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The Rescuers

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The Rescuers
Directed byWolfgang Reitherman
Written byMargery Sharp (original author), Larry Clemmons, Ken Anderson, Vance Gerry, David Michener, Burny Mattinson, Frank Thomas, Fred Lucky, Ted Berman, Dick Sebast
Produced byWolfgang Reitherman
StarringEva Gabor
Bob Newhart
Jim Jordan
Joe Flynn
Geraldine Page
Music byArtie Butler
Distributed byWalt Disney Pictures
Buena Vista Distribution
Release dates
June 22, 1977 (USA)
Running time
77 minutes
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1,200,000

The Rescuers is the twenty-third film in the Disney animated features canon. It was produced by Walt Disney Productions, and first released on June 22, 1977 by Buena Vista Distribution. The film is about a society of mice, called the Rescue Aid Society, headquartered in New York and shadowing the United Nations, who go about doing good deeds in the world at large. Two of these mice, a hesitant and very New York-sounding Bernard (Bob Newhart) and the elegant, Hungarian-sounding Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor), set about rescuing Penny, a kidnapped girl, with the help of a comical albatross and the various animal inhabitants of the bayou where Penny is being held.

The film was inspired by a series of children's novels by Margery Sharp, most notably, "The Rescuers" (1959) and "Miss Bianca" (1962). The film was four years in the making with the combined talents of 250 people, including 40 animators who produced approximately 330,000 drawings; there were 14 sequences with 1,039 separate scenes and 750 backgrounds.

Synopsis

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The Rescuers begins when a young orphan named Penny throws off a message in a bottle of a ship she is on. The bottle washes up in America and is taken to the Rescue Aide Society, a UN-like (it is actually held in the UN building) group consisting of representative mice from all over the world. The mice read the message inside and learn that Penny was kidnapped. The Hungarian representative, Miss Bianca, is upset and volunteers to take the mission and save the girl. The leader of the society agrees, but on the condition that she chooses a partner for her safety. She chooses Bernard, the janitor. The two set out to the orphanage where Penny lived and meet her cat, Rufus. He tells them that Penny was believed to have run away of despair for having no family adopt her and the policemen are no longer looking for her. The mice then travel to Madame Medusa's pawnshop. While they are searching there, they hear Medusa talking to her assistant, Snoop, on the phone. She yells at him for being unable to find a jewel called the "Devil's Eye" and is furious to find out that Penny was sending messages in bottles. Angrily, she tells Snoop that she will "take the next plane to Devil's Bayou" and leaves in her car. Bernard and Bianca try to climb into her suitcase, but are unsuccessful. They recruit the help of an albatross named Orville,who hums the U.S. Air Force theme and who flies them to Devil's Bayou. There they meet a variety of swamp animals, including a rat named Ellie Mae and a dragonfly named Evinrode. They find the ship where Penny is held captive on and see her being caught in an escape attempt by Medusa's crocodiles, Brutus and Nero. The mice meet Penny and promise to help her. When Medusa and Snoops find the Devil's Eye down a narrow hole in a cavern, they force Penny to go down and get it. With the mice, she goes down and begins searching for the jewel. Crossing a narrow ledge by a large pitt, she finds the Eye in a skull, but panics as water begins to come out of the pitt because of the tide. Using a sword she finds, Penny breaks the skull open, grabs the Eye, and narrowly escapes the pitt. Medusa, thrilled to finally have the Devil's Eye, steals Penny's teddy bear and sews the jewel into its back. The mice recruit the help of the swamp creature who locks Brutus and Nero into a cage-like elevator on the ship and sets of Snoop's fireworks to distract the two villains. Penny escapes and returns to the orphange. She is adopted soon afterwards and the Devil's Eye is taken by a museum.

