All Dogs Go to Heaven (Roadshow) (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Family	Main Menu Audio Storybook-Movie Picture Book Gallery-Photo Gallery-Poster-Colour Poster DVD-ROM Extras
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	81:11
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Don Bluth Gary Goldman Dan Kuenster
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Burt Reynolds Dom DeLuise Judith Barsi Melba Moore Daryl Gilley Candy Devine Charles Nelson Reilly Vic Tayback Rob Fuller Earleen Carey Anna Manahan Nigel Pegram Loni Anderson
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	Ralph Burns T.J. Kuenster Michael Lloyd

Don Bluth’s All Dogs Go to Heaven was released in the same week in the US as The Little Mermaid in November 1989. The Little Mermaid was financially successful and revived the Walt Disney animated feature film after the box-office failures of The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver & Company. However All Dogs Go to Heaven met another fate as it was deemed too disturbing to be regarded as a children’s film. In turn All Dogs Go to Heaven found an audience on VHS and remains a cult classic as it is held in the same light as Bluth’s other successful and popular films; An American Tail and The Land Before Time.

Set in New Orleans 1939, Charlie B. Barkin, a rough yet charismatic German Shepherd (voiced by Burt Reynolds) is working at a casino with his business partner Carface Carruthers, a deceitful pitbull. Carface however is unwilling to share the night’s earnings with Charlie and plans to get Charlie intoxicated and killed. Charlie later dies that night as he is violently run over by a car.

“What a selfish, hopeless, callous heel of a cad I've been. Blind to the needs of society's lowly unloved.”

Charlie then finds himself in heaven but he is sorely disappointed with having died before his time. In an attempt to rectify his past, Charlie makes the decision to return to earth but in doing so he has forsaken his place in heaven. If he is to die while on earth, Charlie will end up in hell. Despite this possibility, Charlie returns to earth and reunites with his friend Itchiford, a nervous Dachshund (voiced by Dom DeLuise) and plans his revenge on Carface. All Dogs Go to Heaven is dedicated to the late Judith Barsi who provided the voice of Anne-Marie, a young orphan who has the gift of talking to animals.

Video

The PAL transfer is presented in a Pan and Scan 1.29:1 frame. The film was theatrically exhibited in the ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen. As per site policy, a star has been deducted from the Overall Video rating because of the incorrect aspect ratio.

The single layer DVD transfer features film artefacts (positive and negative film grain) but this is most likely due to the condition of the print.

The opening credits incur heavy telecine wobble and some scenes have obvious chroma noise artefacts.

The picture quality is soft and on occasion there were was a mild combing effect, which was possibly due to changing the transfer from NTSC to PAL.

The bright and earthy colour palette is presented quite well.

The transfer has been encoded at the average bitrate of 6.20 Mbps and MPEG compression artefacts are minimal.

The English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles are true to the dialogue and onscreen action.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

The English Dolby Digital 2.0 has no obvious errors and dialogue remains clear and audible.

The film includes a number of songs sung by Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise, and the main title “Love Survives” is performed by Irene Cara and Freddie Jackson.

Unfortunately the soundtrack does not make use of the surround sound but never the less is suitable in respect of the age of the source material.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio

The menu features the following options - Play Movie, 17 Scene Selections, Special Features and Subtitle Options.

Storybook

The film can be accessed as a 14 page story book accompanied with still images.

Gallery-Photo

8 Black and white promotional stills of the film and one of the crew are included.

Gallery-Poster

A still image of the theatrical poster art which also features on the DVD cover art.

DVD-ROM Extras

4 Print-Outs - 1 Join the Dots, 2 Colour-in pages and 1 Puzzle page. Also a Print-Out Educational Program (Grades 1-6)

The Region 1 DVD has the additional features of Spanish and French subtitles and French Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. However the local release has the added bonus of extra features.

The cult classic is released in less than average fashion with minimal extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall