An american tail 1986


On a recent lazy Sunday, my friend and I both adults , found ourselves sobbing on the couch while watching An American Tail —an animated movie, from the 80s, about a mouse. I had been excited to revisit a childhood favorite; the film was on heavy rotation at my elementary after-school program, along with The Land Before Time , All Dogs Go to Heaven , and other Don Bluth movies. Neither of us expected to become emotional, but in , this film about an immigrant child separated from his family hits hard. The film begins in Shostka, Russia, where the Moskowitzes and their mouse counterparts, the Mousekewitzes, are celebrating Hanukkah.


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WATCH RELATED VIDEO: An American Tail (1986) - There Are No Cats In America Scene (2/10) - Movieclips

An American Tail

It tells the story of Fievel Mousekewitz and his family as they emigrate from Russia to the United States for freedom. However, he gets lost and must find a way to reunite with them. It received mixed-to-positive reviews and was a box office hit, making it the highest-grossing non- Disney animated film at the time. In Shostka , Russia , in the winter of , the Mousekewitzes, a Russian-Jewish family of mice who live with a human family named Moskowitz, are having a celebration of Hanukkah where Papa gives his hat to his 7-year-old son, Fievel, and tells him about the United States, a country where he believes there are no cats.

The celebration is interrupted when a battery of Cossacks ride through the village square in an anti-Jewish arson attack and their cats attack the village mice. Because of this, the Moskowitz home, along with that of the Mousekewitzes, is destroyed, while Fievel has a narrow escape from the cats.

They flee the village in search of a better life. All the mice aboard are ecstatic at the process of going to America believing that there are "no cats" there. During a thunderstorm on their journey, Fievel suddenly finds himself separated from his family and washed overboard.

Thinking that he has died, they proceed to the city as planned, though they become depressed at his loss. However, Fievel floats to New York City in a bottle and, after a pep talk from a French pigeon named Henri, embarks on a quest to find his family. He is waylaid by conman Warren T. Rat, who gains his trust and then sells him to a sweatshop.

He escapes with Tony Toponi, a street-smart Italian mouse, and they join up with Bridget, an Irish mouse trying to rouse her fellow mice to fight the cats. When a gang of them called the Mott Street Maulers attacks a mouse marketplace, the immigrant mice learn that the tales of a cat-free country are not true.

Bridget takes Fievel and Tony to see Honest John, an alcoholic politician who knows the city's voting mice. However, he can't help Fievel search for his family, as they have not yet registered to vote.

Led by the rich and powerful Gussie Mausheimer, the mice hold a rally to decide what to do about the cats. Warren is extorting them all for protection that he never provides. No one knows what to do about it, until Fievel whispers a plan to Gussie. Although his family also attends, they stand well in the back of the audience and they are unable to recognize Fievel onstage with her.

The mice take over an abandoned museum on the Chelsea Piers and begin constructing their plan. On the day of launch, Fievel gets lost and stumbles upon Warren's lair. He discovers that he is actually a cat in disguise, and the leader of the Maulers. They capture and imprison Fievel, but his guard is a reluctant member of the gang, a goofy, soft-hearted long-haired orange vegetarian tabby cat called Tiger, who befriends and frees him.

Fievel races back to the pier with the cats chasing after him and exposes Warren as a cat when Gussie orders the mice to release the secret weapon. A huge mechanical mouse, inspired by the bedtime tales Papa told Fievel of the "Giant Mouse of Minsk", chases Warren and his gang down the pier and into the water. A tramp steamer bound for Hong Kong picks them up on its anchor and carries them away. However, a pile of leaking kerosene cans has caused a torch lying on the ground to ignite the pier, and the mice are forced to flee when the human FDNY arrives to extinguish it.

During the fire, Fievel is once again separated from his family and ends up at an orphanage. Papa and Tanya overhear Bridget and Tony calling out to Fievel, but Papa is sure that there is another "Fievel" somewhere, until Mama finds his hat. Joined by Gussie, Tiger allows them to ride him in a final effort to find Fievel and they are successful.

