Career Resurrection: While often touted as one for Ingrid Bergman, it was actually one for Helen Hayes. She had taken several years off after the death of her daughter, and her husband's failing health. This was viewed as her comeback, and she'd even win an Oscar for Airport a few years later.
Dawson Casting: In 1928, when the movie takes place, the real Anastasia would have been twenty-seven years old. Ingrid Bergman was forty-one at the time of filming.
Fake Russian: Yul Brynner and Akim Tamiroff are the only Russian actors playing Russian charactersnote Tamiroff was ethnically Armenian, but was born and raised at a time when the country was ruled by the Russian Empire, and spoke Russian as his first language., though Sacha Pitoëff (Petrovin) and Ivan Desny (Prince Paul) did have Russian ancestry. Invoked for the titular character, both the film and the characters leave it ambiguous if Anna is actually the Russian princess or merely an imposter.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: At the time that the movie was being made, the BBC had already adapted the stage play to their Sunday Night Theatre series in 1953 starring Peter Cushing, it had been preserved on Kinescope but since Fox now owned the rights the BBC were forced to destroy the recording, however the Head of BBC Drama Michael Barry secretly, hid it in the Archives were it was rediscovered in 2004 and in 2015 the restored tape was screened by the BFI.
Reality Subtext: The press loved comparing the story of the film to Ingrid Bergman's exile from Hollywood; a former royal regaining her throne after circumstance forced her to abandon it. Interestingly enough, the story ending with Anna running away rather than properly reclaiming the throne did parallel how the actress didn't properly return to Hollywood and instead continued to make films in Europe, with only the occasional Hollywood picture.
Typecasting: Ivan Desny, who plays Prince Paul Von Haralsberg, also starred in a German film about Anna Anderson the same year.
Filmmakers didn't know that the real Anna Anderson was still alive at first, and so travelled to her home to get permission to use her name.
Helen Hayes was hired by accident. The producer had seen an actress called Helen Haye on the BBC and sent a memo to the casting director to hire her. The latter assumed it was a misprint, and got Helen Hayes instead.
A double dose for the young Anastasia: Kirsten Dunst as her young speaking voice and Lacey Chabert for her young singing voice.
Awesome, Dear Boy: Meg Ryan was initially reluctant to do the film. But the animators created a little sequence of Anya with some dialogue from Sleepless in Seattle dubbed over it to show her - and Meg immediately signed on.
Bernadette Peters was annoyed at the design for Sophie. As she was very physically fit at the time of production, she didn't like that Sophie was drawn "so heavyset".
Don Bluth also regretted Vlad's design, feeling his cartoonish appearance was out of place against Anya and Dimitri's more realistic figures.
Creator's Favorite Episode: Liz Callaway, the singing voice for Anya, cites this as her favourite role she's ever done.
Cross-Regional Voice Acting: The casting is based on the United States, but Czar Nicolas II is voiced by Toronto actor Rick Jones.
Development Gag: The nods to My Fair Lady during "Learn To Do It" are in reference to how an animated remake of the musical was Don Bluth's other choice for his first film at Fox.
Fake Russian: Ignoring the obvious group of American actors portraying Russians without their accents, we have:
Angela Lansbury (British) and Bernadette Peters (American) as the Empress and Sophie, who are both Russian exiles living in France.
Kelsey Grammer and Christopher Lloyd (both American) as Vlad and Rasputin, who are Russian. Rick Jones (Canadian) also voices Tsar Nicholas (with accent), one of the revolutionary soldiers (unaccented), and a ticket agent (using a blatant Brooklyn accent).
Fandom Nod: Look closely, and you'll see little visual Shout Outs to other movies from Don Bluth's history. (The squirrels look like they've walked right off the set of Sleeping Beauty, Bartok is sucked into Hell just like Charlie, there's a spooky thorn bush near the end that Brutus might be guarding, and so on).
In contrast to Thumbelina which was a blatant copier of the Disney Renaissance style, Anastasia was more successful - to the degree that many fans are still convinced it was made by Disney.
It also follows the lead of fictionalizing a real woman's life (who was not technically a princess either) from Pocahontas, ironically enjoying a much better reception in its home country.
Irony as She Is Cast: Angela Lansbury, a gifted singer herself, barely sings in the film - in contrast to many others who are doubled by other singers.
Kids' Meal Toy: It had two sets of Burger King toys. One came with the meal, while the other could be purchased for an extra three dollars. The toys included in the second set included a talking Bartok plush, an Anastasia doll, and a miniature battery-powered train and track.
