The Great Mouse Detective

The Great Mouse Detective is a 1986 animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, originally released to theaters on July 2, 1986 by Buena Vista Distribution. The 26th animated feature in the Disney Animated Canon, it was directed by Burny Mattinson, David Michener, and the team of John Musker and Ron Clements, who later directed Disney's hit films: The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. It was also known as The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective for its 1992 theatrical re-release and Basil the Great Mouse Detective in some countries. The main characters are all mice and rats living in Victorian London.
Based on the children's book series Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus, the film draws heavily on the tradition of Sherlock Holmes with a heroic mouse who consciously emulates the detective; Titus named the main character after Basil Rathbone, who is best remembered for playing Holmes in film (and whose voice, sampled from the Red-Headed League was the voice of Holmes in this film, 19 years after his death). Interestingly, Holmes also mentions "Basil" as one of his aliases in the Arthur Conan Doyle story "The Adventure of Black Peter".
After the massive failure of the previous Disney animated feature film, The Black Cauldron, although it was not a smashing hit, this film became a major success upon its initial release in 1986, both critically and financially. As such, the new senior management of the company were convinced that their animation department was still a viable enterprise and this set the stage for the Disney Renaissance. It should be also noted that it's the one which saved Disney's Animation Studios from going bankrupt at the time,https://www.mouseplanet.com/9534/How_Basil_Saved_Disney_Feature_Animation_Part_Onehttps://www.mouseplanet.com/9549/How_Basil_Saved_Disney_Feature_Animation_Part_Two similar to what Cinderella and One Hundred and One Dalmatians did.
Despite not being well known upon its original release, in recent years, the film has been regarded as a cult classic.https://wizarddojo.com/2015/07/24/the-great-mouse-detective-review/
==Plot==
In London 1897, a young Scottish-Welsh mouse named Olivia Flaversham is celebrating her birthday with her toymaker father Mr. Flaversham, who gifts her with a beautiful ballerina doll. Suddenly, a bat with a crippled wing and a peg leg named Fidget bursts into the Flaversham's workshop, and after a short struggle, disappears with Flaversham. A frightened Olivia comes out of hiding and after seeing the shop destroyed, calls out into the night for him.
Olivia searches to find Basil of Baker Street, a world-famous detective. Dr. David Q. Dawson, who has returned from military service, stumbles upon Olivia and helps her find Basil's residence. At first Basil is reluctant (because at first he thinks that she is lost), but when Olivia mentions the peg-legged bat that kidnapped her father, Basil reveals that the bat's name is Fidget and is a henchman of the evil Professor Ratigan, an evil genius whom Basil has been trying to capture for years. As it turns out, Ratigan has kidnapped Flaversham to create a clockwork robot which mimics the Queen of the Mice so Ratigan can rule Great Britain. Flaversham initially refuses to participate in Ratigan's scheme, whereupon Ratigan orders Fidget to capture Olivia. If Flaversham refuses to comply, Ratigan will feed Olivia to his pet cat, Felicia (he breaks the ballet doll by squeezing it for emphasis). Ratigan and his thugs celebrate his new plan, but unfortunately one of his henchmen, Bartholomew, accidentally (albeit drunkenly) calls Ratigan a rat and is promptly eaten by Felicia, and Ratigan demands they continue singing.
Basil and Dawson then use Sherlock Holmes' pet, a Basset Hound named Toby, to track Fidget's scent to a nearby toy store. Fidget is surprised by Basil, Dawson, and Olivia in the toyshop where he is stealing clockwork mechanisms and toy soldiers' uniforms for Ratigan's plan. He hides and later traps Olivia by ambushing her from inside a toy cradle. Basil and Dawson pursue Fidget but become entangled in some toys and fall behind, giving Fidget enough time to escape with all the materials he needs and Olivia.
While upset with Dawson for not watching Olivia, Basil is certain they'll find her. As they are searching the shop, Dawson discovers Fidget's forgotten checklist, which details everything Fidget has taken with him. Ratigan brings Olivia to her father, but their reunion is short-lived as Ratigan orders Flaversham to finish the robot, or harm will come to Olivia. When Fidget finds the list missing, he tells the Professor that Basil followed him. The Professor angrily feeds Fidget to his cat, but after realizing that Basil will be coming for Olivia, he plans to trap Basil with a lure. Back at Baker Street, Basil discovers through close examination and some chemical tests that the list came from a riverfront, and he and Dawson look for a small tavern near the Thames where the sewer would connect to the river. Basil and Dawson disguise themselves as sailors and enter the tavern, inquiring for Ratigan. As they wait, Fidget enters the pub. They follow Fidget through some pipes to Ratigan's headquarters, only to discover that Ratigan and his thugs had prepared for their arrival. Triumphant, Ratigan ties them to a spring-loaded mousetrap, connected with a Rube Goldberg machine constituting a gun, a crossbow, an axe, and an anvil with a record being the timer stated by Ratigan that when the song ends, the trap starts. Ratigan sets out for Buckingham Palace, where Fidget and his accomplices defeat Royal Guard and kidnap the Queen. Basil briefly despairs at being outwitted but snaps out of it just in time to deduce the trap's weakness thanks to Dawson's encouragement and escape.
