ANI-MOVIES: *The Secret Of NIMH

Aurora Productions started out by former Disney executives and their first project was done with former Disney animator Don Bluth who had also left the company at around the same time to form his own studio. Bluth worked on classics like Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, and The Rescuers, but took a few other animators from the Mouse House and put together their first project titled Banjo The Woodpile Cat that was released through Fox. Eventually, they got their first feature-length production through MGM based on the book by Robert O’Brien that was rebranded for theaters as The Secret Of NIMH. This came out in the same year of E.T. and was referred to as the “E.T. of animation” even though its not sci-fi, but instead a fantasy adventure with common field mice and other rural animals. The film had a star-studded cast with Elizabeth Hartman in her last role as the brave Mrs. Brisby, plus Dom DeLuise, John Carridine, and Wil Wheaton. This movie has stood out as being one of the greatest animated outings of the 80s and was praised by audiences and critics during Disney’s decline before they leveled up with The Little Mermaid starting their renaissance.

Taking place in a forest near a farm, Mrs. Brisby is a widowed mother left to care for her four children after the death of her husband Jonathon. Timothy is her youngest son and is sick with pneumonia which is poorly timed as the whole family needs to move out of their endangered cinderblock home in the fields with the farmer plans to plow through there. After seeing her family friend Mr. Ages, an old mouse that knew her husband, who tells her Timothy can’t be moved while he is ill. Mrs. Brisby befriends a chatty crow named Jeremy who she saves from the farmer’s colossal cat Dragon, and later flies her to see the oracular Great Owl for advice. The Owl tells her to get the rats living underneath the farm to help movie her house with Timothy still in it. The rats turn out to be escaped animals from the National Institute for Mental Health along with Mr. Ages, and that Jonathon was the one who helped free them. All the rats have enhanced intelligence because of the experiments that NIMH subjected them to and led by the wise old Nicodemus, but a scheming rat Jenner uses the opportunity of the rats moving the Brisby home to kill and usurp him. There’s some unexplained magical connection to a stone Nicodemus gave Mrs. Brisby and she uses it to move her hound in an almost biblical effort. The Brisby family is saved, and the rats move away from the farm before NIMH can find them.

The Secret Of NIMH is one of the first times in American cinematic history that an animated movie was able to truly compete with Disney. Don Bluth Studio went on to even greater success with their LD video game Dragon’s Lair, plus teaming up with Steven Spielberg to make a pair of films, An American Tail as well as The Land Before Time. Bluth experienced varying levels of up and down with his future projects which eventually folded with the release of Titan A.E., Bluth would cross swords with Disney over the years having his films being released at the same time as some of their films, plus his falling out with Spielberg didn’t help. Despite how often he faced bankruptcy, Don Bluth initially created probably his single most enduring title of The Secret Of NIMH which wasn’t just a family flick as it had dark and dangerous elements which helped change the course of fantasy films in the years to come.