Money, Dear Boy: Don Bluth claims that he never would have done this movie had he not just spent years of getting pummeled by disappointing box office returns and production nightmares, not to mention several films he was less-than-proud of. It paid off though, and became his highest-grossing film.
Reality Subtext: Actual relics of the Romanovs were scanned into the computers and inserted within the movie, including photographs of the family shown on Marie's wall and the drawing Anastasia made when she was eight years old, which was drawn by the real Anastasia.
Time has conclusively proven the concept of this movie false (not that it ever claimed to be some accurate historical representation). For 90 years, the bodies of the Romanov's son Alexei and one of the younger daughters (either Anastasia or her sister Maria) were missing. The rest of the family's bodies had been found in 1991 but in 2007, an archeological excavation found the bodies of a teenage boy and girl near the site of the grave of the rest of the family. Upon DNA testing (from Prince Phillip who is their mom's great-nephew), they were confirmed to be the missing Romanov children though it is still unknown if it was Anastasia or Maria who was found with Alexei. All seven members of the family are now accounted for and confirmed to have died in 1918.
She Also Did: None other than Carrie Fisher contributed some ideas to the film, namely the "Journey To The Past" sequence.
Throw It In!: Liz Callaway was only called in at the last minute to replace the singer who was to record demo tracks for Fox. They liked her singing so much they cast her as Anya's singing voice.
The early drafts followed the historical events more accurately before producers decided the real history was too dark for a children's film. The composers were surprised when they went down this road - and their stage musical adaptation is closer to their original vision.
Dimitri was originally named Philippe.
In the film, Rasputin's reason for being evil is never really explained - he's briefly described as being a "fraud" and a "traitor", but nothing else - and it's the Tsar's attempt to expel him from court that leads to him swearing vengeance against the entire Romanov line. In the original drafts of the story, Rasputin only became evil after the relatives of the Tsar made an assassination attempt against his life - which historically killed him - and he swore vengeance after mistakenly assuming the Tsar had arranged it. His Villain Song still refers to the royals having "betrayed" him.
Rasputin also didn't drown and end up in limbo in these drafts; instead, he escaped to the countryside in a traveling wagon, and only returned when he realized that Anastasia was still alive.
Before Rasputin was chosen as the villain, Don Bluth had ideas for a fictional police chief who had a personal vendetta against Anastasia herself. This character eventually took Rasputin's place in the stage version.
Vlad and Sophie were originally supposed to be dancing together in the opening scene, giving a greater insight as to how they know each other, and how they're connected to Anastasia's family.
Rasputin at one point had more menacing minions and monsters but they're labeled as Obsolete. These were possibly meant for the "In the Dark of the Night" Villain Song.
Liz Callaway was only brought in to record some demos, hoping to land a "background vocals" slot. Producers liked her songs so much, some of them were used in the final film - and she became the singing voice of Anastasia.
Bartok was written for Woody Allen to play but they were reluctant to offer it to him after his abuse accusations came out. Martin Short was also considered.
Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr.. were both considered for Dimitri. Depp was passed because he demanded that the character be designed to resemble him closely (which is rather ironic for someone like Don Bluth, who does that in his films), while the producers had misgivings about casting Downey considering his reputation at the time (given this was still over a decade before his big comeback).
Anya was going to be seen riding a bicycle during "Journey To The Past", but the idea was abandoned because the writers realized she hadn't begun her journey yet - and was only on the cusp of it.
The various movie storybooks, which presumably reflect an earlier screenplay, all seem to imply that Anastasia and her grandmother will never meet again after she elopes with Dimitri. Empress Marie's words of encouragement to her granddaughter are "Whatever you choose, I will always hold you in my heart" instead of "...we will always have each other," Anya's farewell letter lacks "We'll be together in Paris soon," and Marie's subsequent dialogue with Sophie has the latter lamenting that they're losing Anastasia again when it seems like just yesterday they found her, to which Marie replies "At least we had that yesterday. She has her tomorrow." Presumably, the filmmakers realized that this would make the ending too bittersweet and make the audience lose sympathy with Anya for abandoning her grandmother, so the scenes were rewritten to make it clear that she and Marie will still be in contact and that Marie and Sophie are happy for her.
The movie storybooks also contain a penultimate action sequence before the confrontation with Rasputin on the bridge, where the topiary animals in the French royal garden come to life and chase after Anya and Pooka.
Some early drafts of the screenplay had Dimitri be the one to kill Rasputin in the end, but eventually it was decided to avert the "boy rescues girl" cliché and have Anya defeat Rasputin herself.
Working Title: The Music Box, which greater explains the focus on it.
and a rat partner for Bartok named Rodan