Art of the Great Mouse Detective
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The Great Mouse Detective is an animation movie produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and co-directed by Burny Mattinson, David Michener, John Musker, and Ron Clements, in 1986. The story was based on the children's book series ‘‘Basil of Baker Street’’ by Eve Titus, which draws heavily on the tradition of Sherlock Holmes with a heroic mouse who consciously emulates the detective. Titus named the main character after actor Basil Rathbone, who is best remembered for playing Holmes in the film (and whose voice, sampled from a 1966 reading of "The Red-Headed League" was the voice of Holmes in this film, 19 years after his death). Sherlock Holmes also mentions "Basil" as one of his aliases in the Arthur Conan Doyle story "The Adventure of Black Peter".
The Great Mouse Detective was released to theaters on July 2, 1986, to positive reviews and financial success, in sharp contrast to the box office under-performance of Disney's previous animated feature film ‘‘The Black Cauldron’’. As such, the new senior management of the company was convinced that their animation department was still a viable enterprise and this set the stage for what is known today as the Disney Renaissance. The pictures on this page are a collection of artworks created for this movie.
THE STORY
In London in June 1897, a young mouse named Olivia Flaversham is celebrating her birthday with her toymaker father, Hiram. Suddenly, a bat with a crippled wing and a peg leg bursts into the Flaversham's workshop, kidnapping Hiram. Olivia searches to find the famed Great Mouse Detective named Basil of Baker Street, but gets lost. A surgeon named Dr. David Q. Dawson, who has just returned from a lengthy service of the Mouse Queen's 66th Regiment in Afghanistan, meets Olivia, and escorts her to Basil's residence. Upon their arrival, Basil is initially indifferent, but when Olivia mentions the peg-legged bat that kidnapped her father, Basil realizes that Olivia saw Fidget, a henchman of Professor Ratigan, a villain that Basil has attempted to arrest for years…
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