Plot
While emigrating to the United States, a young Russian mouse gets separated from his family and must relocate them while trying to survive in a new country.

Release Year: 1986

Rating: 6.7/10 (16,253 voted)

Director: Don Bluth

Stars: Dom DeLuise, Christopher Plummer, Erica Yohn

Storyline
Fievel is a young Russian mouse separated from his parents on the way to America, a land they think is without cats. When he arrives alone in the New World, he keeps up hope, searching for his family, making new friends, and running and dodging the cats he thought he'd be rid off.

Writers: David Kirschner, David Kirschner

Cast:
Erica Yohn - Mama Mousekewitz (voice)
Nehemiah Persoff - Papa Mousekewitz (voice)
Amy Green - Tanya Mousekewitz (voice)
Phillip Glasser - Fievel Mousekewitz (voice)
Christopher Plummer - Henri (voice)
John Finnegan - Warren T. Rat (voice)
Will Ryan - Digit (voice)
Hal Smith - Moe (voice)
Pat Musick - Tony Toponi (voice)
Cathianne Blore - Bridget (voice)
Neil Ross - Honest John (voice)
Madeline Kahn - Gussie Mausheimer (voice)
Dom DeLuise - Tiger (voice)

Taglines: A holiday event from Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment.

Release Date: 21 November 1986

Gross: $47,483,002 (USA)

Runtime: 80 min

Trivia:
The opening scene of the ship's arrival in America (at Castle Garden) is based on a photograph in Christian Weekly magazine from March 28, 1874. On the barge is written, Einwanderer Beforderung, which means "Immigrant Transfer" in German.

Goofs:
Continuity: When Fievel falls off an elevated track and lands on a pile of soot, he burrows his way out, leaving a trail. When he makes his way out, the last part of the trail disappears.

Quotes:
[first lines]
Mama Mousekewitz: Fievel! Tanya! Stop that twirling, twirling! I mean it!
Papa Mousekewitz: But Mama, it's Hannukah.
Mama Mousekewitz: For you, every night is Hannukah.

This film is an animation classic

Rating:

Not only is An American Tail easily one of the best animated features ever made, but it proves to be leaps beyond the efforts of recent Disney movies by refusing to be constricted to an all-too-familiar formula. This movie does not stay within the cozy, comfortable guidelines that Disney adheres to in order to make money. Instead, it tells a truly unique tale, one not borrowed from any other source, and one overflowing with artistic wonder and originality.

The characters you will see here are not stock, not pulled from the typical Disney hat. The story is not a chuckle-a-minute, lowbrow attempt to take the easy way out in pandering to children. The main character, Fievel, suffers real hardships and tragedy, and stares into the despair of his own soul before the movie is finished. This, of course, makes the ending that much more satisfying, an infinitely more significant and authentic moment than any cardboard cut-out Disney plot.

If you want to see what animation was meant to be as an art form, if you want to feel the power and emotion that can truly be reaped from this under-appreciated and over-commercialized medium, look no further than An American Tail.

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