All Dogs Go to Heaven


All Dogs Go to Heaven is a 1989 animated musical fantasy comedy drama film directed by Don Bluth and co-directed by Gary Goldman and Dan Kuenster. Set in New Orleans in 1939, it tells the story of Charlie B. Barkin, a German Shepherd mix who is murdered by his former friend, Carface Carruthers. Charlie escapes from Heaven to return to Earth where his best friend, Itchy Itchiford, still lives, in order to take revenge on Carface. Instead, he ends up befriending a young orphan girl named Anne-Marie. In the process, Charlie learns an important lesson about kindness, friendship and love.
The film is an Irish, British and American venture, produced by Goldcrest Films and Sullivan Bluth Studios Ireland Limited. On its cinema release, it competed directly with Walt Disney Feature Animation's The Little Mermaid, released on the same day. While it did not repeat the box-office success of Sullivan Bluth's previous features, An American Tail and The Land Before Time, it was successful on home video, becoming one of the biggest-selling VHS releases ever. It was followed by a theatrical sequel, a television series, and a holiday direct-to-video film.

Plot

In 1939 New Orleans, Charlie B. Barkin escapes from the dog pound with the help of his best friend Itchy Itchiford and returns to their casino riverboat on the bayou; where dogs gamble, drinking alcohol and smoke. His business partner, Carface Caruthers is surprised to see Charlie alive and is reluctant to share the profits with him. Carface had secretly been responsible for Charlie getting committed to the pound due to greed and decides to get rid of him for good this time by killing him with a car pushed downhill. Despite not having done any good lifetime deeds Charlie is automatically sent to Heaven. He is then greeted by Annabelle who explains to him that because dogs are inherently good and loyal, all dogs go to Heaven and are entitled to paradise. Taking advantage of her kindness, Charlie cheats death by stealing a pocket watch representing his life and winding it back. As Charlie descends back to Earth, the whippet angel tells him that he can never return to Heaven.
When Charlie returns he reunites with Itchy and plots revenge in the form of a rivaling business. They soon discover that Carface's success has been from a kidnapped young orphan girl named Anne-Marie for her ability to talk to animals, which proves helpful when betting on races. While Charlie rescues her and promises to feed the poor and help her find a family, he takes her to a race track the following day to gamble. Charlie steals a wallet from a couple as they talk to Anne-Marie and become concerned by her rough appearance. Charlie and Itchy use their winnings to build a successful casino in the junkyard where they live. Anne-Marie threatens to leave when she realizes she has been used, but Charlie persuade her to stay by bringing pizza to a family of poor puppies and their mother at an abandoned church. Although initially a success, Anne-Marie becomes angry at Charlie when she discovers the stolen wallet.
As Charlie has a nightmare in which he is condemned to Hell, Anne-Marie returns the wallet to the couple who introduce themselves as Kate and Harold. As they privately discuss adopting her Charlie arrives and tricks her into leaving with him. Charlie and Anne-Marie narrowly escape an ambush by Carface and his assistant Killer and hide in an abandoned building, but the ground breaks and they fall into the lair of a giant alligator named King Gator. He and Charlie bond over a love of music and he lets them go, but Anne-Marie catches pneumonia in the process. Carface and his thugs destroy Charlie's casino and assault Itchy. Feeling abandoned, Itchy limps back to the church to confront Charlie about his relationship with Anne-Marie. Charlie retorts in exasperation that he is using her and will eventually "dump her in an orphanage". A heartbroken Anne-Marie overhears the conversation and tearfully runs away before she is kidnapped by Carface. Charlie follows them to Carface's casino, where he is ambushed by his thugs. As they fight with Charlie they inadvertently start an oil fire that soon engulfs the whole structure. Charlie's pained howls from their bites summon King Gator, who chases down and devours Carface.
During the chaos both Anne-Marie and the watch fall into the water, but Charlie is unable to rescue both at the same time. He then decides to choose Anne-Marie by placing her onto some driftwood and pushes her toward safety, but Charlie's life ends as the watch stops before he can retrieve it. As Killer finishes pushing her to shore Kate and Harold are waiting with police and medical personnel, alongside Itchy, Flo, and the other dogs from New Orleans. Sometime later, Kate and Harold adopt Anne-Marie, who has also adopted Itchy. Charlie, having sacrificed himself to save Anne-Marie, has earned back his place in Heaven, and is allowed to return in ghost form to reconcile with Anne-Marie. Leaving Itchy in her care, Charlie returns to Heaven, where, in a mid-credits scene, Carface finally arrives and takes his own watch, vowing revenge against King Gator. As Annabelle chases him and warns against using it, Charlie assures the audience that "he'll be back".

