An American Tail: Fievel Goes West

This article is about the film. For the 1994 video game, see An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (video game).

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
File:American tail fievel goes west.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Phil Nibbelink Simon Wells
Screenplay by	Flint Dille
Story by	Charles Swenson
Produced by	Steven Spielberg Robert Watts
Starring	Phillip Glasser James Stewart Erica Yohn Cathy Cavadini Nehemiah Persoff Dom DeLuise Amy Irving John Cleese Jon Lovitz
Edited by	Nick Fletcher
Music by	James Horner
Production companies	Amblin Entertainment Amblimation
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	November 22, 1991 (1991-11-22)
Running time	74 minutes
Countries	United States United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$16.5 million
Box office	$40.8 million

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (also known as An American Tail II: Fievel Goes West or An American Tail II) is a 1991 British-American animated comedy western film produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio and released by Universal Pictures. It is the sequel to An American Tail, and the last installment in the series to be released theatrically. Two direct-to-video sequels were released in the late 1990s. A continuation, Fievel's American Tails, aired on CBS in 1992.

Unlike the first film, this entry was made without the involvement of Don Bluth. Instead, it was directed by Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells. The film follows the story of the Mousekewitzes, a family of Jewish-Ukrainian mice who emigrate to the Wild West. In it, Fievel is separated from his family (again) as the train approaches the American Old West; the film chronicles him and Sheriff Wylie Burp (voiced by James Stewart in what proved to be his final film role) teaching Tiger how to act like a dog. It performed modestly at the box office grossing $40 million and received mixed reviews from critics, though it later gained a cult following from audiences.

Plot

A few years after immigrating to the United States in 1885, in the year 1890, the impoverished Mousekewitz family discovers that conditions are not as ideal as they had hoped, as they find themselves still struggling against the attacks of mouse-hungry cats. Fievel spends his days thinking about the Wild West sheriff dog Wylie Burp, while his older sister, Tanya, dreams of becoming a singer. Meanwhile, Tiger's girlfriend, Miss Kitty, leaves him to find a new life out west, remarking that perhaps she is looking for "a cat that's more like a dog."

Soon after, Cat R. Waul, a British-accented aristocratic cat, forces the mice into the sewers, including the Mousekewitzes. Using a mouse marionette, Cat R. Waul entices the mice into moving yet again to a better life out west. Tiger chases the train, trying to catch up with his friends, but is thrown off course by a pack of angry dogs. While on the train, Fievel wanders into the livestock car, where he overhears the cats revealing their plot to turn them into "mouse burgers." After being discovered, he is thrown from the train by Cat R.'s hench-spider, T.R. Chula, landing him in the middle of the desert. His family is devastated once again over his loss and arrive in Green River, Utah with heavy hearts, though this time they are hopeful that Fievel will still be alive.

Upon arrival at Green River, Chula blocks up the water tower, drying up the river. Cat R. approaches the mice and proposes to build a new saloon together, although intending to trick the mice into doing the bulk of the work and then eat them afterwards. Meanwhile, Fievel is wandering aimlessly through the desert, as is Tiger, who has found his way out west as well, and they pass each other. However, they each figure that the other is a mirage and continue on their separate ways. Tiger is captured by mouse Indians and hailed as a god. Fievel is picked up by a hawk, dropped over the Indian mouse village and reunites with Tiger. Tiger chooses to stay in while Fievel catches a passing tumbleweed, which takes him to Green River. As soon as he makes his arrival, he quickly reunites with his family but is unable to convince them of Cat R.'s plans to kill them. However, Cat R. hears Tanya singing and is enchanted by her voice.

He sends Tanya to Miss Kitty, who is now a saloon-girl cat, and she reveals that she came at Cat R.'s request. He tells Miss Kitty to put her on stage. With a little encouragement from Miss Kitty, she pulls off a performance for the cats. Meanwhile, Fievel is chased by Chula and briefly taken prisoner, but flees.

