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Description
Lets continue our Don Bluth marathon with his first of two collaborations with film legend Steven Spielberg with this tale of a young mouse in New York as he searches for his family.

In 1885 Shostka, 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 5-year-old son, Fievel, and tells him about the United States, a country where 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 likewise attack the village mice by throwing molotov cocktails at the Moskowitz home. Because of this, the Moskowitz home, along with that of the Mousekewitzes, is destroyed.
In Hamburg, the Mousekewitzes board a tramp steamer headed for New York City. All the mice aboard are ecstatic at the prospect of going to America as 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 are devastated by 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 encounters greedy conman Warren T. Rat, who sells him to a sweatshop. He escapes with Tony Toponi, a street-smart Italian-American 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. 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. According to Honest John, 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 left behind and inadvertently enters the Maulers' hideout, upon hearing what he believes is his father’s violin playing. He instead finds Warren there playing and discovers that he is a diminutive cat in disguise and the leader of the Maulers. They soon discover, capture and imprison Fievel, but his guard is a reluctant member of the gang; a goofy, soft-hearted long-haired orange tabby cat named Tiger, who befriends and frees him. Will Fievel be able to find his family, and help the mice get rid of Warren and his gang?

Pros:
1. Fievel is a likeable and sympathetic protagonist.
2. Plenty of likeable side characters like Tanya, Papa, Mama, Tony, Bridget, Tiger, Honest John, Gussie, Digit, and Henri.
3. Warren is a decent villain.
4. Very well handled humor.
5. Amazingly well handled drama.
6. The film has plenty of heart, charm, and emotion.
7. Very powerful and intense moments.
8. Amazing voice acting.
9. James Horner delivers a memorable and stellar score.
10. Very well written and memorable songs like "There Are No Cats in America", "Never Say Never", "A Duo", and "Somewhere Out There".
11. Spectacular animation.
12. A well balanced light/dark tone.
13. The story is amazingly well written and emotional with a great message about never giving up.

Cons:
1. The side characters could have had some more screen time.
2. At times, the use of rotoscoping can look awkward.

Overall:
This is a very heartwarming and entertaining adventure, and a must watch for any fan of Bluth's work.

Rating:
9/10 (Amazing)

Production Notes and Trivia:
1. Production began in December 1984 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. Spielberg had asked Bluth to "make me something pretty like you did in NIMH...make it beautiful." In a 1985 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 1985 he stated, "at this point, I'm enlightened, but I still can't believe it's so complicated." It was Universal Pictures' first animated feature film since Pinocchio in Outer Space in 1965.
2. 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 Disney's The Rescuers. After viewing The Rescuers, Spielberg agreed. Emmy-award-winning writers Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss 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. Spielberg disagreed. 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). Spielberg eventually won out, though something of a compromise was reached by having Tony refer to Fievel as "Filly. Spielberg also had some material cut that he felt was too intense for children, including a scene Bluth was developing revolving around wave monsters while the family was at sea.
3. 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 1940s, 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. This was during a period when the market for nostalgia was particularly strong among baby boomers, who at this time were seeking products for their young children, and only three years before the beginning of the Disney Renaissance for the studio Bluth once worked for.
4. 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...adding more drawings, or trimming some back." 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.
5. 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", a technique also used in many Disney films.
6. 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.
7. The film was also plagued by union difficulties. Bluth had agreed to accept $6.5 million to get it produced (which later grew to $9 million), at a time when Disney was spending around $12 million per film. 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.
8. Spielberg's original vision for the film was as a musical—it is said he wanted a "Heigh-Ho" of his own (referring to the popular song from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). Jerry Goldsmith who had worked on The Secret of NIMH with Bluth was initially supposed to work on the score, but had to drop out of the film due to a busy schedule. After he completed Aliens, James Horner composed the score for the film.
9. The film's success would spawn a franchise consisting of a theatrical sequel in 1991 titled An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, a TV series in 1992 titled Fievel's American Tails, which the series is set after Fievel Goes West, and two direct-to-video sequels, The Treasure of Manhattan Island in 1998, and The Mystery of the Night Monster in 1999. A few video games based on the series were made as well such as The Computer Adventures of Fievel and his Friends for MS-DOS in 1993, a movie tie-in for Fievel Goes West for the Super NES in 1994, an interactive storybook in 1998, Fievel's Gold Rush for Game Boy Advance in 2002, and a PlayStation 2 game based on the original film in 2007.

