All Dogs Go to Heaven

All Dogs Go to Heaven
All Dogs Go to Heaven
	DVD Cover
Directed by	Don Bluth
Written by	Mitchel Savage
Produced by	Don Bluth; Gary Goldman; John Pomeroy
Starring	Burt Reynolds; Dom DeLuise; Judith Barsi
Distributed by	MGM/UA
Release dates	November 17, 1989
Running time	89 min.
Language	English
Budget	$N/A

All Dogs Go to Heaven is an animated film directed and produced by Don Bluth and released by United Artists in 1989.

Plot

In 1939 New Orleans, Charlie B. Barkin, a rough-and-tumble German Shepherd (voiced by Burt Reynolds) with a con man's charm, is working at a casino with his gangster Pit Bull business partner Carface Carruthers. Carface, however, has Charlie locked away at the pound in order to avoid having to share their joint earnings. Charlie is broken free from jail by his friend Itchiford "Itchy" Dachschund (referred to in the sequel and series as Itchy Itchiford), a nervous Dachshund, and proceeds to return to their business with big changes and dreams in mind. Carface decides to get Charlie drunk and kill him with the pretext of taking him out for a celebratory drink. Charlie is taken to Mardi Gras, and when he is sufficiently drunk, blindfolded and violently run over by a car and forced off a pier into a river.

Having died, Charlie goes to Heaven by default, as all dogs do, because "unlike people, dogs are naturally good and loyal and kind.", despite not having done a single nice thing in his life, as is noted by the Whippet angel Annabelle, who greets him. But Charlie is dissatisfied with having died before his time and takes back the clock of his life, returning himself to earth. Unfortunately, this now means that Charlie cannot return to heaven because he has forsaken his place, so he has to make sure he doesn't die again, because then he'll end up in "Hell". While he is on Earth, he cannot die as long as his life clock continues ticking.

Back on earth Charlie reunites with his friend Itchy and shares with him his plans for revenge against Carface. Rather than get revenge, Charlie decides to set up a rival business 'Charlie's Place' and steal Carface's customers. Charlie discovers a young orphan named Anne-Marie that Carface has been harbouring because of her gift to communicate with animals, and from this knows which of the animals will win the races that Carface's customers bet on.

Charlie decides that this girl and her gift could be valuable to him and takes her with him, buying her dresses, promising her a family and telling her that all the money they earn from her gift will go towards helping the poor, just like in Robin Hood. Charlie and Itchy pick-pocket a married couple, unknowingly to Anne Marie, and the woman asks Anne Marie where her parents are, but before Anne Marie can answer, Charlie tells her that they have to go. When Anne-Marie finds the stolen wallet that Charlie pick-pocketed from the man, she gets very upset because he stole it and decides to return the wallet to the couple. That same night, Charlie has a nightmare in which his life clock explodes and he is pulled by a tornado into Hell, where a skeletal demon attacks him, and he is confronted by a massive, draconic dragon, possible the Devil.

When Charlie goes off to find her, she's eating breakfast with the couple in their home. They don't have any children, and when the woman asks Anne Marie about herself, she tells them that she lives in the junkyard with her dog, Charlie. The woman tells her husband that they have to help her, that the poor girl has no where else to go. Charlie however, ends up by the window of the house, and he convinces Anne Marie that he's sick, and Anne Marie jumps out the window to go after him to make sure he's okay. The two of them are ambushed by Carface and Killer, who attack them with a ray gun.

Escaping Carface, Charlie and Anne Marie end up in a warehouse with a bad floor. It collapses, dropping the two underground where they are captured by a group of native mice who plan to sacrifice them to "King Gator," a reptile homage to King Kong. As he is about to eat Charlie, he discovers that the dog is a singer, and the two become friends. Unfortunately, the whole adventure has made Anne Marie sick with pneumonia.