While walking out of town, Fievel stops to talk with an elderly bloodhound sleeping outside the jail, discovering that he is actually Wylie Burp. Fievel convinces him to help and train Tiger as a lawman and a dog. Tiger is reluctant at first, but relents at the suggestion that a new persona might win back Miss Kitty. They go back to Green River to fight the cats, who attempt to kill the mice at sunset during the opening of Cat R.'s saloon using a giant mouse trap. Tiger, Wylie and Fievel intervene and fight the cats. When Chula threatens to kill Miss Kitty, Tiger rescues her and uses a pitchfork and Chula's web as a lasso with him trapped on it to hurtle Cat R. and his underlings out of town by having them piled on part of the trap, which the heroes use as a catapult. The cats fly into the air and land into a mailbag, which a passing train picks up and leaves.

Enamored by his new personality, Miss Kitty and Tiger are reunited. Tanya becomes a famous singer and the tower flows with water again, making Green River bloom with flowers. Fievel finds Wylie away from the party, who hands him his sheriff badge. Fievel is unsure about taking it, but realizes that his journey is not over.

Cast

• Phillip Glasser as Fievel Mousekewitz
• Cathy Cavadini as Tanya Mousekewitz
• Dom DeLuise as Tiger
• Amy Irving as Miss Kitty
• James Stewart as Wylie Burp
• John Cleese as Cat R. Waul
• Jon Lovitz as T.R. Chula
• Nehemiah Persoff as Papa Mousekewitz
• Erica Yohn as Mama Mousekewitz

Production

Steven Spielberg produced the live-action animated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), which was the top grossing motion picture of 1988. As a way to keep the movie's animators working, Spielberg formed Amblimation, a collaboration of Universal Studios and Amblin Entertainment, whose offices were located in London. Fievel Goes West was its first production, and over 250 crew members from 15 different nations worked on the project starting May 1989. At the time, Amblimation was also developing We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Balto, and a screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats which never saw completion.

Don Bluth, who had partnered with Steven Spielberg on both the original film and The Land Before Time, was set to direct and have Sullivan Bluth Studios provide the animation; owing to creative differences, however, they parted ways. With no Bluth in sight for the sequel, Spielberg instead relied on Phil Nibbelink, a former Disney animator, and Simon Wells, the great-grandson of science-fiction author H. G. Wells, to direct the project. This resulted in Fievel Goes West to be absent of the Disney-isms of the first film's animation for a faster pace and more elements of Warner Bros. cartoons, which the animator previously succeeded in using for Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Spielberg instructed his animators to take on a "live-action" method to animating the film. As Spielberg explained, "The characters are affected more by their surroundings -- by the lighting and the sunsets. It's stylized without being arty. It has a rich, deep style." Production manager Cynthia Woodbyrne explained that "he wanted us to keep the camera moving all the time," a technique imposed in cuts such as the film's sewer ride sequence and a 360-degree pan shot of the film's desert vista. As Fievel Goes West was a parody of Western films, the animators heavily studied the works of John Ford and Sergio Leone.

Nancy Beiman originally worked as a regular animator on Fievel Goes West, but became a supervisor on the projects six months after she entered Amblimation. While not assigned to supervise Miss Kitty's animation, she asked for the position and got it. She enjoying working on Kitty for Irving's Mae West-esque delivery and the "scatterbrained dialogue" giving her "a lot of freedom in [the character's] choreography." When working on the character voices, the biggest focus was on Cat R. Waul; Cleese was the first choice for the role, and the directors focused on making it "feel as if the character is John Cleese rather than a cat with John Cleese's voice."

The Frankie Laine song "Rawhide" is played at the tumbleweed scene, although the version used is from The Blues Brothers. This sequence was designed and laid-out by an uncredited Alan Friswell, a special effects expert and stop-motion animator who was employed by the studio at the time, and is better known for his work on the Virgin Interactive Entertainment Mythos computer game, Magic and Mayhem (1998), his restoration work for the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation as well as his many model creations and magazine articles for publications such as Fortean Times, among others.