Henri ends the journey by taking everyone to see his newly completed project—the Statue of Liberty , which appears to smile and wink at Fievel and Tanya, and the Mouskewitzes' new life in the United States begins. Production began in December as a collaboration between Spielberg, Bluth, and Universal, based on a concept by David Kirschner. Originally, the idea was conceived as a television special, but Spielberg felt it had potential as a feature film. In a interview, he described his role in the production as "first in the area of story, inventing incidents for the script, and now consists of looking, every three weeks to a month, at the storyboards that Bluth sends me and making my comments".

Bluth later commented that "Steven has not dominated the creative growth of Tail at all. There is an equal share of both of us in the picture". Nevertheless, this was his first animated feature, and it took some time for him to learn that adding a two-minute scene would take dozens of people months of work.

In he stated: "At this point, I'm enlightened, but I still can't believe it's so complicated". Originally, the concept consisted of an all-animal world, like Disney's Robin Hood , but Bluth suggested featuring an animal world existing as a hidden society from the human world, like his own NIMH and Disney's The Rescuers.

After viewing The Rescuers , Spielberg agreed. Emmy-award-winning writers Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss known for their work on Sesame Street were brought in to expand the script.

When the initial script was complete, it was extremely long and was heavily edited before its final release. Bluth felt uncomfortable with the main character's name, thinking "Fievel" was too foreign-sounding, and he felt audiences wouldn't remember it.

The character was named after his maternal grandfather, Philip Posner, whose Yiddish name was Fievel. The scene in which he presses up against a window to look into a classroom filled with American "school mice" is based on a story Spielberg remembered about his grandfather, who told him that Jews were only able to listen to lessons through open windows while sitting outside in the snow. Bluth described the process of voice casting as "sometimes you can select a 'name' voice [i.

Other times, you need to seek an obscure voice, close your eyes, and just listen to it. If it has the highs and lows in the deliverance of lines and it captures the focus of the character, it allows the animators to get a true fix on the action.

In designing the look of the film and its characters, Bluth worked with Amblin Entertainment and the Sears marketing department Sears had a major marketing push on the main character. He decided to make a stylistic shift from the more angular "modern style" of animation of the time to a style similar to Disney animation from the s, where the characters have a more soft and cuddly feel.

This proved successful, and at release many critics praised the "old fashioned style" of the film's look and feel. Bluth preferred to storyboard an entire picture, but it soon proved to be an enormous task. Larry Leker was brought in to assist, turning Bluth's rough sketches into final storyboard panels. Bluth commented that he would then "send them over to [Spielberg].

Often I brought them over myself, so that I could explain them. Steven would get very excited by what he saw, and we'd edit the boards right there A large crew of animators was pulled together from around the world, utilizing cel painters in Ireland. Discussion arose about moving the entire production to Ireland, but Spielberg balked at the idea of a story called An American Tail being produced overseas.

At this time, Bluth and his crew discovered that using a video printer greatly increased their productivity. They could videotape an action, then print out small black and white thermal images from the tape for reference for both human and animal characters, a shorthand method similar to the rotoscoping technique called in fact xerography used since the earliest days of animation, in which sequences are shot in live action and traced onto animation cels.

They also utilized the process of building models and photographing them, particularly the ship at sea, and the "Giant Mouse of Minsk", [11] a technique also used in many Disney films.

During production, Amblin and Universal expected to view the dailies and approve all major work on the film, and various outside parties also requested changes here and there. The production buckled under the excessive oversight, and Bluth felt that he was losing freedom of control over the production process.

