What if Don Bluth stayed at Disney?/An American Tale

An American Tale is a 1986 American animated musical adventure family comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. It is directed by Don Bluth, produced by Burny Mattinson, and executive produced by Steven Spielberg. The 29th Disney animated feature film, it tells the story of a Jewish little girl named Anne-Marie Moskowitz (voiced by Judith Barsi) and her family as they emigrate from the Imperial Russian territory of Ukraine to the United States for freedom. However, she gets lost and must find a way to reunite with them while discovering a all-animal hidden society and escaping from a bulldog gangster named Carface Caruthers (voiced by Ernest Borgnine), who plans to take advantage of her ability to talk to and understand animals.

An American Tale was released on July 2, 1986. It received mixed-to-positive reviews and was a box office success, making it Disney's highest-grossing animated film at the time, in sharp contrast to the box office under-performance of Disney's previous animated feature film The Black Cauldron (1985). As such, Walt Disney was convinced that his company's animation department was still a viable enterprise and this set the stage for the Disney Renaissance. It should be also noted that this is the film which saved Disney's animation department from going bankrupt at the time.

The film's success, along with that of The Great Mouse Detective, Oliver & Company, The Land Before Time, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Little Mermaid, prompted Steven Spielberg to be an executive producer in most Disney animated films in the 1990s, until he finished his contract in 1995.

In January 2018, Disney announced that a live-action film adaptation of An American Tale is currently in the works.

Cast

 * Judith Barsi as Anne-Marie Moskowitz
 * Philip Glasser as Fievel Moskowitz
 * Burt Reynolds as Charlie B. Barkin
 * Amy Green as Tanya
 * Dom DeLuise as Itchy Itchiford and Tiger
 * Ernest Borgnine as Carface Caruthers
 * Nehemiah Persoff as Papa Moskowitz
 * Erica Yohn as Mama Moskowitz
 * Pat Musick as Tony Bearini
 * Cathianne Blore as Bridget Bearini
 * Charles Nelson Reilly as Killer and Mr. Rabbit
 * Will Ryan as Digit
 * Mel Blanc as Fee and Line
 * Loni Anderson as Mrs. Rabbit
 * Neil Ross as Honest Johan
 * Hal Smith as Moe
 * Dan Kuenster as Jake
 * Ken Page as King Gator
 * Melba Moore as the Whippet angel (named Annabelle in An American Tale: In Search of Gabriel's Horn)

Development
Production began in December 1984 as a collaboration between Spielberg and Disney, based on a concept by David Kirschner. An American Tale was the first Disney animated feature to be an original story, rather than be based on an already existing work. Disney President and CEO Ron Miller  had asked director Don Bluth to "make me something pretty like you did in The Fox and the Hound and The Secret of NIMH... make it beautiful." In a 1985 interview, Bluth 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 Don I and the rest of the film's production crew send some other animators and making their comments." Bluth later commented that "Steven [Spielberg] have not dominated the creative growth of Tale at all like me and Michael [Eisner] were. There is an equal share of all four of us in the picture. Nevertheless, this was Steven'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, Bluth stated, "at this point, I'm enlightened, but I still can't believe it's so complicated."

Writing
Originally, the concept consisted of an all-animal world, like Robin Hood, and Anne-Marie and her family were originally intended to be rabbits, but Bluth suggested featuring an animal world existing as a hidden society from the human world to recapture the spirit of The Rescuers and making Anne-Marie and her family into humans. After viewing The Rescuers, Spielberg agreed. Emmy-award-winning writers Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss were brought in to expand the script. Carface Caruthers was supponsed to be a scared cat, but Walt disliked the final designs and ultimatily decided to change his species, using the villainous stereotype of a bulldog instead. The climactic battle between Tiger and Carface, during the scene which Tanya, Tiger and Charlie rescue Anne-Marie, was inspired by The Jungle Book. 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 "Anne-Marie" sounded more of two separate names than a single one, and he felt audiences wouldn't remember it. Spielberg disagreed and eventually won out, though something of a compromise was reached by having Tony refer to Anne-Marie as "Annie." Spierberg 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.

