Disney Daze: The Rescuers

The Rescuers (1977)

Disney Animated Classic Number 23
Starring: Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, Michelle Stacey & Geraldine Page.

Directed by: Wolfgang Reitherman, John Lounsbery & Art Stevens

Rating: ★★½

A message in a bottle is thrown out of a dishevelled riverboat anchored in a creepy Bayou, and washes up on the shores of New York City, where its message is taken to the Rescue Aid Society, a group of international mice who work in the United Nations building. The message is from a small girl called Penny (Stacey), who has been kidnapped by an evil woman called Madame Medusa (Page), so Miss Blanca (Gabor), the ‘beautiful’ Hungarian representative decides to take the case, and chooses to work with janitor Bernard (Newhart) for no logical reason. There’s a whole room of agents, but she chooses the man who gets stuck in a wine bottle. Oh well, what you gonna do? They eventually trace Penny back to an orphanage, and then hop on an albatross and fly to the Devil’s Bayou, where Penny is being kept, intent on rescuing her. But will they succeed?

Poor Penny... the cute orphan means that the stakes are high. Let's just ignore that the cat has a moustache...

Well, I think we all know the answer to that question, but even so, The Rescuers succeeds at making the actual rescue itself incredibly harrowing and tense, mainly because the villain, Madame Medusa (with a name like that she was set to be evil from birth) is really wicked and disgusting. Not only does she have two evil crocodile sidekicks, as well as a bumbling fool who struggles to assist her, she is intent on doing anything to find the ‘Devil’s Eye’ a giant diamond that is stuck in a cave with a raising water level, so basically she doesn’t care if Penny lives or dies, as long as she gets the diamond. And since Penny is such a cute and innocent orphan, you immediately empathise with her; you want her to make it out of there alive! 

Penny in the sink hole. This harrowing and tense sequence is by far the best part.

The whole sequence in the cave is by far the best bit of the film, as it is tense and scary and horrifying. The thought of being stuck in a sink hole with the rising tide is enough to terrify the crap out of anyone, but put a sweet and innocent child in there and you have some very high stakes. Sadly, this is probably the only good part in the entire movie, for an adult anyway. The rest of it is just about Miss Blanca and Bernard doing mouse related investigations. There’s an old and disturbing looking cat who has a moustache, a fairly plucky and interesting dragonfly, and then an assortment of animals at the Bayou- all of these characters just there to appeal to children (which fair enough, it is the point of the film). 

 

The real success of The Rescuers is Penny and Madame Medusa. Sadly, I didn’t really care about the mice, as they are fairly bland and seem to be there just to progress the plot. Madame Medusa is very good at being terrifying, although she looks like Madame Mim in The Sword and the Stone (when she turns ‘pretty’) and Penny is so endearing- we want her to get adopted at the end. The Smithsonian may steal her diamond, but at least she gets a ‘real’ happy ending. 

Madame Medusa will do anything for that diamond...

There’s not much else to say about The Rescuers really. It’s an interesting idea, and I think that young children would enjoy it, but there’s not much else to commend it for. Most of the movie’s running time is padding and is fairly monotonous and boring- just linking one scene to the next until we get to the big finale.  I’ve heard that The Rescuers Down Under is better (and scarier), and I will be reviewing that one next. 

The cheesy 70s soundtrack is a highlight if you enjoy feel good adult contemporary music that sounds incredibly dated. There are several musical ‘interludes’ for example when the mice are flying on the back of the albatross, and once again this seems to just be filler.

At least they had a good time- wish I could say the same...

I would like to point out more American ethnocentric mistakes in this film: apparently ‘Africa’ and ‘Vienna’ count as countries at the U.N., and if you don’t know why that makes no sense then it might be a good idea to invest in some more education for yourself. You would think that by the late 70s people would be slightly more knowledgeable of the world, but sadly, to this day, people are probably still as ignorant.

Would I recommend The Rescuers? No. No I wouldn’t. I think that only young children would find real enjoyment in this, as well as people who love mice. It’s not bad, it’s just not good. Maybe I would like it more if I saw it as a child. I’m ambivalent with this one: I feel like I should like it more than I do, but I can’t quite get there because it was fairly bland. Oh well. Let’s see what the sequel is like.