In addition to a new voice actress, the character of Tanya was heavily redesigned as well. Instead of her red babushka headdress and blue and yellow dress, she wore a different colored dress and was given bangs and a ponytail and she was a couple inches taller than Fievel. Tiger also underwent minor changes (such as removing the "M" from his shirt), as did baby Yasha and Fievel. In Fievel Goes West, Tanya was voiced by Cathy Cavadini, who would later go on to voice Blossom in The Powerpuff Girls. According to Cavadini, there was another woman initially planned to voice Tanya but left the project, so Cavadini replaced her.

James Horner returned to write the score to the film, reusing old themes and introducing new ones.

Amy Irving, who voiced Miss Kitty in the film, was Spielberg's ex-wife. During production, he married Kate Capshaw who had worked with him on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984.

Tony Toponi's role is limited as a background cameo in this film because of his voice actress, Pat Musick, voiced several characters for dozen TV shows while the film was in production. Tony was dropped from the short-lived TV series due to Musick's personal reasons, as the character had yet to return until later in the third installment, An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island, in 1998.

John Lithgow and Martin Short were considered to play Cat R. Waul and T.R. Chula, but Jon Lovitz signed to play Chula and John Cleese turned down the role as Cogsworth in Disney's Beauty and the Beast to play Cat R. Waul.

Release

Fievel Goes West made its worldwide premiere at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on November 17, 1991, where 275 inner-city that were guests of Fannie Mae's company attended the event; the children also made their own American Tail story and posed with a costume version of Fievel for pictures. Notable adult attendees includes Anna Perez, Chuck Robb, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, Al Gore, Marvin Bush, Margaret Bush, Fred Grandy, Elliot Richardson, and Robert Haft.

Opening to 1,400 theaters in the United States, the film was released in the United States on November 22, 1991, exactly five years and one day after the release of the original one, and the same day as Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Both Beauty and the Beast and Fievel Goes West were competing for family audiences (along with Spielberg's Hook) and being promoted with, as of the films' release date, the most expensive set of film tie-ins ever. The non-profit Reading Is Fundamental used the character of Fievel as a mascot for Reading Buddies kits; and Pizza Hut used characters from the film on designs their Pizza Packs and soft-drink cups, a decision influenced by their previous tie-in success with the Disney summer film The Rocketeer (1991).

Although it profited at the box office, the film grossed less than its predecessor; it opened in fourth place with $3,435,625 despite being shown on nearly 1,700 theaters and eventually made just over $22 million domestically, and $18 million overseas, for a total of $40,766,041. By contrast, the original film made $47.4 million in the U.S. in 1986, a record at the time for a non-Disney animated one., and a further $36 million overseas, for a total of $84 million. Some film journalists attributed the film's weak box office to the intense competition it face with Beauty and the Beast. Steven Hulett of the union Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists opined that the low performances of both Fievel Goes West and We're Back!: A Dinosaur Story (1993) resulted from the poor quality of their stories, "and animation is a story-driven art form." He attributed this to Spielberg's busy schedule, meaning he didn't have enough time to focus on animation.

In 2019, the film had a limited re-release on August 24th and 26th at Galaxy Theatres as part of their Summer Kidfest.

Home media

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West received its first VHS release on March 19, 1992; Nichols and Tower Video's John Thrasher predicted it would do well in sales due to a lack of competition. According to Nichols, three million copies were rumored to be circulated, although MCA/Universal was willing to reveal the real number.

An American Tail: Fievel Goes West was released onto VHS, Betamax, and Laserdisc in 1992. The Laserdisc edition included a widescreen letterbox release with the original theatrical aspect ratio. On August 11, 1998, both first American Tail and Fievel Goes West were digitally restored and rereleased onto VHS in a limited edition boxed 2-pack set with both videos having clamshell VHS cases.

The film was released on DVD in 2004, a bare-bones release with only a few children's games as extras. Since has been included in combination DVD sets with the first film and with other animated movies owned by Universal Studios.