Characters

File:BernardandBianca.JPG
The rescuers, Bernard and Miss Bianca fly on the albatross Orville to a new adventure followed by Evinrude.
  • Miss Bianca: (voiced by Eva Gabor) She is an adventurous, yet sophisticated, mouse who volunteers to take on the mission of rescuing the little girl who's been known to be in terrible danger. Careful observation reveals she is the Hungarian delegate to the Rescue Aid Society.
  • Bernard: (voiced by Bob Newhart) The mouse janitor at the Rescue Aid Society, Bernard accompanies Miss Bianca in the mission to rescue the girl. Bernard isn't as brave as his partner, he strongly dislikes flying and is very superstitious.
  • Madame Medusa: (voiced by Geraldine Page) A hateful pawnshop owner, Madame Medusa will stop at nothing to get her hands on the Devil's Eye, the world's largest diamond. Madame's hideout is Devil's Bayou, where her two ferocious pet crocodiles, Brutus and Nero live.
  • Penny: (voiced by Michelle Stacy) She is the lonely orphan girl abducted from her home at Morningside Orphanage. Madame Medusa is her kidnapper, for Penny is just the type of small girl she needs to squeeze down into the Black Hole and retrieve the Devil's Eye.
  • Mr. Snoops: (voiced by Joe Flynn) He is Madame Medusa's follower, he too wants his fair share of the Devil's Eye, and although he doesn't fully approve of Madame Medusa's plan, he'll go along with it if that's what it will take to get the precious jewel.
  • Rufus: (voiced by John McIntire) An old cat, he conforts Penny when she is feeling down and represents the story's moral of "keep your faith."
  • Evinrude: (voiced by James MacDonald) A dragonfly who aids the rescuers by serving as a motor to their leaf-boat and trusted to send a message to the Swamp Folk when their help is needed.

Songs

File:RESCUERS-18.jpg
Penny is comforted by Rufus during "Faith is a Bluebird".

The songs in the film were composed and written by Carol Connors, Ayn Robbins and Sammy Fain, Shelby Flint's voice was brought for three of the songs. The musical score was composed by Artie Butler. For the first time since Bambi, the most significant songs in the film were sung offscreen.

  • "The Journey" is "sung" by the bottle. Even though the bottle is nothing but ordinary, lifeless object, the song is sung from its perspective after Penny throws it in the water. The bottle is then washed away the raging ocean waves during a thunderstorm and it desperately asks for someone to rescue it, "I'm lost at sea without a friend..." Shelby Flint, who sang the song offscreen, is sometimes listed as the voice of "The Bottle."
  • "Rescue Aid Society" is the pledge song of the international mouse organization whose purpose is to help those in need. Eva Gabor, Bob Newhart, Bernard Fox and some actors who had played the parts of the swamp criters participated in this song. A number of crazy, unusual objects were used as instruments, including a toy piano. The song was reprised as a memory of Bernard and Miss Bianca when their faith begun to fade away, the pledge of their society lifted their spirits.
  • "Faith is a Bluebird" is the poem Rufus recites to Penny in an attempt to cheer her up and bring hope to her heart. Although often listed as a song, "Faith is a Bluebird" is actually a poem performed by John McIntire and Michelle Stacy.
  • "Tomorrow is Another Day" is a cheerful song placed at the middle of the film, a break from the film's melancholy atmosphere. In this song, Bernard and Miss Bianca's hopes for romance are sung offscreen by Shelby Flint. The song was reprised at the conclusion of the film, having it end with the words "Tomorrow is another day", which could be taken as a reference to the 1939 film, Gone with the Wind.
  • "Someone's Waiting for You" is the touching lullaby Shelby Flint sings offscreen to Penny when her faith has vanished almost completely. During the song, the girl spots the star of faith she had been told about in the sky and her world lightens up as well as her face. This song was nominated for an Oscar in 1978. At one point during the film's production, this song was to be replaced by the classic lullaby, "Hush Little Baby", sung by the girl to her teddy bear. During this song sequence, Bambi and his mother can be seen from the balcony, as well as other recycled animation from that film.
  • "For Penny's a Jolly Good Fellow" is sung by the orphan kids at the end of the movie, congratulating Penny for her bravery and for having been newly adopted. The song is a variation of the classic "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow".

Directing animators

Significance

The Rescuers is an important film in the history of Disney animation for several reasons:

  • It was the first Disney film that significantly combined the talents of Walt Disney's original crew of storywriters and animators (Including Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men") with a newer, less experienced crew Walt Disney Productions recruited in the late 1970's.
  • The Rescuers was also Disney's first major animated success since The Jungle Book and the last until The Little Mermaid, largely because the studio was facing financial difficulties due to the enormous failure of Disney's 1979 live-action film, The Black Hole. The Rescuers marked the end of the silver age of Disney animation that had begun in 1950 with Cinderella.
  • During the '60s and early '70s Disney films took on the trend of comedy, rather than story, heart and drama. The Rescuers marked the return of the animated drama films the studio had previously been known for, such as Bambi or Dumbo, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston stated in their website that The Rescuers had been their return to a film with "heart" and also considered it their best film without Walt Disney.
  • The story of two little mice off to rescue the little girl Penny returned the interest for animation that had been lost to both critics and audiences throughout the 1970's.
  • The film marked the end of the studio's so-called "sketchy" period of the '60s and '70s and brought a more defined, softer Xerox outline, which can be more appreciated in the closing scenes, where the film's budget was extended.
  • The Rescuers was the first Disney animated feature to inspire a theatrically released sequel, The Rescuers Down Under. Since then, The Jungle Book and Peter Pan have also received theatrical sequels (though all four were originally intended to be sent straight to video and/or DVD).
  • Edmundo Santos, director of Mexican-Spanish Disney dubbings passed away shortly before completing this dubbing. His grand-daughter was given the role of Penny, and when she saw the completed picture in the cinema, she cried for her lost grandfather.
  • This film was the last project for John Lounsberry, one of Disney's "Nine Old Men". In an unfortunate coincidence to Bernard's triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13), Lounsberry died on Friday, February 13, 1976. This film was also the last film performance for actor Jim Jordan, best known for his longtime role as radio's Fibber McGee. Joe Flynn, who voiced Mr. Snoops drowned in a swimming pool after suffering a heart attack in 1974, three years prior to the release of the film.