Casting
Disney animators 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." Charles Nelson Reilly (Mr. Rabbit and Killer), Will Ryan (Digit), Neil Ross (Honest Johan), Cathianne Blore (Bridget Bearini), Mel Blanc (Fee and Line) and Hal Smith (Moe) are all voice actors well known in the animation industry.
 * Barsi (Anne-Marie) was a child actress who began her career in television, making appearances in commercials and television shows; she was killed by her father in an apparent murder-suicide over two years after the film was released.
 * Glasser (Fievel) was discovered by accident when Walt, Bluth and Disney vetrean animator duo William Hanna and Joseph Barbera overheard him auditioning for an Oscar Mayer commercial.
 * Green (Tanya) was a young actress who had done some previous television series work and several commercials.
 * Reynolds (Charlie B. Barkin) and DeLuise (Itchy Itchiford and Tiger) had previously appeared together in five films. For this one, they requested the animators to record their parts in the studio together (in American animation, actors more commonly record their parts solo). Bluth agreed and allowed Reynolds and DeLuise to ad-lib extensively. DeLuise had worked previously with Disney 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 Anne-Marie actually scratch Tiger's back.
 * Borgnine (Carface Caruthers) was well-known for his villainous roles in films such as Johnny Guitar, Vera Cruz and Bad Day at Black Rock.
 * Persoff, a respected actor in many films, was chosen to play the part of Papa Moskowitz mostly because he had a similar role as Barbra Streisand's father in Yentl.
 * Yohn (Mama Moskowitz) has appeared in many features, but her work as a Russian gypsy on a TV show attracted the attention of Disney executives.
 * Musick (Tony Bearini) is one of a small number of women in animation chosen to voice a male character. She based his voice on a friend she knew from grade school.
 * Page (King Gator), is a well-known cabaret singer and actor and was cast after Don Bluth liking his performance as Old Deuteronomy in the Broadway play Cats. He would later cast as Oogie Boogie, the main antagonist of Disney's 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas.
 * 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. Walt felt Henri was an essential character to act as a voice for the statue "welcoming" Anne-Marie and Tanya to the new world.

Design
In designing the look of the film and its characters, Disney animators worked with Amblin Entertainment and the Sears marketing department (Sears had a major marketing push on the main character). Bluth decided to make a stylistic shift from the more angular "modern style" of animation of the time to a style similar to the studio's 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.

Animation
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 him over myself, so that I could explain them. Steven and Walt would get very excited by what they 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 an newly-build animation house in Ireland, but Spielberg balked at the idea of a story called An American Tale being produced overseas.

At this time, Disney animators 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 Carface's casino riverboat on the bayou.

Production difficulties
During production, Spielberg expected to view the dailies and approve all major work on the film, and various outside parties also requested changes here and there. This caused the production to buckle from excessive oversight, and made Bluth feel that he was losing freedom of control over the production process. As the release deadline approached, pressure grew throughout 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 Moskowitzs journey across Europe, a scene in which they first meet Tiger and he gets stuck up in a tree, an upbeat song that Anne-Marie 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.

The film was also plagued by union difficulties. Disney had agreed to accept $6.5 million to get it produced (which later grew to $9 million), at a time when the studio was spending around $12 million per film. Walt 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. When many workers attempted to withdraw from the film's production crew, it sparked a battle between Bluth and the union that continued through most of production.

Music
Spielberg's original vision for the film was as a musical—it is said he wanted a "Heigh-Ho" of the 1980s (referring to the popular song from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). Initially, Jerry Goldsmith was announced to compose the film after scoring The Secret of NIMH, 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, which was recorded in England and performed by The London Symphony Orchestra and the Choir of King's College. Two excerpts of period music also appear in the film: The Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa and Poor Wand'ring One from the 1880 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan. There is also a musical reference to the 1947 song Galway Bay popularized by Bing Crosby. Initially Walt Disney was disappointed with the first score recording, but once edited, he found the music worked quite well. The final score became one of the film's strongest points.

