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small havana brown who disguises himself as a giant rat he is the leader of the mott street maulers an all cat gang which terrorizes the mice of new york city conniving and a schemer he misleads the impressionable fievel at one point later on he gets his comeuppance when fievel discovers and later exposes him as a cat to the mouse community he is accompanied everywhere by his accountant digit a small english accented cockroach amy green as tanya mousekewitz singing voice provided by betsy cathcart fievel s older sister whom he mutually adores optimistic and cheerful less daring but more obedient than her brother she alone believes correctly that he survived being washed overboard en route to the united states she is given the american name tillie at the immigration point at castle garden 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 countering papa s dreamy idealism she is a level headed pragmatist besides being stricter with their offspring than he is she also has a fear of flying pat musick as tony toponi a streetwise teenage mouse of italian descent his tough guy attitude suits his new york surroundings the name toponi is a play on topo the italian word for mouse he hits it off with fievel acting as a surrogate big brother to the younger mouse whom he calls fillie in a subplot he falls in love with bridget dom deluise as tiger the most physically imposing member of the mott street maulers for whom he serves as an enforcer and often is the brunt of their cruel jokes although not especially intelligent tiger is very friendly and his warm nature endears him to mice and birds he is mostly vegetarian aside from the occasional bit of fish tiger becomes fievel s best friend he enjoys card games like poker and gin rummy despite being terrible at them christopher plummer as henri le pigeon a pigeon of french descent who oversees construction of the statue of liberty cathianne blore as bridget an attractive elegant irish born mouse and tony s love interest her parents were slain and devoured by the mott street maulers making her an advocate in speaking out against the cats kind passionate yet soft spoken she acts as a surrogate big sister to fievel neil ross as honest john a local irish born mouse politician who knows every voting mouse in new york city an ambulance chasing drunkard he takes advantage of voters concerns to increase his political prestige john is a caricature of real life tammany hall boss john kelly also nicknamed honest john and other 19th century new york city politicians madeline kahn as gussie mausheimer a german born mouse considered the richest in new york city who rallies the mice into fighting back against the cats despite being against cats she later accepts tiger for helping reunite fievel with his family will ryan as digit warren 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 local sweatshop fievel is sold to him by warren dan kuenster as jake warren s burly aide de camp among the mott street maulers he alone enjoys listening to his leader s violin music jake catches fievel after a chase through the sewers after tiger takes pity on fievel and sets him free jake and his fellow maulers pursue the young mouse to the chelsea pier only to face the giant mouse of minsk production edit development edit executive producer steven spielberg in 2017 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 8 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 spielberg s 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 9 it was universal s third animated film and also the first animated feature film since pinocchio in outer space in 1965 and the first animated film that they co produced writing edit 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 10 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 11 spielberg eventually won out though something of a compromise was reached by having tony refer to fievel as filly 10 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 12 casting edit bluth described the process of voice casting as sometimes you can select a name voice i e a well known actor because it fits the essence of the character so well 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 13 glasser fievel was discovered by accident when bluth and his crew overheard him auditioning for an oscar mayer commercial 13 green tanya mousekewitz was a young actress who had done some previous television series work and several commercials 13 persoff a respected actor in many films was chosen to play the part of papa mousekewitz mostly because he had a similar role as barbra streisand s father in yentl 13 yohn mama mousekewitz has appeared in many features but her work as a russian rom on a tv show attracted the attention of bluth and john pomeroy 13 finnegan won the role of warren t rat by reciting excerpts of shakespeare s hamlet in the voice of a brooklyn taxi driver this idea inspired the writers to make warren a pretentious illiterate who continually misquoted shakespeare 13 musick tony toponi based tony s voice on a friend she knew from grade school 13 deluise tiger had worked previously with bluth in the secret of nimh and deluise even added material to the script at various points during the song a duo he suggested they stop the music where the lyrics mention back scratch and have fievel actually scratch tiger s back 13 henri was originally to be voiced by comedian sid caesar and was conceived as scraggly and worn but later plummer was cast for the part and henri was drawn with a more dignified look bluth felt henri was an essential character to act as a voice for the statue welcoming fievel to the new world 10 kahn was chosen to play the part of gussie mausheimer with the hopes that she would use a voice similar to the one she used as a character in mel brooks blazing saddles with the character being written as german american for such 10 will ryan digit neil ross honest john cathianne blore bridget and hal smith moe are all voice actors well known in the animation industry 13 design edit 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 softer and cuddlier feel this proved successful and at release many critics praised the old fashioned style of the film s look and feel 10 this was during a period when the market for nostalgia was particularly strong among baby boomers 14 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 animation edit 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 using 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 15 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 13 a technique also used in many disney films production difficulties edit 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 16 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 the production it was mostly this struggle that later compelled bluth to relocate to ireland which he felt offered a more supportive atmosphere 17 music edit main article an american tail soundtrack the soundtrack to an american tail consisted of an original score composed by james horner which was performed by the london symphony orchestra and the choir of king s college and four original songs composed by cynthia weil and barry mann in collaboration with horner 16 the song somewhere out there performed by linda ronstadt and james ingram it later went on to win two grammy awards for song of the year and best song written specifically for a motion picture or for television it would become one of the most popular songs from an animated feature since the 1950s 18 an official soundtrack containing 14 tracks from the film was first released on november 21 1986 by mca records and was made available on audio cassette vinyl record and cd 19 it was later released digitally by geffen records on february 5 2013 20 intrada records released an expanded edition on february 12 2019 21 reception edit box office edit the film has grossed up to 47 million in the united states and canada and 84 million worldwide 22 23 at the time of its domestic release it became the highest grossing animated feature for an initial release 24 and the highest grossing non disney produced animated feature it was also one of the first animated films to outdraw a disney one beating out the great mouse detective another traditionally animated film involving mice that was released in 1986 but four months earlier by over us 22 million but the great mouse detective was more successful with critics most notably gene siskel and roger ebert 25 it would later be outgrossed by bluth s next film the land before time although oliver company would make more at the box office critical response edit on the review aggregator website rotten tomatoes 76 of 86 critics reviews are positive with an average rating of 6 4 10 the website s consensus reads exquisitely animated an american tail is a sweet melancholy immigrants story 25 metacritic which uses a weighted average assigned the film a score of 38 out of 100 based on 7 critics indicating generally unfavorable reviews 26 27 critics gene siskel and roger ebert gave it two thumbs down on a november 22 1986 episode of their television program at the movies calling it the most downbeat children s movie since return to oz and that it was way too depressing for young audiences 28 both reviewers also criticized how it gave little mention that the main characters were jewish or that the attack on their home at the beginning was an antisemitic one they called it a jewish parable that doesn t want...
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