Voice cast

  • Burt Reynolds as Charlie B. Barkin, a brash German Shepherd and a former con artist. Despite being greedy and selfish for most of his life, Charlie is able to care about Anne-Marie.
  • Dom DeLuise as Itchy Itchiford, a paranoid, anxious but loyal Dachshund and Charlie's best friend. Itchy sports a cap and sleeveless shirt.
  • Judith Barsi as Anne-Marie, a 7-year-old orphan girl with the ability to talk to and understand animals. This was Barsi's final film role before her murder in 1988; the end credits song "Love Survives" was dedicated in her memory.
  • Vic Tayback as Carface Carruthers, a violent, sadistic Bulldog gangster. Carface took Anne-Marie for her ability to talk to animals as it helped him for betting on animal races to raise up his profits, Carface loved Anne-Marie for this and is willing to give her anything except her freedom.
  • Charles Nelson Reilly as Killer, a misnamed, fidgety, neurotic and spectacles-wearing Schnoodle who is Carface's comic relief sidekick.
  • Loni Anderson as Flo, a female Rough Collie and one of Charlie's friends.
  • Melba Moore as Annabelle, a Whippet angel who welcomes deceased dogs into Heaven.
  • Ken Page as King Gator, an American alligator and voodoo witch doctor living below the streets of New Orleans.
  • Rob Fuller and Earleen Carey as Kate and Harold, a kindly married couple who later become Anne-Marie's adoptive parents.
  • Godfrey Quigley as Terrier, a dog that appears when Itchy tells everyone Anne-Marie is in danger.
  • Anna Manahan as Stella Dallas, a horse that appears when Anne-Marie, Charlie and Itchy are at the derby.
  • Candy Devine as Vera, a female gambling dog.
  • Dan Molina as the hellhound in Charlie's nightmare and at the finale.

    Production

The earliest idea was conceived by Don Bluth after finishing work on The Secret of NIMH. The treatment was originally about a canine private eye, and one of three short stories, making up an anthology film. The character of a shaggy German Shepherd was designed specifically for Burt Reynolds. Don Bluth Productions, however, was going through a period of financial difficulty, ultimately having to declare bankruptcy, and the idea never made it beyond rough storyboards. The concept was revived by Bluth, John Pomeroy and Gary Goldman, and rewritten by David N. Weiss, collaborating with the producers from October through December 1987. They built around the title All Dogs Go to Heaven and drew inspiration from films, such as It's a Wonderful Life, Little Miss Marker and A Guy Named Joe. The film's title came from a book read to Bluth's fourth-grade class, and he resisted suggestions to change it, stating he liked how "provocative" it sounded, and how people reacted to the title alone.
During the production of their previous feature film, Sullivan Bluth Studios had moved from Van Nuys, California, to a state-of-the-art studio facility in Dublin, Ireland, and the film was their first to begin production wholly at the Irish studio. It was also their first film to be funded from sources outside of Hollywood, as the previous two feature films, An American Tail and The Land Before Time, had been backed by Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures, and executive producers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas exercised a degree of control over the content of the films, a situation that Bluth found disagreeable. The studio found investment from UK-based Goldcrest Films in a US$70m deal to produce three animated feature films. The three founding members of the studio, Bluth, Pomeroy, and Goldman, had all moved to Ireland to set up the new facility, but during the film's production, John Pomeroy returned to the United States to head up a satellite studio which provided some of the animation for the film. Pomeroy also used his presence in the United States to generate early publicity for the film, including a presentation at the 1987 San Diego Comic-Con.
The film's lead voices, Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise, had previously appeared together in five films. For this one, they requested them to record their parts in the studio together. Bluth agreed and allowed the duo to ad-lib extensively; Bluth later commented that "their ad-libs were often better than the original script", but Reynolds was more complimentary of the draft, warmly quipping, "Great script, kid", as he left the studio. Another pair of voices, those of Carface and Killer, also recorded together. Loni Anderson, who voices Flo, was Reynolds' then-wife. Child actress Judith Barsi, who voiced Ducky in Bluth's previous film The Land Before Time, was selected to voice Anne-Marie; she was killed in an apparent murder-suicide over a year before All Dogs was released.
There has been a rumor that while recording the ending dialogue, Burt Reynolds had trouble recording the lines without tearing up. Judith Barsi finished recording her lines before her death and Reynolds had yet to record his lines. Behind the scenes, Reynolds took many takes for the lines as he kept tearing up because of Barsi's situation as well as looking at a photograph of her.
As production neared completion, the studio held test screenings and decided that some scenes were too intense for younger viewers. Pomeroy decided to shorten Charlie's nightmare about being condemned. Goldman also agreed to the cut, recognizing that the concession needed to be made in the name of commercial appeal. Bluth owned a private 35-mm print with the excised scenes and planned to convince Goldcrest on releasing a director's cut after returning from Ireland in the mid-1990s, but the print was eventually stolen from Bluth's locked storage room, diminishing hopes of this version being released on home media.