The sequel

There is a sequel, The Rescuers Down Under (1990), set in the Australian Outback in which Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor reprised their roles from the first film. John Candy took the late Jim Jordan's place in the comical albatross role.

The Rescuers Down Under was somewhat criticized for using a similar storyline as the first and for the perception of using elements unfaithful to Margery Sharp's works.

After Eva Gabor's death, a third Rescuers film was scrapped as well as any future films.

Abandoned concepts

During the four years of production for this film, many original concepts were altered or dropped, among them:

  • The Rescue Aid Society was originally the "Prisoners' Aid Society" ('Mouse Prisoner's Aid Society' from Miss Bianca to Bernard into Battle), just as it was in the original Margery Sharp novels. Originally, the Rescue Aid Society was to be placed in a hole somewhere until the idea of a luggage bag in the basement of the U.N. building came up.
  • Ellie Mae and the Swamp Folk were originally going to carry a small flag that said "Swamp Volunteers". This detail was dropped since this would be the only time they would serve as rescuers.
  • Some of the producers had suggested that Bernard and Miss Bianca should be married in the end of the film, but in respect for Margery Sharp, author of the The Rescuers books, this was dropped. In the sequel, however, Miss Bianca accepts to marry Bernard after he proposes.
  • The island of Cuba was once considered as the setting for the film.
  • In one scene, Bernard, Bianca and Penny are in the cave trying to retrieve the Devil's Eye out of the skull of a dead man. Ken Anderson's Multiple Choice Layouts displayed Bianca taking pictures of the skull and Bernard inside the cave.
  • An abandoned sequence involved Bernard and Bianca going to a mouse supply room in the International Rescue Aid Society Headquarters. In here, they were supposed to have bins full of items Bernard and Bianca would need on their journey. Once they were packed Rescue Aid would then send them off. Ken Anderson drew conceptual art of this storage room, what was inside of it, etc.
  • An original scene that never made it into the final film involved one in which Madame Medusa was sewing the Devil's Eye diamond into Teddy.

Box office and reaction

The Rescuers was successful upon its original theatrical release earning $48,000,000 at the box office and becoming Disney's most successful film to that date. The film broke a record for the largest financial amount made for an animated film on opening weekend, a record it kept until 1986, when Don Bluth's An American Tail broke the record. The Rescuers was Disney's first significant success since The Jungle Book and the last until The Little Mermaid

The film was received with almost unanimous praise from critics and was also well-received by audiences [1]. The Rescuers was said to be Disney's greatest film since Mary Poppins in 1964 and that it seemed to signal a new golden age for Disney animation (although, followed by the critical failures of The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron, it is now tied to the second golden age, which began with Cinderella in 1950).

Re-releases

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Advertisement suggesting a 2007 DVD Masterpiece Edition release of the film.

In December 1983, The Rescuers was re-released with a new Mickey Mouse featurette, Mickey's Christmas Carol. It was also re-released in the summer of 1989, due to The Rescuers Down Under being released in 1990. The VHS and laserdisc versions of The Rescuers weren't released until 1992, when it was released on those formats in the Walt Disney Classics collection. The 1992 Feature Presentation logo spotted on this particular video release of the movie had a navy blue and black gradient background instead of its usual lilac blue gradient background. The theme music for the Classics logo was also electronically muffled, like all other Disney Classic releases afterward. It was re-released in 1999 as part of the Masterpiece Collection, but was recalled due to a photographic image of a topless woman in the background of New York when they are flying on Orville, the albatross, as mentioned in the following section.

