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'''An American Tail''' is an animated film produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, and directed by Don Bluth, originally released in movie theatres on November 21, 1986.
Story
The film starts off on Chanukah in 1885, opening in the village of Shostka, Russia, and it shows the story of the life of a family of Jewish-Russian mice who emigrate to escape a pogrom after their village is destroyed by Cossack raiders. Believing in the American dream they head to New York City because "there are no cats in America." Once there, they immediately discover that there are indeed cats in America and plenty of them, and begin living in a typical late 19th century immigrant manner: working in a sweatshop, living in horrible conditions, and submitting to a feline protection racket as an alternative to being eaten.
The film follows Fievel Mousekewitz (his first name comes from that of Steven Spielberg's grandfather), who is separated from his family during a storm as the boat approaches America; the movie chronicles Fievel's search for his family, and his struggle against the cats, including their money hungry leader, Warren T. Rat, a cat who disguises himself as a rat. The mice must call upon the strength of their legends from the Old Country, in particular the Giant Mouse of Minsk, to rout the cats and make a better life for themselves.
As the film starts off on Chanukah (which is in November or December) in 1885, the Mousekewitz family probably needs several months before even arriving on America's shores (boarding from Hamburg, Germany), and we see the process of building the Statue of Liberty until its completion, the plot of ''An American Tail'' obviously takes place mostly in the year 1886 rather than in 1885.
Background
''An American Tail'' is an allegory for the terrible conditions immigrants to the United States faced at the turn of the century (the mice represent the Jewish immigrants, and the cats their antisemitic tormentors) and the film is similar in this respect to Art Spiegelman's graphic novel ''Maus''. It also illustrates the hope (of a new, better life) that America represented to these immigrants at that time.
The ethnic and even religious backgrounds of characters are made somewhat starker than is normal in animation. This is most true in the case of Fievel's family, but it is also true with other characters. For example, characters discuss their lives "back home" in Ireland, Sicily, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere (the Sicilian mouse describes how his mother went to beg for mercy from Mafia cats that had taken his brother, only to be killed herself, with her rosary thrown to the ground in the process). Later, a dead mouse is shown clutching a rosary and a cross.
Art Spiegelman has in fact publicly accused Spielberg of plagiarism due to the fact the Jews are depicted as mice in ''An American Tail'' just as in Spiegelman's earlier ''Maus'', a metaphor Spiegelman had adopted from Nazi propaganda.[1] Even though ''Maus'' appeared collected not sooner than in 1986 just as the film, it had been printed as a series in ''Raw'' magazine years before that.
Characters
Note: These character descriptions are based on this film only, and do not contain information from later films in the series. The actors/actresses who voiced the characters are shown in parentheses.
=== Fievel Mousekewitz (Phillip Glasser) ===
Fievel Mousekewitz and Henri the pigeon, shortly after Fievel arrives in New York City.
Fievel is always drawn with an oversized red jumper and blue hat somewhat too big for his head (it fits at the end of the film). The hat is an heirloom of sorts, having been passed from father to son for three generations (Feivel is the fourth to wear it). Except for a brief period near the story's end, Feivel never loses the hat through all his adventures and scrapes.
There might be some controversy about the correct spelling of the boy mouse's name. The credits spell him as ''Feivel'' which is actually the correct Yiddish spelling[2][3][3] (see also Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz and Feivel Gruberger) as Yiddish is based largely on German, including its spelling rules. However, many English-speaking writers have come to adopt the spelling ''Fievel'' (with reversed i and first e) especially for this character; it was this spelling which was used on the film's poster, in promotional materials and tie-in merchandise, and in the title of the sequel , while in the credits of the first film, the correct spelling is employed. Feivel was named specifically after Spielberg's own immigrant grandfather. It can be assumed his last name is a play on the Jewish-Russian last name "Moskowitz", the name of the human occupants of the house Feivel's family is living under in the beginning of the film.
Tanya Mousekewitz (Amy Green)
Fievel's elder sister, she is drawn in a traditional Russian peasant girl's dress, including a red head kerchief (incorrectly called a "babushka" in the film) given to her on Hannukah at the beginning of the film. She is optimistic, cheerful and obedient. After Fievel was washed off the boat to America she continued to believe that her brother was alive, a hope fulfilled when Fievel was found at the end. She was given an American name 'Tillie' at the immigration point at Castle Garden on Ellis Island.