Back at Buckingham Palace, Ratigan forces Flaversham to operate the toy Queen while his thugs pose as Royal Guards, and the real Queen is taken by Fidget to be fed to Felicia. The fake Queen declares Ratigan ruler of all Mousedom, and, after thanking his robotic consort, he announces his tyrannical plans for his new "subjects", including several unfair taxes. Just then, Basil, Dawson, and Olivia save Flaversham and the real Queen and apprehend Fidget along with Ratigan's other two henchmen (Bill the Lizard and one mouse). Basil then seizes control of the mechanical mouse-queen, forcing it to denounce Ratigan as an impostor and tyrant, all the while breaking into pieces. The crowd, enraged by Ratigan's treason, start climbing onto him and defeating his thugs. Ratigan frees himself, holds Olivia hostage and escapes on his dirigible with Fidget.
Basil, Dawson, and Flaversham create their own craft with a matchbox and some small helium-filled balloons, held under the Union Jack. A high-speed chase ensues above the city. Ratigan throws Fidget (who can't fly) into the Thames River below to "lighten the load", and then attempts to drive the dirigible himself. Basil jumps on to the dirigible to confront his nemesis; however, without a helmsman, Ratigan is unable to steer the craft, and ends up crashing straight into Big Ben. Inside the clock, Ratigan and Basil face off in a final battle. Basil manages to gets Ratigan's cape tangled in the clocks gears. Seeing Basil escaping and save Olivia, Ratigan completely loses his mind and goes insane, tearing himself out of the cape before pursuing his sworn enemy. Basil safely delivers Olivia to Flaversham, who is still on the balloon with Dawson. At that moment, Ratigan plunges into Basil, and they both fall onto the clock's hour hand. The fight ensues, and Ratigan begins to viciously thrash Basil. It seems as if Basil's luck is about to run out until the bell tolls and Ratigan plunges off the hand, taking Basil with him. However, while Ratigan fell to his death, Basil saves himself just in time with the motor of Ratigan's destroyed dirigible that he grabbed as he fell.
Back at Baker Street, Basil and Dawson recount their adventure as well as the queen's gratitude for them saving her life, and afterwards, the Flavershams leave. Dawson figures it's time for him to leave as well, but his departure is interrupted by a distraught new client. Basil then persuades Dawson to remain as "my trusty associate, Doctor Dawson, with whom I do all my cases". They proceed to help the client, beginning their next case with many more to solve.
==Production==
The layouts were done on computers, and the use of video cameras made a digital version of pencil testing possible. The movie was also notable for its early use of computer generated imagery (CGI) for a chase scene that takes place in the interior of Big Ben. The movements of its gears were produced as wire-frame graphics on a computer, printed out and traced onto animation cels where colors and the characters were added. The film is sometimes cited as the first animated one from Walt Disney Pictures to use CGI; in reality, The Black Cauldron has this distinction.
Olivia was originally intended to be an older character with the potential as a love interest for Basil or even an infatuated Dr. Dawson, before it was decided that she should be a child to better gain audience sympathy. While Basil and Dawson were visually based on Rathbone and Bruce, their voices and personalities were not. Basil's voice was based on Leslie Howard's portrayal of Henry Higgins in the film Pygmalion while Dawson's voice was based on Disney animation legend Eric Larson.
"We didn't want to make them simply miniature versions of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce," Clements affirmed. "Dawson's not a buffoon. He's a foil for Basil but also a warm and caring person."
Disney's decision to name the film The Great Mouse Detective and not Basil of Baker Street was unpopular with the filmmakers. Animator Ed Gombert wrote a satirical interoffice memo, allegedly by studio executive Peter Schneider, which gave the preceding films the following generic titles:
*Seven Little Men Help a Girl
*The Wooden Boy Who Became Real
*Color and Music
*The Wonderful Elephant Who Could Really Fly
*The Little Deer Who Grew Up
*The Girl With the See-Through Shoes
*The Girl in the Imaginary World
*The Amazing Flying Children
*Two Dogs Fall in Love
*The Girl Who Seemed to Die
*Puppies Taken Away
*The Boy Who Would Be King
*A Boy, a Bear, and a Big Black Cat
*Robin Hood With Animals
*Two Mice Save a Girl
*A Fox and a Hound Are Friends
*The Evil Bonehead
The memo later inspired a category on Jeopardy!.