When the film premiered on DVD on May 20, 2003, not enough copies were available to meet demands and many fans had difficulty finding a copy, thinking it would not sell well, the company had understocked the edition. [citation needed] The DVD received many complains for its reuse of the previous VHS cover, its absence of a chapter listing, but mostly for a poor presentation of the film with murky, dark, washed out colors and unsharp image, as well as lack of bonuses. The original Buena Vista logo (which featured a thunderclap over it) was also replaced with the then-current Walt Disney Pictures logo.

There are rumors suggesting that Disney Home Entertainment is planning on releasing an updated Masterpiece Edition DVD release of the film. Likely to commemorate its 30th anniversary next June.


Controversy

One of the frames containing a topless woman in the window

The film was expected to be a success even before entering theaters, which motivated an angered post-producer to sabotage the production by inserting an offending magazine picture of a naked woman into the film. Disney then had to spend millions to repair this when it was discovered in 1999. [2]

Some prints of the film contain the image of the topless woman [3] hidden in the background of one scene. When the mice are flying over the city, a picture of topless woman is seen very quickly in a window, in just two frames. In 1992, however, the movie was released on video, but didn't contain the questionable image as it was made from a different movie cut.

On January 5, 1999, Disney re-released The Rescuers on video, but complete with the picture of the topless woman. Disney quickly found it, and on January 8, 1999, they recalled the video tape and laserdisc, and on March 1999, they re-released it with the edited scene. In 2003, Disney released the film on DVD with the edited scene.

Trivia

File:MedusaandPenny.jpg
Madame Medusa, the film's villainess.
  • Jeanette Nolan, who voiced the muskrat Ellie Mae, was asked to fake a much thinner and louder voice in order to fit her character.
  • Sometimes, the voices Disney used for their characters helped shape the personalities of such characters, thus, when Eva Gabor was chosen to play the role of Miss Bianca, Gabor's Hungarian nationality was given to the character, making her Hungary's representative at the Rescue Aid Society.
  • In the novels, Bernard and Miss Bianca have the positions of Perpetual Mr. Secretary and Madam President of the Mouse Prisoner's Aid Society, due to their legendary rescuing career, unlike the film, in which Miss Bianca is regular delegate and Bernard the former janitor.
  • Though the film was a huge box office success, the studio never really did get a chance to celebrate their victory since much of the money was used to pay debts, and the rest was used in the making of the financial failureThe Black Cauldron.
  • The Rescuers was Disney's fourth feature film to be set in present day (1977), following One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
  • A number of bayou backgrounds in the film were later used in The Little Mermaid during the "Kiss the Girl" sequence.
  • A Mickey Mouse watch hangs upon the walls in the Rescue Aid Society organization building.
  • The animation in the scene where Penny attempts to run away comes from The Jungle Book (1967).
  • Evinrude the Dragonfly, who pushes a small boat in the film, is named after a manufacturer of outboard boat motors.
  • The film broke a record for largest box office gains on opening weekend (As of animated films), a record it would keep until the release of Steven Spielberg's An American Tail (1986).
  • Bernard and Miss Bianca have cameo appearances in the 'Disney's House of Mouse' television series.
  • In 1976, Disney re-printed Miss Bianca by Margery Sharp and it showed an Eva Gabor look-alike Miss Bianca, and a Bob Newhart look-alike Bernard. Disney later recalled the books, and redesigned Miss Bianca and Bernard due to kids having nightmares about the humanistic mice.
  • Disney's failure to release a digitally restored edition of the film has led many fans to try and restore the film as much as possible themselves. A largely restored version with the Spanish language track featuring advanced color correction can be acquired with the use of different file sharing programs such as eMule. A 2007 30th Anniversary Edition release has been rumoured for June of this year.

Opinions

  • At one point, critics claimed that this film would be the start of a new golden age for Disney animation, however, that was forgotten since it was followed by the critical failures of The Fox and the Hound (1981) and The Black Cauldron (1985). Today, it is known as the last film of the second golden age, which automatically included The Aristocats (1970) and Robin Hood (1973).

Innovations

  • This film marked the beginning of the use of a more refined xerographic process that restored a softer outline look that previously was not possible with the technology, (which so far only had been able to produce black outlines) allowing the use of a medium grey toner and even a purple toner for Miss Bianca's outlines.
  • The first time Disney practiced camera movements over still photographs to make the opening credits, prior to this, the studio had used the cels with the credits motionless over different still backgrounds, sometimes over one single background as was done in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film) (1937).
  • The Rescuers marked one of the first times in a Disney film in which the lead female character is worthy of the title of heroine. Prior to this film, female characters would always require the assistance of a male companion in order to progress. Though Miss Bianca too has a male helper, the duo was significantly more balanced.

See also

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