The Rescuers
The Plot
The Rescuers tells the story of Penny, an orphan who has been kidnapped by the evil Madame Medusa who uses her to help her find the diamond that will make her rich. Penny enlists the help of the Rescuers, two mice named Bernard and Bianca who come to save the day.
Development and Changes
When deciding to adapt the story there was one thing they needed to change. In the story the mice, instead of helping people in need of help, they were instead meant to amuse and befriend people in prison who would otherwise live in solitude. Instead of being called The Rescue Aid Society they were named the “Mouse Prisoners Aid Society”. When the Disney Studio were thinking of sticking with this jail story theme, they were thinking of making Penny a much older bloke who was a poet trapped in prison. Unsurprisingly they didn’t stick with this idea and they changed it to more of this child friendly version. I still feel though that this film maintained some of it’s dark quality’s, especially the scene of Penny trying to run away through the Devils Bayeux, to me it was very reminiscent of Snow White when she is running through the forest.
It was decided that for the introduction of this film that they were going to do things a little bit different than before. Still paintings, painted by Melvin Shaw, who was a Disney animator. He worked on films like Bambi, The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron and The Lion King. Melvin’s artwork was shown of the bottle sent by Penny in different paths along its journey to the rescuers with vintage over the top camera styles.
Through the early development stages one story idea suggested by Walt Disney was having a polar bear being kidnapped from the zoo by none other than Cruella Di Ville, however this idea wasn’t used when they decided to focus more on the books. It was in the books that the Disney workers discovered characters of the Diamond Duchess and were inspired to make the character Madame Medusa. They used sketches by illustrator Gareth Williams to help inspire the Disney character of Madame Medusa. However they enjoyed the idea of adding in Cruella Di Ville wasn’t completely lost because if you watch Madame Medusa’s driving it echoes the style and passion of Cruella’s.
Style
One thing that really stood out to me when I first started watching this film is the style. It is very obvious that it is hand drawn which I have to admit, I’m not the biggest fan of. Don’t get me wrong I love hand drawn films, but this film in particular is very messy, you can see the pencil lines and texture of the paper in the opening scenes and for me this distracted me from the story. Lots of viewers have the misconception that they use this style because they either want to save money or are too lazy, but this isn’t the case. Milt Kahl, one of the 9 old men who worked on the film has defended this style of animation saying that he wanted to see specifically what he had drawn in the final film, not some altered version. The Rescuers actually won a special Citation Award for “restoring and upgrading the art of animation”. I guess some people are a fan of this style.
Milt Kahl was the only animator who worked on Madame Medusa and this was because he believed that no one could live up to the high expectation of standard that Milt had set for her so he just decided to animate her himself. Milt has said that she was his most favourite character to animate because he based her on his ex-wife. If she is anything like the animated version, no wonder they divorced. This personal connection to the character is also probably one of the reasons why he was so over protective of her.
Cast
Bernard was played by Bob Newhart. Bob is most well known as Papa Elf in Elf and more recently Arthur Jefferies from the Big Bang Theory. His character Bernard seems to be very superstitious about the number 13, which is unlucky for him because the date of the day when Bernard and Bianca have to rescue Penny is Friday 13th. This is known because of a calendar seen in Madame Medusa’s room.
Bianca was played by Eva Gabor and her character in the film is the delegate representing Hungary, which is appropriate for Eva because she was born there. This isn’t the first time Eva has voiced a Disney character. During The Aristocats feature she voiced Duchess.
Bianca is one of the few characters in early Disney films where a female portrays leadership, power and initiative. In comparison, Snow White and Cinderella’s talents are cooking and cleaning, Aurora barely even speaks in her movie, Alice doesn’t even have control in her dream, and Lady (from Lady and the Tramp) and the female cats from Aristocats are, I hate to say, acting as though they are entitled and don’t know how to look after themselves in the real world. Bianca signs herself up for a potentially dangerous mission and works in partnership with Bernard rather than being a sidekick or just eye candy. They were considering making Bianca and Bernard a married couple but thought it was more romantic to have to romance grow between them throughout the film.
One aspect of Bianca that is very strong in the book is that she has a strong attraction to cats. This was involved in the film by the introduction of Rufus the cat who is a caricature of another member of the 9 old men, Ollie Johnston.
Madame Medusa was voiced by Geraldine Page. The Disney company were very happy with their casting choice because as Milt Kahl has admitted, Geraldine was able to speak everyone of Medusa’s lines perfectly within the first couple of takes.
The design of Medusa with her red dress and orange hair was done to represent her fiery personality and makes more of a contrast of her to the other characters in the story.
Mr. Snoops was voiced by Joe Flynn and this was his last ever role because only a couple of weeks after he recorded his lines for the role, he sadly passed away due to a heart attack he had while swimming which caused him to drown.