==Cast==
*Barrie Ingham as Basil of Baker Street
**Ingham also played Bartholomew
*Vincent Price as Professor Ratigan
*Val Bettin as David Q. Dawson
*Susanne Pollatschek as Olivia Flaversham
*Candy Candido as Fidget
**Candido also played a reprobate at the bar.
*Alan Young as Mr. Flaversham
*Diana Chesney as Mrs. Judson, Basil's housekeeper.
*Eve Brenner as Mouse Queen
*Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. His voice is sampled from a 1966 reading of "The Red-Headed League".
*Laurie Main as Dr. Watson
*Wayne Allwine, Tony Anselmo, Walker Edmiston, and Val Bettin as Thugs
**Edmiston also voiced a citizen who protests Ratigan's proclamations at the Diamond Jubilee.
*Ellen Fitzhugh as the Bar Maid at the pub
*Shani Wallis as the lady mouse in trouble at the end of the film.
*Melissa Manchester as the Dancing Girl mouse who sings "Let Me Be Good to You". Her name is never mentioned in the film but "Kitty" is written upon her character model sheet.
==Reception==
The film was well received by critics during its initial release, including a "two thumbs up" rating from American film critics, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.
London's Time Out magazine wrote, "As usual with film noir [...] it is the villain who steals the heart and one is rooting for in the breathtaking showdown high up in the cogs and ratchets of Big Ben."
The film also maintains an 81% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 16 reviews.
Although it was not a big financial hit as it was outperformed by Don Bluth's , this film remained quite successful enough at the box office, garnering at almost over $38,625,550 at over a budget of $14 million during its initial release. Its inexpensive success after its predecessor's failure gave the new management of Disney confidence in the viability of their animation department. It should be noted that its performance at the foreign box office was not documented as with most movies from the Disney Dark Age.
==Home video releases==
Despite its critical and financial success at the box office, the film was not released on home video until after its theatrical re-release in 1992; this first home video release of it eventually became part of the Walt Disney Classics series. In August 1999, it was reissued on VHS with a game sheet inside it as part of a contest. It was later released for the first time ever on DVD in 2002, with a short making-of feature on how the film was made.
A new "Mystery in the Mist Edition" of The Great Mouse Detective was released on DVD on April 13, 2010 and on Blu-ray Disc on October 9, 2012. Unlike previous home video releases, which all used the 1992 reissue title print (The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective), this DVD restored the original 1986 title card, which had previously not been seen since the original 1986 release. It also has the film in 1.78:1 aspect ratio revealing more picture, bringing it closer to its original theatrical aspect ratio. This version of the film is also used for the Disney+ streaming service.
==Soundtrack==
*"The World's Greatest Criminal Mind", Music by Henry Mancini, Lyrics by Larry Grossman and Ellen Fitzhugh, Performed by Vincent Price.
*"Let Me Be Good to You" Music and Lyrics by Melissa Manchester, Performed by Melissa Manchester.
*"Goodbye, So Soon" Music by Henry Mancini, Lyrics by Larry Grossman and Ellen Fitzhugh, Performed by Vincent Price.
==Gallery==
Mouse detective3.jpg|Artwork of Toby, Basil, Olivia, and Ratigan, used for the film's 1992 video release
The-Great-Mouse-Detective.jpg
Masterdetektiven basil mus 86.jpg
Basil-the-great-mouse-detective-original-uk-quad-film-poster-1986-vincent-price-walt-disney-5797-p.jpg
The Great Mouse Detective Original Title Card.jpg|Original 1986 Title Card
Gmd-disneyscreencaps com-249.jpg|The title card for the film's 1992 reissue
images (6) TGMD.jpg|Ratigan ringing bell
great-mouse-detective-disneyscreencaps.com-2575.jpg
portada.jpg|Spanish VHS Cover
Basil VHS Australia.jpg|Australian VHS Cover
Disney-easter-egg-mouse-detective-dumbo.jpg|A cameo of Dumbo
==Videos==
'The Great Mouse Detective' Re-Release Trailer (1992)|1992 Reissue Trailer
File:The Great Mouse Detective - 1999 VHS Trailer -1|1999 Home Video Trailer 1
File:The Great Mouse Detective - 1999 VHS Trailer -2|1999 Home Video Trailer 2
==Trivia==
*Before his death, the late Vincent Price said that his role of Ratigan was by far his favorite role.