The film was released on Blu-ray as a Walmart exclusive on April 4, 2017 (with a nationwide release on July 4, 2017). Prior to that release, the film was re-released on DVD in January 2017. Unlike the previous home media releases, the film has a sequence edited, like the infamous hidden penis doodle that was briefly seen during Tanya's version of "Dreams to Dream" was removed, thanks to the controversy.

Reception

Peter M. Nichols analyzed Fievel Goes West "was panned on the ground that it was not so innovative as other new animated films, notably Beauty and the Beast from Disney, the leader in animation." He also reported a Universal executive calling the film "charmless" and "pedestrian."

Time Out London published an ecstatic review of Fievel Goes West: "Miles better than the overrated American Tail, this laugh-packed sequel boasts all the classic elements so often missing from modern cartoon features: a straightforward zip-zang-boom storyline, clearly etched characters with instantly identifiable flaws, tip-top voice-overs by well-chosen celebrities, and oodles of elasticated slapstick." Entertainment Weekly enjoyed Fievel Goes West for its bright tone and high-quality animation, but criticized the ending's lack of tension and found its music to not be as memorable as the first film's. The source named it one of the best children's films of 1991 alongside Beauty and the Beast and Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken (1991). The Washington Post praised it for being "quick, vivid and a real hoot to viewers of any age," but also noted its wonky setup: "the family is tricked into a cross-country quest by a fast-talking fake mouse [...] Not only are the marionette's strings fully visible during Cat R. Waul's spiel, but the cat can be seen through a sewer grate. Stupid mice!" Multiple reviewers praised the presence of Wylie Burp, including a Variety review that honored the voice acting and Western setting but disliked its lack of a clear plot.

Halliwell's Film Guide favorable labeled Fievel Goes West as an "enjoyable and high-spirited animated film that borrows plot and attitudes from classic Westerns." Roger Ebert gave it two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "There is nothing really the matter with An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, except that it is not inspired with an extra spark of imagination in addition to its competent entertainment qualities". The New York Times wrote "The film is really a bland, randomly connected series of adventures involving the Mouskewitz children, Tiger and Miss Kitty, a sultry barroom chanteuse. While the quality of the animation is above average, the film's visualization of the American West is surprisingly dull. The movie has little narrative drive or emotional resonance, and its final action sequences seem perfunctory and tacked on.

Multiple critics panned Fievel Goes West's lack of a cohesive story and extremely fast pace. As The Austin Chronicle critic Marjorie Baumgarten summarized the main problem of the film's story, "The movie has constant activity but minimal objectives." He also called the music "feeble" and was more critical of the animation than other reviewers: "the foregrounds are expressive but the backgrounds are bland and uninspired."

The Chicago Tribune's Clifford Terry applauded the "vivid and rich" animation, particularly the "colorful figures and detailed backgrounds;" and the bits of "sophisticated humor" and Holocaust undertones in the script; however, he opined the film lacked the "warmth" of most Disney films due to its unmemorable songs and characters; and extremely fast pace that made the plot feel cluttered. Charles Soloman of Los Angeles Times panned the film for its overwhelming amount of story conveniences; lack of a main theme; "unrelenting, breakneck" speed even in most of its slower moments; and the "30s Hollywood-style" Indian mice tribe, which he found "questionable" especially since the movie was released the same time as protests against Black Robe (1991) were occurring. He was mixed towards the animation. While he called the animation "fluid" in general and highlighted its "tricky point-of-view shots, such as inside a rolling tumbleweed," and the changes to most of the character designs; he criticized the little amount of "nuances of thought and emotion" in the characters.

54% of critics gave it a positive reception on Rotten Tomatoes. Common Sense Media considered this sequel "mediocre" due to the lack of positive role models and morals.