After the first round of songs were written, it was decided a special song would be written for Linda Ronstadt to sing over the end credits with James Ingram. Called "Somewhere Out There", it was composed by Horner and Barry Mann with lyrics by Cynthia Weil, won a Grammy Award, and became one of the most popular songs from an animated feature since the 1950s.

An official soundtrack containing 23 tracks from the film was first released in November 21, 1986 by Walt Disney Records, and was made available on audio cassette, vinyl record, and CD. It was later released digitally on February 5, 2013.

Track list
 * 1) "Main Title" (5:07)
 * 2) "The Cossacks' Attack" (2:15)
 * 3) "There Are No Injustice in America" (3:00) – sung by Papa Moskowitz, and an Italian and Irish man, and the Chorus
 * 4) "The Storm" (3:59)
 * 5) "Anne-Marie Meets Tanya" (4:06)
 * 6) "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" (2:44) – Chorus
 * 7) "Never Say Never" (2:25) – sung by Anne-Marie (Betsy Cathcart), Tanya (Betsy Cathcart), Henri, and the chorus of female pigeons
 * 8) "The Market Place" (3:02)
 * 9) "Riveboat Casino" (6:03)
 * 10) "You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down" (2:30) – sung by Charlie B. Barkin and Itchy Ichiford
 * 11) "Mardi Gras" (1:17)
 * 12) "Let Me Be Surprised" (4:54) – sung by the Whippet angel
 * 13) "A Duo" (2:38) – sung by Anne-Marie (Betsy Cathcart) and Tiger
 * 14) "At the Race Track" (1:49)
 * 15) "Money Montage" (3:43)
 * 16) "What's Mine Is Yours" (1:48) – sung by Charlie B. Barkin and the chorus of bunnies
 * 17) "Somewhere Out There" (2:40) – sung by Anne-Marie (Betsy Cathcart) and Fievel
 * 18) "Hellhound" (2:09)
 * 19) "Let's Make Music Together" (2:24) – sung by King Gator
 * 20) "Animals to the Rescue" (3:10)
 * 21) "Reunited" (4:44)
 * 22) "Flying Away, Charlie Returns to Heaven and End Credits" (7:10)
 * 23) "Somewhere Out There" (end credits) (3:59) – sung by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram

Personnel

 * Linda Ronstadt - vocals (track 9)
 * James Ingram – vocals (track 9)
 * Leland Sklar – bass (track 9)
 * Russ Kunkel – drums (track 9)
 * Don Grolnick – keyboards (track 9)
 * Bob Mann – guitar, arranger, conductor (track 9)
 * Steve Lukather - guitar solo (track 9)
 * Guy Moon – synth pads (track 9)

Critical response
The film maintains a 69% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an average rating of 6.3/10. The consensus is: "One of Disney's best animated films, An American Tale is a sweet, occasionally melancholy story about critters in exodus". The film received a "thumbs down" from Gene Siskel and a "thumbs up" from Roger Ebert on a 1986 episode of their television program At the Movies. While Siskel found it to be "surprisingly weak" given director Don Bluth's previous work on The Fox and the Hound and The Secret of NIMH, due largely to its "confusing story" and "needlessly violent" scenes, Ebert was a fan of the movie's "rubbery and kind of flexible" animation and emotional themes, stating he felt it was a good film despite not being an "animated classic".

Some other critics also found the darker subject material objectionable in a family film, given the film's depictions of death, violence, drinking, smoking, gambling, murder, demons and images of Hell. Another element who was also considered too dark were that the main characters were Jewish and that the attack on their home at the beginning was considered an "antisemitic one".

The rest of the reviews were generally positive, with critics praising the film's emotional qualities, humor and vibrant color palette. Conversely, Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called it "a bright-eyed tale of Jewish triumphs that will find a place in many young hearts", adding that "It reiterates the happiness of homogeneity, prepares the pups for both brotherhood and the free enterprise system. And it's as pretty as a cascade of soap bubbles." In his own review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave it three stars out of four, giving credit to the animation and characters, calling them "full and detailed, with animation enhanced by computers and character development that makes people to laugh and cry", but that the story was too "dark and gloomy".