Tanya has two siblings, Fievel and Yasha.
The character was voiced by Betsy Cathcart for the song "Somewhere Out There".
Warren T. Rat (John Finnegan)
The main villain of the film's story, Warren T. is really a cat in rat's clothing and the leader of the Mott Street Maulers, a gang of cats who terrorize the mice of New York City. His name is a play on "warranty", hence his first name and middle letter. He pretends to the mice to be a rat liaison with the gang, receiving protection money for a 'warranty' on their safety, which often enough is violated anyway as can be seen by the frequent cat attacks perpetrated by his gang. The downfall of his feline empire comes when Feivel, lead into his hideout by Warren's violin thinking it was his papa playing it, discovers that Warren is in fact a cat. Warren and his gang chases Fievel across town to a pier after Tiger frees him, but fall into the trap the mice set up, and the Giant Mouse of Minsk they built forces them off a pier, and onto a boat headed for Hong Kong. Warren is accompanied nearly all the time by his accountant Digit, a small cockroach.
Warren T. plays the violin and quotes Shakespeare, both very badly.
===Papa Mousekewitz (Nehemiah Persoff)===
The head of the Mousekewitz family, Papa plays the violin and tells stories to his children. Too overcome with grief and believing his son to be dead after being lost at sea, he stubbornly refuses to search for Feivel after the family land in America. He tries to convince Tanya of that fact, however things change when he eventually meets Tony and Bridget, who show him Feivel's hat.
Two of his stories were realised later during Feivel's adventures, notably the Giant Mouse of Minsk, which was built as a giant mouse machine, the mice's secret weapon to drive the cats out of New York.
By his account during the sail to America, Papa's father was a cat victim and he woke up an orphan.
===Mama Mousekewitz (Erica Yohn)
Feivel's mother. She appears the stricter of the Mousekewitz parents, and has a fear of flying. Mama, like most of the mice in the film, has a deep and open fear of cats. She is almost always seen taking care of her baby daughter Yasha.
Tony Toponi (Pat Musick)===A streetwise young mouse of Italian descent and with a 'tough New Yorker' attitude, Tony meets Feivel during their slavery at the sweatshop. He takes a liking to Feivel, and gives him an American name 'Philly'. After they escape the sweatshop, he becomes Feivel's friend and guide to the town.
While helping Feivel find his family he meets and becomes emotionally fond of Bridget, a pretty Irish activist. His last name is taken from the Italian word "Topo", meaning mouse.
===Tiger (Dom DeLuise)
A very large, cowardly, long-haired orange cat who also happens to be vegetarian, Tiger was a member of Warren T. Rat's 'Mott Street Maulers' cat-gang until he met and befriended Feivel, whom he helped to escape. He is the only cat in the story who gives mice a non-hungry smile.
Henri (Christopher Plummer)===Henri is a pigeon of French descent, who is in New York while building the Statue of Liberty. He is the first to meet Feivel upon entering America. He nurses Feivel back to health, and tells him that he should never give up in his search for his family (via the song 'Never Say Never'), a message which Feivel takes to heart.
Other Characters
★ 'Bridget' (Cathianne Blore) - An Irish activist and Tony's girlfriend. Her fiery outrage against the unfairness of the cats may be due to the fact that her parents were killed by them, as she explains to Feivel. Whether this happened in Ireland or in New York is unknown. She is very kind to Feivel.
★ 'Honest John' (Neil Ross) - A local politician who knows every voting mouse in New York. A constant drunkard who takes advantage of every voter's concern to increase his political prestige.
★ 'Gussie Mausheimer' (Madeline Kahn) - A German mouse, she is New York's richest mouse, who rallies the mice into fighting back against the cats. Pompous and prone to speaking with a lisp.
★ 'Digit' (Will Ryan) - Warren T.'s cockroach accountant, he has a fondness for counting money, but is plagued by frequent electrical charges in his antennae. It's usually up to him to correct Warren T's faulty Shakespeare quotations. We see that he is tired of Warren's constant smoking, and bad violin playing, but he is too afraid of Warren to do anything about it.
★ 'Yasha Mousekewitz' - The baby sister of Feivel and Tanya, constantly being looked after by Mama Mousekewitz.
★ 'Moe' (Hal Smith) - A fat rat who runs the sweatshop Fievel is sold into by Warren T. Apparently even he sacrifices some of his profits to Warren in exchange for protection from the cats.