Description
Lets continue our Don Bluth marathon with his first of two collaborations with film legend Steven Spielberg with this tale of a young mouse in New York as he searches for his family.

In 1885 Shostka, 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 5-year-old son, Fievel, and tells him about the United States, a country where 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 likewise attack the village mice by throwing molotov cocktails at the Moskowitz home. Because of this, the Moskowitz home, along with that of the Mousekewitzes, is destroyed.
In Hamburg, the Mousekewitzes board a tramp steamer headed for New York City. All the mice aboard are ecstatic at the prospect of going to America as 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 are devastated by 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 encounters greedy conman Warren T. Rat, who sells him to a sweatshop. He escapes with Tony Toponi, a street-smart Italian-American 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. 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. According to Honest John, 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 left behind and inadvertently enters the Maulers' hideout, upon hearing what he believes is his father’s violin playing. He instead finds Warren there playing and discovers that he is a diminutive cat in disguise and the leader of the Maulers. They soon discover, capture and imprison Fievel, but his guard is a reluctant member of the gang; a goofy, soft-hearted long-haired orange tabby cat named Tiger, who befriends and frees him. Will Fievel be able to find his family, and help the mice get rid of Warren and his gang?

Pros:
1. Fievel is a likeable and sympathetic protagonist.
2. Plenty of likeable side characters like Tanya, Papa, Mama, Tony, Bridget, Tiger, Honest John, Gussie, Digit, and Henri.
3. Warren is a decent villain.
4. Very well handled humor.
5. Amazingly well handled drama.
6. The film has plenty of heart, charm, and emotion.
7. Very powerful and intense moments.
8. Amazing voice acting.
9. James Horner delivers a memorable and stellar score.
10. Very well written and memorable songs like "There Are No Cats in America", "Never Say Never", "A Duo", and "Somewhere Out There".
11. Spectacular animation.
12. A well balanced light/dark tone.
13. The story is amazingly well written and emotional with a great message about never giving up.

Cons:
1. The side characters could have had some more screen time.
2. At times, the use of rotoscoping can look awkward.

Overall:
This is a very heartwarming and entertaining adventure, and a must watch for any fan of Bluth's work.

Rating:
9/10 (Amazing)

Production Notes and Trivia:
1. Production began in December 1984 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. Spielberg had asked Bluth to "make me something pretty like you did in NIMH...make it beautiful." In a 1985 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 1985 he stated, "at this point, I'm enlightened, but I still can't believe it's so complicated." It was Universal Pictures' first animated feature film since Pinocchio in Outer Space in 1965.
2. 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 Disney's The Rescuers. After viewing The Rescuers, Spielberg agreed. Emmy-award-winning writers Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss 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. Spielberg disagreed. 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). Spielberg eventually won out, though something of a compromise was reached by having Tony refer to Fievel as "Filly. Spielberg also had some material cut that he felt was too intense for children, including a scene Bluth was developing revolving around wave monsters while the family was at sea.
3. 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 1940s, 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. This was during a period when the market for nostalgia was particularly strong among baby boomers, who at this time were seeking products for their young children, and only three years before the beginning of the Disney Renaissance for the studio Bluth once worked for.
4. 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...adding more drawings, or trimming some back." 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.
5. 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", a technique also used in many Disney films.
6. 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.
7. The film was also plagued by union difficulties. Bluth had agreed to accept $6.5 million to get it produced (which later grew to $9 million), at a time when Disney was spending around $12 million per film. 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.
8. Spielberg's original vision for the film was as a musical—it is said he wanted a "Heigh-Ho" of his own (referring to the popular song from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). Jerry Goldsmith who had worked on The Secret of NIMH with Bluth was initially supposed to work on the score, but had to drop out of the film due to a busy schedule. After he completed Aliens, James Horner composed the score for the film.
9. The film's success would spawn a franchise consisting of a theatrical sequel in 1991 titled An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, a TV series in 1992 titled Fievel's American Tails, which the series is set after Fievel Goes West, and two direct-to-video sequels, The Treasure of Manhattan Island in 1998, and The Mystery of the Night Monster in 1999. A few video games based on the series were made as well such as The Computer Adventures of Fievel and his Friends for MS-DOS in 1993, a movie tie-in for Fievel Goes West for the Super NES in 1994, an interactive storybook in 1998, Fievel's Gold Rush for Game Boy Advance in 2002, and a PlayStation 2 game based on the original film in 2007.