Halliwell's Film Guide gave it one star out of four, saying "[This] expensive cartoon feature [has] not much in the way of narrative interest or indeed humor". Vincent Canby of The New York Times gave it five stars out of ten, stating, "An American Tale looks good but the story itself... is witless if well-meaning," adding that its high points were scenes involving the characters Charlie B. Barkin and Tiger. In his review for the Chicago Reader, Pat Graham panned its "flimsy characterizations" but praised its story and said that "the overall quality of the animation—baroquely executed if rather conventionally conceived—makes it worth a look."

Box office
The film has grossed up to $47 million in the United States, also known as the domestic box office, and $84 million worldwide. At the time of its domestic release, it became Disney's highest-grossing animated feature at the time. The film's modest success, along with the one of The Great Mouse Detective (which would be released four months after) played large roles in the Disney Renaissance; due to the fact that both films were critical and financial successes, which helped the studio's animaton departament from going bankrupt after The Black Cauldron had flopped at the box office a year earlier. The record would quickly be shattered with the release of The Little Mermaid, the film that many consider to be the start of the Disney Renaissance.

Accolades
The film won "Best Animated Motion Picture" at the 9th Youth in Film Awards, with Judith Barsi and Amy Green also receiving an award for "Best Animation Voice Over Group" for their roles as Anne-Marie and Tanya. It was also nominated for "Best Fantasy Film" and "Best Music" during the 14th Saturn Awards, losing to The Boy Who Could Fly and Little Shop of Horrors, respectively.

The song "Somewhere Out There" written by James Horner received a number of accolades during the 1987–1988 award season, including Grammys for "Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television" and "Song of the Year", as well as "Most Performed Song from a Motion Picture" from both the ASCAP and Broadcast Music. It also received a Golden Globe nomination for "Best Original Song from a Motion Picture", and an Academy Award nomination for "Best Original Song", losing both to "Take My Breath Away" from Top Gun. The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – Nominated
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – Nominated
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
 * Carface Caruthers – Nominated villain
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
 * Somewhere Out There - Nominated
 * AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals – Nominated
 * AFI's 10 Top 10:
 * Nominated Animation Film

Home video
Following the theatrical re-release in February 1992, the film was released on VHS and Laserdisc in July 1992 as part of the Walt Disney Classics series. It was placed into moratorium on April 30, 1993. It was released again on VHS in August 1999 (with a game sheet inside it as part of a contest) and on DVD in 2002 with a short making-of featurette. In the UK, it was first released on VHS in 1992 followed by re-releases in 1993 and 1995.

A DVD version was made available for the first time on March 6, 2001, under the Walt Disney Family Collection label and was later released as a double feature with its sequel An American Tale: Anne-Marie Goes West on March 14, 2006. On March 29, 2011, the film made its debut on Blu-ray, which was later included as a bundle with its two sequels An American Tale: Anne-Marie Goes West and An American Tale: In Search of Gabriel's Horn on October 7, 2014, along with a re-release of the compilation on DVD. The Blu-ray version was also packaged with The Great Mouse Detective on October 8, 2013. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray releases as part of the Walt Disney Diamond Collection.

Theme parks
A An American Tale-themed playground was built at Walt Disney World, featuring a large water slide and many oversized objects such as books, glasses, cowboy boots, and more. A similar playground used to be at Disneyland, alongside a stage show based on the two movies, but were closed down in 1997 and replaced with Coke Soak and T2-3D: Battle Across Time. It is the only such playground at any of Disney's theme parks.

Trivia

 * This film is sometimes considered, by fans and animation historians, to be one of the unofficial first films of the Disney Renaissance. This is mostly due to the fact that this movie and The Great Mouse Detective had saved Disney's animation departament from going completely bankrupt at the time, and it should be noted that this film did play a big impact on the Disney Renaissance as well.
 * An American Tale is the only Disney film which Judith Barsi was alive to see fully finished. Barsi died during production of Oliver &amp; Company and The Land Before Time. After Barsi's death, Cathy Cavadini was cast as the voice of Anne-Marie in the theatrical sequel An American Tale: Anne-Marie Goes West and the direct-to-video sequel An American Tale: In Search of Gabriel's Horn.