Box Office
The film was a box office success, making the first Universal animation movies success in theaters. The film has grossed up to $47 million and $84 million worldwide.
Production
Feivel was voiced by Phillip Glasser, who later did voicework for ''A Troll in Central Park''. The voices of Mama and Papa were Erica Yohn and Nehemiah Persoff who, aside from reprising the voices for the sequels, had no other roles in animation. Dom DeLuise, who also voiced Jeremy in Don Bluth's ''The Secret of NIMH'', Itchy in ''All Dogs Go to Heaven'', and Stanley in ''A Troll in Central Park'', was the voice of Tiger, a fat but friendly vegetarian cat that Feivel befriends (who presumably represents the less prejudiced of American citizens). In the simultaneously-released Spanish version of the film, Feivel was voiced by Laura Bustamante.
While all of the animal characters were animated from scratch, the human characters were portrayed using the rotoscoping technique, in which sequences were shot in live action and then traced onto animation cels. This provides a realistic look for human characters, and distinguishes the cartoonish animal characters from the more realistically-animated humans. Rotoscoping is frequently employed in Don Bluth films, including ''The Secret of NIMH'' and ''Anastasia''.
The film was released on VHS in the same year by CIC Video and is now available on a DVD that contains the main English track, as well as dubbing for French and Spanish.
Release
The movie became the highest grossing non-Disney produced animated feature in first release in history at the time, drawing over $47 million USD. It was one of the first animated films to outdraw a Disney film, beating out ''The Great Mouse Detective'' (also released in 1986) by over $22 million USD. It would later be outperformed by the next Bluth film, 1988's ''The Land Before Time'', which performed marginally against Disney's ''Oliver and Company''. That record would in turn be shattered by Disney's ''The Little Mermaid'' in 1989, sparking a rebirth in Disney's longtime tradition in feature animation.
Music-Video
The #1 MTV music-video, produced and directed by Jeffrey Abelson, features the song "Somewhere Out There," performed by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram, who are seen as animation artists drawing the very animation cels that trigger cutaways to relevant clips from the movie. Theirs is a duet between two separated lovers rather than the two separated siblings of the film, thereby generating interest in the movie among adults as well as the primary audience of children. In fact, the video was credited with being the first use of a music-video targeted at adults to help promote a children's film. The hauntingly beautiful song, given greater visibility by the highly popular music-video, earned an Academy Award nomination, and won a Grammy in 1987.
Sequels and spinoffs
The film was followed by its theatrical sequel '' (1991), the television series ''Fievel's American Tails'', and two direct-to-video sequels: '' and '', none of which Don Bluth had any involvement with. Most viewers consider the first film to be the best in the series.
Feivel later served as the mascot for Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio, appearing in its production logo. Also, as reported on the official An American Tail website, Feivel has become the mascot for UNICEF as well. There is also a Feivel-themed playground at Universal Studios Florida, featuring a large water slide and many over-sized objects such as books, glasses, cowboy boots, and more. It is the only such playground at any of NBC Universal's theme parks.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack includes a Grammy-winning James Horner song, "Somewhere Out There," whose lyrics describe, as in the film's story, the bond between two siblings and their optimistic hope in being able to see one another again after being separated. Besides being sung by the actors, a professionally sung version was also recorded for the closing credits. The professionally sung version is considered more of a love song, a duet between two separated lovers rather than two separated siblings.
At the 59th Annual Academy Awards, Natalie Cole performed the song live with James Ingram.
Soundtrack album track listing
# "Main Title" (orchestral)
# "The Cossack Cats" (orchestral)
# "There Are No Cats In America" (song)
# "The Storm" (orchestral)
# "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" (orchestral)
# "Never Say Never" (song)
# "The Market Place" (orchestral)
# "Somewhere Out There" (song)
# "Somewhere Out There" (performed by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram)
# "Releasing the Secret Weapon" (orchestral, includes reprise of "There Are No Cats In America")
# "A Duo" (song)
# "The Great Fire" (orchestral)
# "Reunited" (orchestral)
# "Flying Away and End Credits" (orchestral)
External links
★ The Official ''American Tail'' Site
★
★
★
★ Don Markstein's Toonopedia
★ Detailed Info on ''An American Tail''
References
1. ''The mouse with the sting in his tale'', ''The Times'', December 2, 2003
2. http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/1/Feivel
3. http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=feivel
4. http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=feivel
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