Carface, meanwhile, still out to get Charlie, storms into Charlie's Place with his thugs and assaults Itchy, leaving him badly hurt. Itchy is mad because Charlie wasn't there to help him, because he was off chasing Anne Marie. He tells Charlie how he's always there for him, but he wasn't there for Itchy, because of the girl, and out of frustration, Charlie tells Itchy that she doesn't mean anything to him, that he's just using her. Anne Marie hears this, and she runs away. Carface then torches the rival casino and abducts Anne-Marie. Itchy and the other dogs go to the married couple to get them to help Anne Marie because she's become very sick. Carface has her locked up in a cage, and Charlie is bound to an anchor and thrown into the water. But with the help of their friend, King Gator, Charlie escapes, and while Charlie and Carface are facing off, he gets separated from his clock and it drops into the water, but at the same time Anne Marie slips off a board that Charlie had put her on to keep her from sinking. He can't rescue Anne Marie from drowning and save his watch at the same time, so he decides to save Anne Marie instead.

Carface is eaten by the King Gator, and Charlie dies as his clock floods and stops. Since Charlie fled heaven the first time he died, he is doomed to go to Hell. By that time, the married couple are there at the water's edge with the police, and Anne Marie is brought to the shore by Killer. Charlie comes back as a spirit one last time to see Anne Marie, and she's sleeping in bed in the married couple's home, and Charlie tells her to take good care of herself and Itchy too. As the angry red dragon from his nightmare beckons for Charlie to return to the underworld, the demon is destroyed by a bright blue light, Annabelle, the angel whippet from Heaven. Annabelle tells Charlie that because of his giving up his life for her, he is redeemed and allowed to return to heaven. The movie ends with Carface, sneering at Annabelle's warnings, taking back his clock, and running off to take revenge on the King Gator, being chased by Annabelle, just as Charlie had. Charlie, however, has adjusted well to his life in heaven. He watches Annabelle and Carface fly into the distance and remarks "He'll be back."

Reaction

All Dogs Go to Heaven was released the same day as Disney's The Little Mermaid and a week before Universal's Back to the Future Part II and did poorly compared to both of them. Critics were especially hard on this movie, finding many of the characters unsympathetic and the songs by Charlie Strouse and T.J. Kuenster sub-par.

Since its release, it has become a cult classic and the title all dogs go to heaven is now a regular phrase. Most fans consider it to be of equal quality to Don Bluth's two previous films (An American Tail and The Land Before Time) which did remarkably well^{[citation needed]}. The film also has a 72% "fresh" rating among users at Rotten Tomatoes and a "B-" at Box Office Mojo although it is seen by some as too disturbing for a children's film, as it contains images of violence, drinking, prostitution, smoking, gambling, Hell, and involves a character being banished from Heaven.

Sequels

The film generated one theatrical sequel, All Dogs Go to Heaven 2; a television series, All Dogs Go to Heaven: The Series; and a Christmas special, An All Dogs Christmas Carol. Don Bluth had no involvement with any of them.

Trivia

Animation Production took place at Sullivan Bluth Studios in Dublin, Ireland.
Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise had previously starred together in The Cannonball Run.
In the heaven scene after Charlie's original death, the whippet angel shows Charlie his book of deeds. The pages include Charlie's father and mother "Burt & Loni", a reference to Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson, who were together at the time.
In order to get a "G" rating, some disturbing scenes had to be trimmed.
This was Judith Barsi's last film. She was murdered a year prior to the release of the film. As a tribute, the song that plays at the end credits, "Love Survives" was written specially for Barsi as a final act of love from the cast and crew.
While Charlie is in heaven, where they keep all the clocks, one of them is a Mickey Mouse wristwatch. Don Bluth, the director, was a former Disney animator. Likewise, United Artists was also the original distributor of the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons.

Carface's name is a play on "Scarface", the nickname of 1930s gangster Al Capone.
Charlie's middle initial, "B" stands for Burt, a nod to Burt Reynolds, his original voice.
This is Don Bluth's second and last movie originally distributed by United Artists.
Wendy's offered All Dogs Go To Heaven toys either in a Wendy's Kids' Meal or with the purchase of a regular fries.

External links