Mr. Snoops was designed to look like a caricature of animation historian who would often drop by the studio called John Culhane. In his biography John mentioned how the animators would sneakily trick him into various positions so the animators would get a live-action reference for animating,
Brutus and Nero are the two alligators belonging to Madame Medusa and they are based on the blood hounds found in the stories this film is based on. In the story the hounds are named Torment and Tyrant.
James MacDonald, who for a time was the voice of Mickey Mouse, had to be brought out of retirement to provide the vocal sounds of Evinrude the dragonfly. The sound is very similar to a motor boat which is probably why Evinrude is called Evinrude because of “Evinrude Outboard Motors”. Oddly, he has to be one of my favourite characters in the film.
Orville, who was voiced by Jim Jordan, was originally going to be a pigeon, however after animators studied the movements of albatrosses, which is what Orville is, they realised that an albatross would allow for more comedic effect. Orville was named after Orville Wright, one of the Wright brothers who built the first airplane. Then in Rescuers Down Under, the sequel, Orville’s brother is introduced as Wilbur, which is the name of the other Wright brother.
Luke, the alcoholic muskrat, was voiced by Pat Buttram and Rabbit was voiced by George Lindsey. These two voice actors have worked on Disney films before together, for example in The Aristocats they were Lafayette and Napoleon.
Louis Prima was all set to star as a bear in this film, he had recorded all of his dialogue and the songs he was going to sing in the film but sadly in 1975 he underwent brain surgery to remove a tumour and never regained consciousness. The Disney Studio decided in the end against using his material in the film. This wouldn’t have been Louis’s only Disney role, he also voiced King Louie in The Jungle Book.
Music
Karen and Richard Carpenter were offered to do the entire music for the movie however due to several scheduling conflicts they had to decline, much to the dismay of Karen because she was a big Disney fan. They instead brought in Ayn Robbins and Carol Connors to do the music. They wrote 3 original songs for the feature, however only two of them made it to the finished film, they were “The Journey” and “Tomorrow is Another Day”. The song that didn’t make it was titled “Just Might be Tomorrow”. The reason why is Wolfgang Reitherman, one of the films directors, had the song “The Need to be Loved” by Sammy Fain stuck in his mind. Wolfgang asked Robbins and Connors to write new lyrics for the song. This song turned into the Oscar nominated “Someone’s Waiting for You” which was sung by Shelby Flint. It was originally sung by Nancy Adams who sung “Love” for Robin Hood. Sadly her rendition on “Someone’s Waiting for You” was not used in the film and is actually believed to be lost.
When recording the “Rescue Aid Society song” they used a mini toy piano in order to make the mouse orchestra sound more realistic.
Release, Reception and Recall
When The Rescuers was released in 1977, it did so to very popular reviews, it even broke the record for largest box office on opening weekend. As it was so popular, this meant that they felt the film would be popular enough to be re-released theatrically twice more. Once in 1983 and then again in 1989 to help promote the sequel which is titled The Rescuers Down Under. Initially the films popularity caused the Disney studio to plan a spin-off TV show, however discussing this project caused them to realise that they had enough ideas to make a sequel film which turned into “The Rescuers Down Under”. They didn’t want to forget all the work they had put in for the TV show so they turned it into “Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers”.
When the film was made to VHS the 1999 issue of it had to be recalled. The Disney company ended up recalling over 3 million copies, because in a scene where Bernard and Bianca fly through the air, in one of the background shots there has been an inserted image of a topless woman, obviously not appropriate for a children’s film rated at a U. The scenes were inserted by an art director and there assistant. When hearing the reason for this recall many people snapped up copy’s of the film.
With the success of this film, it has caused all 9 of Margery Sharp’s books relating to “The Rescuers” to soar onto the bestsellers list. Maybe I should add these to my “to read” list.
Easter Eggs
Madame Medusa in Greek mythology is a woman who if you look into her eyes you will turn to stone, this is mirrored in the film by how whenever Penny looks at Madame Medusa, she freezes.
When Madame Medusa is taking off her make-up, written on the towel on her head are the words “Hotel Ritz”.
Bambi and his mother can be seen during the song “Someone’s Waiting for You”.
Bits and Bobs
The Rescue Aid Society honours there founder Euripides. He was the first mouse to give help, and he gave it to a lion who had a needle in his paw. This is reference to the Aesop Fable story “The Mouse and the Lion”.
Don Bluth worked on this film as a directing animator. He pointed out that some of characters were created without having the whites of their eyes coloured in. The Disney company told him that it would have cost too much. Bluth denied this answer when he tested out the theory and was then told to basically work and be quiet. Bluth didn’t take to kindly to this and he believes that this was the starting reason for why he and animator Gary Goldman would leave Disney.
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