As the release deadline approached, pressure grew among the crew and numerous problems arose, ranging from slower-than-expected cel painting in Ireland to low footage output by some animators. Also, the songwriters had written the score much later than originally desired. Suddenly scenes had to be dropped to save time and money and new, shorter scenes had to be created to help pick up the story points lost in the process, sometimes making the story line look jumbled. Notable cuts include the Mousekewitzes' journey across Europe, a scene in which they first meet Tiger and he gets stuck up in a tree, an upbeat song that Fievel was planned to sing while imprisoned in the sweatshop, and a scene that gave greater explanation of the changing of names at Ellis Island.

Cuts are also responsible for baby Yasha's apparent disappearance after the boat trip. The film was also plagued by union difficulties. He knew it would be difficult, but felt it was worth the sacrifice to work with Spielberg on a major project.

With the agreement of his employees, salaries were frozen for a year and half. Unlike the former Bluth studios, the new Sullivan Bluth studios were non-union, and when many workers attempted to withdraw from the union, it sparked a battle between Bluth and the union that continued through most of production. It was mostly this struggle that later compelled Bluth to relocate to Ireland, which he felt offered a more supportive atmosphere.

It would only work in animation or if I wrote a ballet. I loved doing it. Spielberg's original vision for the film was as a musical. There is also a musical reference to the song Galway Bay popularized by Bing Crosby. Initially Bluth and his team were disappointed with the first score recording, but once edited, they found the music worked quite well.

The final score became one of the film's strongest points. The initial songs were written by Tom Bahler , who had worked as a music supervisor and composer. Bahler left the project, in which Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann were later brought on to compose new songs, collaborating with Horner.

After the first round of songs were written, it was decided a special song would be written for Linda Ronstadt to sing over the end credits with James Ingram. It would become one of the most popular songs from an animated feature since the s. An official soundtrack containing 14 tracks from the film was first released on November 21, , by MCA Records , and was made available on audio cassette , vinyl record , and CD.

The consensus is: "Exquisitely animated, An American Tail is a sweet, melancholy immigrants story". They called it "a Jewish parable that doesn't want to declare itself" and felt that it "chickened out on its ethnic heritage". The film's writing garnered a mixed response. Halliwell's Film Guide claimed it didn't have "much in the way of narrative interest or indeed humor". Told from the perspective of an adorable young mouse, An American Tail should engage kids in an important part of U.

And it's as pretty as a cascade of soap bubbles". Roger Harlburt, reviewing for the Sun-Sentinel , also praised the character of Fievel: "You'll discover in gentle Fievel a endearing character that manages to be lovable without undue sentiment. His eyes may tear up once in a while and his lower lip quiver, but mostly he's ready to face the situation.

Still, the superb animation makes you believe Fievel is a small boy lost in a big world". Little ones won't be bored. You'll marvel over the quality of Plummer's singing voice and be convulsed by DeLuise's feline antics". A DVD version was first made available on January 20, , by Universal Studios , [44] which was presented in fullscreen aspect ratio only, and contained a number of changes from earlier versions, including re-dubbing certain character's voices in the Orphan Alley scene, the addition of new voices where there was previously no dialog, and new "humorous" sound effects.

This version was reprinted along with other Universal films such as its sequel , The Land Before Time , [45] and Balto.


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Toggle navigation Menu. An American Tail Both are animated features created by Disney-trained animators. Both are about mice.

The An American Tail Cast ; Fievel Mousekewitz voice Fievel Mousekewitz voiced by.

