An American Tail

An American Tail is a 1986 American animated musical adventure film directed by Don Bluth and produced by Sullivan Bluth Studios and Amblin Entertainment.

Plot
In 1885, Shostka, Russia, 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 son, Fievel, and tells of a wonderful place called America, where there are no cats. The celebration is interrupted when a battery of Cossacks ride through the village square in an arson attack and their cats likewise attack the village mice.

In Hamburg, Germany, the Mousekewitzes board a tramp steamer headed for America. The crossing proves long and onerous, as well as the steamer being buffetted by the angry sea. During a storm, Fievel becomes separated from his family and washed overboard. Thinking he drowned, they proceed to New York City as planned, albeit depressed at his loss.

Fievel, however, floats to America 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 stand up to 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, a drunk but reliable politician who knows all the voting mice in New York City. But, as the Mousekewitzes have not yet registered to vote, he can't help Fievel find them. Meanwhile, his older sister, Tanya, tells her gloomy parents she has a feeling that he is still alive, but they insist that it will eventually go away.

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 has any idea 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 are unable to see that it is him onstage with her.

The mice take over an abandoned museum on Chelsea Pier 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 him, but his guard is a reluctant member of the gang, a goofy, soft-hearted cat named Tiger, who befriends and frees him.

Fievel races back to the pier with the cats chasing after him when Gussie orders the mice to release the secret weapon. A huge mechanical mouse, inspired by the bedtime tales Papa told to Fievel of the "Giant Mouse of Minsk", chases the cats 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, the giant mouse contraption has caused the pier to catch fire, and the mice flee as human firemen arrive to battle it.

During the fire, Fievel is once again separated from his family and falls into despair when a group of orphans tell him that he should have given up looking for them. Papa overhears Bridget and Tony calling out to Fievel, but is sure that there may be another "Fievel" somewhere, until Mama finds his hat. Tiger allows them to ride him in a final effort to find Fievel, in the end, the sound of Papa's violin leads him back into their arms. The journey ends with Henri taking everyone to see his newly completed project—the Statue of Liberty, and the Mouskewitzes' new life in America begins.

Cast

 * Phillip Glasser as Fievel Mousekewitz. While "Fievel" is the generally accepted spelling of his name, the opening credits spell him as "Feivel", which is technically the correct Yiddish transliteration of the name (see also Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz and Feivel Gruberger) since Yiddish evolved from a medieval form of German and its rules for transliteration are therefore based on German orthography (the ending credits spell his name as "Fievel"). 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 that was used on the film's poster, in promotional materials and tie-in merchandise, and in the title of the sequel An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. He was named after Spielberg's maternal grandfather, Philip Posner, whose Yiddish name was Feivel. The scene in which he presses up against a window to look into a classroom filled with American "schoolmice" is based on a story Spielberg remembered about his grandfather, who told him that Jews were only able to listen to school lessons through open windows while sitting outside in the snow. His last name is a play on the Jewish-Russian last name "Moskowitz", the name of the human occupants of the house his family is living under in the beginning of the film.
 * Amy Green as Tanya Mousekewitz (singing voice provided by Betsy Cathcart), Fievel's older sister. Optimistic, cheerful and obedient, she continued to believe that her brother was alive after he was washed off the ship en route to America. She was given an American name 'Tillie' at the immigration point at Castle Garden on Ellis Island.
 * John P. Finnegan as Warren T. Rat a cat disguised as a rat and the leader of the Mott Street Maulers, a gang of cats who terrorize the mice of New York City. He is accompanied nearly all the time by his accountant Digit, a small British-accented cockroach.
 * Nehemiah Persoff as Papa Mousekewitz, the head of the Mousekewitz family who plays the violin and tells stories to his children.
 * Erica Yohn as Mama Mousekewitz, Fievel's mother. She appears to be the stricter of the two Mousekewitz parents and has a fear of flying.
 * Pat Musick as Tony Toponi, a streetwise young mouse of Italian descent and with a 'tough New Yorker' attitude. He meets Fievel during their slavery at the sweatshop. He takes a liking to him, and gives him an American name: "Philly" (Philip). After they escape the sweatshop, he becomes Fievel's friend and guide to the town.
 * Dom DeLuise as Tiger, a very large, cowardly, long-haired orange cat who also happens to be vegetarian.
 * Christopher Plummer as Henri, a pigeon of French descent, who is in New York City while building the Statue of Liberty
 * Cathianne Blore as Bridget, an Irish activist and Tony's girlfriend.
 * Neil Ross as Honest John, a local Irish-born mouse politician who knows every voting mouse in New York City. An ambulance-chasing drunkard who takes advantage of voters' concerns to increase his political prestige, he is a stereotype of the 19th-century Tammany Hall politicians.
 * Madeline Kahn as Gussie Mausheimer, a German-born considered to be the richest in New York City, who rallies the mice into fighting back against the cats.
 * Will Ryan as Digit, Warren T.'s British cockroach accountant who has a fondness for counting money, but is plagued by frequent electrical charges in his antennae whenever he gets nervous or excited.
 * Hal Smith as Moe, a fat rat who runs the sweatshop Fievel is sold to by Warren T.

1986 dub

 * Will Ryan - Roquefort, Lafayette
 * Richard Gautier - Napoleon
 * Christopher Plummer - Edgar

Production
Universal Pictures

Music
James Horner

Media
August 11, 1998