*This film is sometimes considered, by fans and animation historians, to be the unofficial start of Disney's second Golden Age, also known as the Disney Renaissance. This is mostly due to the fact that it had saved Disney Animation Studios from going completely bankrupt at the time, and it should be noted that it did play a big impact on the Disney Renaissance as well.https://ohmy.disney.com/insider/2015/09/18/how-the-great-mouse-detective-kick-started-the-disney-renaissance/
*This film was the last animated Disney one to heavily use Jimmy MacDonald's classic Disney cartoon sound effects. Though some later Disney films did use the sound effects for humorous moments (like most notably Aladdin). However, The Brave Little Toaster, made one year later (albeit not actually by Walt Disney Feature Animation), was the actual last animated movie to use the "castle thunder" sound effect and a few remaining classic sound effects (the sound services were outsourced to Horta Editorial in this case.)
*While the film's script took roughly four years to develop, the animation took only one year to finish, thanks to use of computers at the time.
*Despite the fact that the film, and the book it was based off of, are considered parodies of Arthur Conan Doyle's novels involving the character Sherlock Holmes, this film is deeply beloved by the Sherlock Holmes fan-base with its various similarities.
*It was the last Disney animated feature ever to be set in the United Kingdom.
*During the climatic clock tower scene, this was one of the first major use of computer animation (the gears of Big Ben) in a feature-length animated film. It was also the first time traditionally-animated characters were put inside a computer-generated background. This was acknowledged by Roy Disney in a special video-exclusive introduction on VHS and DVD releases of Fantasia 2000.
**However, it should be noted that this film is not the first Disney animated feature to use CGI; that title goes to The Black Cauldron.
*"Let Me Be Good To You" was almost cut because though brief, the lyrics and some animation was considered "too adult" for a Disney animated family film, the animators avoided a PG rating and got the scene kept in by appealing to the censors on the grounds that the segment was a Cabaret song and harmless in lyrics, and because the character animated singing it was a mouse, not a human and thus not questionable.
*"Let Me Be Good To You" was originally to be sung by Madonna, but the directors decided that this was not contemporary enough for the audience to enjoy. After Liza Minnelli was briefly considered, Melissa Manchester was hired as the new singer of the song. "Let Me Be Good To You" was also once entitled, "Look At Me".
*This film was originally accompanied with the Mickey Mouse short Clock Cleaners (1937) during its original 1986 release.
*The scene in the gears of Big Ben was inspired by the clock tower sequence from Hayao Miyazaki's directorial debut, Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979).
*In some parts of Scandinavia, some of the film's content was considered by censors to be unsuitable for younger children. In Norway, the film was banned for children under 12, which led to Disney not doing a Norwegian dub; the studio had also considered releasing it straight-to-video there as there were no censorship restrictions on videotapes at the time. Denmark censors requested 30 seconds of cuts, while Finland and Sweden released it without any restrictions.
*Ratigan kills the character Bartholomew. This is most likely a homage to one of Price's famous roles in Pit and the Pendulum (1961) in which his character is also trying to kill a man called Bartolomew.
*This film was the last Disney Animated Feature to star the late Candy Candido, which was released 13 years prior to his death in May 1999.
*This film was released the same year as Don Bluth's An American Tail; both films revolve around mice in large popular cities searching for their family members and coming across a large cast of characters, but the plots do have some very noticeable differences.
**On the subject of An American Tail, while it was more expensively successful at the box office that it became the highest grossing animated film of 1986, this film still proved to be a box office success and garnered more favorable reviews from movie critics, most notably Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.
**Unlike other feature length films released by Walt Disney pictures between 1985 and 1989, the original 1985 variant of the opening Walt Disney Pictures logo has not appeared on any home media or digital release worldwide since the film's 1986 theatrical release because it was replaced by a then-newer 1990 variant from the 1992 theatrical reissue (opening and closing) and VHS debut release, and currently the 1994 variant from the 2010/2012 Mystery in the Mist edition DVD & Blu-ray release. As a result of logo plastering, the 1985 incarnation of the Disney logo, also one of the rarest, obscure castle logos designed by Disney is presumed lost as the corporation is unlikely to prepare to do a new, costly scan and master in 4K at this time. However, possible obscure bootleg VHS and rare copies of the original 1986 35mm theatrical film prints are still found in small communities worldwide for personal home use to contain the original 1985 logo.
*This was the last Disney animated film to be produced in full screen (though cropped to widescreen for theatrical, DVD, Blu-ray, and digital releases as well as current television broadcasts); further Disney animated films beginning with Oliver & Company would start being produced exclusively in widescreen.
==References==
==External links==
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da:Mesterdetektiven Basil Mus
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fr:Basil, Détective Privé
it:Basil l'investigatopo
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