In the late 2010s, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West was recognized on publication lists of best Netflix-available westerns, ranking in the top ten of lists by Paste and The Daily Dot. It was also number 24 on GameSpot's "25 Best '90s Movies On Netflix," appeared on Wonderwall's list of best animated sequels, and landed on a Cosmopolitan list of "50 Movies You Definitely Watched in the ’90s and Forgot About." Including in on a list of "19 Classic Movies That Prove 1991 Was Truly The Best Year For Film," Bustle described the film as "a fun, action-adventure comedy that gave Fievel's sister Tanya some much-needed screen time." Both Fievel Goes West and the first American Tail were tied for the number-five spot of a list of best non-Disney films from My Web Times: "Political and historical, these feature some fab songs and fun voice-over work from the likes of Jimmy Stewart (in his last role), John Cleese, Madeline Kahn and Dom DeLuise."

In her book Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films (Jewish Lives), Molly Haskell wrote that both An American Tail and its sequel Fievel Goes West were oddly more "personal" for Spielberg than Schindler's List (1993), "the film that certified the director’s rebirth as a Jew, and his much-vaunted evolution into a newfound 'maturity.'"

Sequels and spinoffs

A direct sequel that serves as a TV series, Fievel's American Tails, was produced for CBS in 1992. Two direct-to-video sequels were produced after the series: An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island, released in 1998, and An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster, released in 1999. A piece of dialogue from Fieval in the former had once been made to retcon Fieval Goes West as a dream the character had, but many would go on to mainly see both direct-to-video films as prequels that take place before the adventure.

Fievel later served as the mascot for Steven Spielberg's Amblimation animation studio, appearing in its production logo. There is also a Fievel-themed playground at Universal Studios Florida, featuring a large water slide and many oversized objects such as books, glasses, cowboy boots, and more. It is the only such playground at any of NBC Universal's theme parks.

An LCD game based on the film was created by Tiger Electronics in 1991.

A computer game based on the film was created in 1993.

A Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game of the same name was released in 1994.

A Game Boy Advance video game based on the film called An American Tail: Fievel's Gold Rush was released in 2002.

Soundtrack

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Entertainment Weekly	A-

The soundtrack was composed by James Horner and includes "Dreams to Dream", which was nominated for a Golden Globe award. "Dreams to Dream" was based on a short instrumental piece from the original film. An Entertainment Weekly review compared the score to the soundtracks of Gunsmoke and Oklahoma! (1955) as well as the works of Aaron Copland.

Track listing

1. "Dreams to Dream (Finale Version)" – Linda Ronstadt
2. "American Tail Overture (Main Title)"
3. "Cat Rumble"
4. "Headin' Out West"
5. "Way Out West"
6. "Green River/Trek Through the Desert"
7. "Dreams to Dream (Tanya's Version)" – Cathy Cavadini
8. "Building a New Town"
9. "Sacred Mountain"
10. "Reminiscing"
11. "The Girl You Left Behind" – Cathy Cavadini
12. "In Training"*
13. "The Shoot-Out"
14. "A New Land/The Future"

(*a close parody of Aaron Copland's "Hoe-Down" theme, adapting the film's leitmotifs)

Score cues left off the soundtrack

1. Tiger Chases the Train
2. Mouse Burger Plot
3. The Flying Aaaaah/Tiger's Chase Continues
4. Puttin' On the Ritz (Movie Version)
5. Two Old Friends Reunited
6. Rawhide - The Blues Brothers
7. Saloon Music
8. Wylie Burp/More Like a Dog
9. The Shoot-Out (Movie Version)
10. The River Returns/Celebration

In other media

In an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Jake and guest star character Doug reenact a scene from Fievel Goes West while going through Doug's laserdiscs. The sewer drain sequence in Fievel Goes West was referenced in "Pickle Rick," an episode of the Adult Swim series Rick and Morty.

See also

• List of animated feature-length films

External links

• An American Tail: Fievel Goes West at IMDb
• An American Tail: Fievel Goes West at AllMovie
• An American Tail: Fievel Goes West at Rotten Tomatoes
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• An American Tail: Fievel Goes West at Keyframe: The Animation Resource
• Stephen Holden. (November 22, 1991). "An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991). Review/Film; Immigrant Mice Face the Frontier". NY Times. Retrieved March 24, 2011.