby, pulled a from an outtake and put It on the front" Another element of early Disney that Goldman and his colleagues are trying to recapture is the rich use of color. "When I first looked at Pinocchio' as an adult I said 'I can't believe they did that. That Is gorgeous. "My goodness, 40 years have passed and we can't do It as good as they did it in 1940. It's because we lost the three-color process, sold it to China.

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