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An American Tail:  Fievel Goes West (1991)

Starring Phillip Glasser, John Cleese, Jon Lovitz, and James Stewart.  Edited by Nick Fletcher.  Produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Watts. Written by Flint Dille and Charles Swenson.  Directed by Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells.

The Mousekewitz family moved to America with the idea that they would finally be free from the torment of cats.  But as was the case with many immigrants in the late nineteenth century, they found their dreams unrealized in the “promise land”.  When the cat problem finally becomes more than they can bear, the resilient Mousekewitzs pack it up and move out west where they hear that cats and mice live harmoniously together.

Similar to their first long journey, the trip out west proves to be troubled.  But the little family is tough and they finally arrive safely in a small town run by the legendary law dog Wylie Burp (voiced by James Stewart).  Before they can even unpack they have come under the charm of Cat R. Waul (voiced by John Cleese), who has sinister intentions for Fievel (voiced by Phillip Glasser) and his clan.

In 1986 Steven Spielberg executive produced An American Tail; the story of a mouse family that travels from Russia to America for the promise of “streets paved with cheese”. His first animated feature was a tremendous success and quickly became one of the highest grossing feature length cartoons to date. In a world where a successful film is almost always followed up with a sequel, it should come as no surprise that a new An American Tail movie was in the pipeline shortly thereafter. But instead of using cartooning legend Don Bluth to direct the new film, as he did with the first one, Spielberg decided to develop his own animation studio in London called Amblimation.

An American Tail:  Fievel Goes West would be the studio’s first project and it was headed by the animation team of Simon Wells and Phil Nibbelink.  Spielberg’s Amblimation would later produce such children’s films as We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story in 1993 and Balto in 1995.  In 1996, when Spielberg joined forces with David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg to create DreamWorks SKG, the Amblimation studios were absorbed up into the conglomerate and moved to California.

But I digress. We were talking about An American Tail:  Fievel Goes West.  It’s a cute little film and should easily pacify a bored child, though adults may not be as enthralled as they were with the first episode. It did reasonably well in the box office and critics have supported it for the most part.  The An American Tail franchise has gone on to produce two more straight-to-video projects titled An American Tail:  The Mystery of the Night Monster and An American Tail:  The Treasure of Manhattan Island.  It also spawned a short lived Saturday morning cartoon series called “Fievel’s American Tails” that lasted a mere thirteen episodes.

Budget: $25,000,000

Total US Gross: $22,166,041
Genre: Western
Runtime: 75 Minutes
US Release Date: 11/22/91
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Awards:

Golden Globes: 
Nominated for best original song.

Tagline: Look Out Partners, There’s A New Mouse In Town!
Quote: “Just remember, Fievel; one man's sunset is another man's dawn.  I don't know what's out there beyond those hills, but if you ride yonder head up, eyes steady, heart open, I think one day you'll find that you're the hero you've been looking for.”

Links:

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