An American Tail - Fievel Goes West

A collaboration between Don Bluth and Steven Spielberg and the latter's first animated production , An American Tail starts off on Hanukkah in , opening in a Russian schtetl. The camera pans past the house belonging to the human Moskowitz family to reveal a tiny duplicate house inhabited by the Mousekewitz family. They are Jewish-Russian mice who are forced to escape persecution after their village is destroyed in a pogrom by Cossack cats. Believing in the American dream , they head to New York City by boat because " there are no cats in America, and the streets are paved with cheese. Once arriving in America, all mice immediately discover that there are indeed cats in America. They begin living in a typical late 19th century immigrant manner: working in a sweatshop, living in horrible conditions, being extorted by gangs and living in constant fear of being eaten. Such is the plot of the most popular animated film of the s that doesn't involve a singing crab. It was a surprise hit at the box office in , and it became the highest grossing animated film of all time, much to Disney's sheer horror. The popularity of both these films continued in Bluth's efforts in his previous film to reinvigorate classical animation into the public consciousness at a time when the industry was in a slump, convincing Disney to step up its game in face of the competition, making this film one of the biggest contributions to The Renaissance Age of Animation.

An American Tail (1986)

an american tail 1986

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Fievel, his father, his mother, and sister Tanya find times in Russia growing more and more dangerous with cats roaming the streets. The tales of America with streets paved with cheese and no cats convince the Mousekewitzes to make the journey to the New World.

An American Tail (1986) Review

Tiger : You lost your family? Oh, dear. That's terrible. I lost my family, too. Years ago, I mean.

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West

The original American Tail, a fairly dull, lacklustre affair, now spawns a fairly dull and lacklustre sequel, albeit an inevitable one after the original became the highest-grossing animated feature of all time before The Little Mermaid rewrote the record books. Two years on, the Russian Mousekewitz family are languishing in a poverty-ridden mouse tenement, struggling for that next bit of Swiss and dreaming of a better life. For adventurous tyke Fievel, this means heading to the American West and enforcing the law with his hero, rough, tough and gruff lawdog Wylie Burp, voiced by a very fragile-sounding James Stewart. And Fievel finally gets his wish when Cat R. Waul one of the least dastardly animated villains ever, even with the slithering vocal talents of John Cleese and his thuggish gang of tomcats flush the mice from their abodes. What should be a rollicking Wild West adventure instead derails into a major snoozefest for kids and adults alike as Fievel plods through his adventures in fairly predictable style, despite some fantastic chase sequences. Characters who might retain your, and your youngsters' fading interest - Chula the spider, voiced with appropriate menace by Jon Lovitz, and even Fievel's wimpy pal Tiger - are practically relegated to cameos.

An American Tail. | G | 1h 20m | ChildrenClassicFantasy. A Russian immigrant mouse finds himself alone in New York City after being separated from his.

Full Cast & Crew

It introduced the Mousekewitz family and their cute, curious, and adventurous son Fievel, who would go on to become an international icon along with his signature, over-sized, floppy hat. And yet, as classic an animated family-friendly movie as this is, you don't have to scratch far beneath the surface to uncover the rich tapestry that conveys a strong moral message. It was the first movie I ever saw in the theater. Thirty years later, the lessons I learned through watching the heartbreak and joy of the Mousekewitz family feel more important and relevant than ever.

How Don Bluth went from a Utah farm kid to animating for Disney and Spielberg

RELATED VIDEO: An American Tail (1986)- Warren T. Rat is a cat

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Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission. Despite being a master of the cartoon craft, Don Bluth still feels like an underdog, even now, just shy of 40 years since the release of his first film, The Secret of NIMH.

There was a period where Walt himself began to loathe Snow White because she seemed to overshadow all his other accomplishments. But hey, it comes this close. Because I am. And this entire review is going to be part-silly observational jokes and part-gushing over how much history they cram into the tiniest details. Hidden away in a cottage lives a family of Jewish mice, the Mousekewitzes. Papa entertains the children with the legend of the Giant Mouse of Minsk, a rodent so enormous that it scared away every cat in the vicinity.

Welcome to Don Bluth week; or, at least, welcome to the first in a series of reviews of the films of American animation director Don Bluth. Dissatisfied with what he felt were falling standards at Disney, he quit the company to set up his own company. While there had been plenty of non-Disney animated films released before, they were generally cheaply made and few and far between.

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  1. Arashikus

    And all?

  2. Sproule

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  3. Tygojinn

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