An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island
The story starts off in a New York setting sometime after the first movie and before the second movie….
- Director: Larry Latham
- Genre:Adventure / Animation / Family
- Runtime:76 minutes
Cast
Thomas Dekker : Fievel (voice)
Dom DeLuise : Tiger (voice)
Pat Musick : Tony (voice)
Nehemiah Persoff: Papa (voice)
Erica Yohn : Mama (voice)
The story starts off in a New York setting sometime after the first movie and before the second movie, presumably between 1886 and 1889, and has Fievel recalling a strange dream in which he and his family went west. (Many think that this retconned the previous film and TV series out of existence, though it is more likely, due to the younger appearance of Fievel, Tanya and Yasha, that this film and An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster simply take place before An American Tail: Fievel Goes West and the TV series. An alternate explanation is that Fievel’s dream of going west was a foreshadowing instead of a retcon.)
Fievel and Tony discover that an ancient treasure lies underneath Manhattan when snooping around an abandoned subway (the Beach Pneumatic Transit system) and stumbling upon the remains of a dead mouse clutching a treasure map, and they decide must find it with the help of an archaeologist Tony knows Dr. Dithering, along with fighting five villains as well.
The movie focuses on the relationship between the over exploited workers of a sweatshop (in this case a cheese production line) and the factory’s rich owners (Mr. Grasping – played by Ron Perlman, Toplofty – played by Tony Jay, and O’Bloat – played by Richard Karron) here the villains. It also focuses on the plight of the Native Americans in the United States.
The treasure under Manhattan turns out to be a group of Native American mice living a long distance beneath the surface (far below the sewers and an underground pressurized train) that decided to hide when they saw how the first Europeans only brought war and disease with them, and didn’t want to wait for the European mice to do the same to them. An emotional scene ensues when Fievel must struggle with how cruel his own people the Europeans were (and still are at the time the film takes place) to the natives of America.
The sachem decides to send his daughter, Cholena to the surface to see if they have “changed their ways”. Upon their return, Stuttlebutt (one of the members of the expedition to find the treasure) reports to the villains unbeknownst to the rest of the members of the expedition, who then decide to use this to their advantage. They tell all the workers of the sweatshop about Cholena (obviously not by name) and that she is their enemy.
The mouse NYPD (Chief McBrusque – played by Sherman Howard, and McBrusque’s henchman / Dr. Dithering’s associate Scuttlebutt – played by John Kassir), who also report to the villains, engage in a bout of police brutality, burning down “every mouse house and rat hole” until they find her. After what basically degenerates into a street riot as the worker mice try to capture Cholena and anyone else involved with her, Fievel and his friends decide to take Cholena back underground, but the police find out and go after them. Meanwhile, everyone fnds out about Dr. Dithering’s friendship with the Indian and take him to the butcher shop for his punishment. Papa tells everyone about how madness like this is why they all left for America, and should work together to become friends with those different from them as the fellow Americans they are. Upon returning Cholena to her home and telling the chief what is happening, he gives them a bomb for them to collapse the tunnel connecting the Native Americans to the outside world. This floods it, together with the evil McBrusque and Scuttlebutt. Read more
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