Disney. No one name holds as much power over business and the world of Animation as much as Walter Elias Disney. Whether it was making the first animated motion picture in the English world, further revolutionizing the field of animation, or making one of the most powerful media companies in the world, Disney managed to become a titan of industry and media. Nowadays, we joke about the House of Mouse and its’ lasting impact in today’s world…but without Disney, much of the animated world today…well…wouldn’t be.
The Rescuers: A Costly Success in the Bronze age.
Believe it or not, Rescuers was taken up by Walt Disney in 1963. The movie, based on the first two books of the series by Margery Sharp, was shelved for a while because Walt didn’t like the political overtones of the project. In 1970, the movie was unshelved and taken up by the senior animation staff (even though it was supposed to be for the junior animation staff). It would end up being the most successful film of the bronze age…at a pretty big cost. Namely, this movie was the movie that made Don Bluth lose faith in Disney and lead a mass exodus of animators to a new studio to provide a better place to make the movies they wanted to make. It didn’t help that two of the senior animators, Frank Thomas and Milt Kahl, had creative differences throughout the film. That said, the success this film had allowed them to make a true Disney sequel in the 90s (The Rescuers Down Under, one of two true Disney sequels that would be covered here).
The Plot: In an abandoned riverboat in the Devil’s bayou, a young orphan named Penny drops a message in a bottle requesting help into a river. It washes up in New York where it is found by the Rescue Aid Society, a society of mice that wish to help people throughout the world (Kind of like a mouse version of the United Nations. It’s even in their headquarters!). The Hungarian representative, Bianca, volunteers for the assignment despite the leader’s insistence that she shouldn’t because she’s a woman (definitely a product of the times, that one). She chooses the janitor of the place, Bernard, despite the fact that he isn’t a real member and they head to the orphanage described in the letter.
There, they meet the cat of the Orphanage, Rufus, who helps them out because the police have nowhere else to turn (and being that this is a universe where animals can talk, they don’t or can’t understand them). Rufus points them to Madame Medusa’s pawn shop where they find out that she’s the one who kidnapped Penny, and her partner, Mr. Snoops is keeping Penny at the Bayou so they can find the world’s largest diamond, the Devil’s eye. With that knowledge, Bernard and Bianca enlist the help of an Albatross named Orville (during the flight, eagle eyed viewers might be able to find something that wasn’t supposed to have been put in the picture…a picture of a topless woman. Why that’s there, only some of the animators would know), and when they arrive, they enlist the help of a dragonfly named Evinrude.
When they finally meet up with Penny, they find out that Medusa and Snoops are trying to force Penny into a small cove that holds the Devil’s eye…a cove only she is big enough to enter. While outwitting the two crocodiles (despite being labeled as Alligators, they have more similarities to crocodiles with coloring and jaw structure), Brutus and Nero, Bianca and Bernard send for help from the rest of the animals in the area…with their messenger, Evinrude being slightly delayed after running into a swarm of bats. The next morning, Penny, and the two mice are lowered into the cove and find the diamond as the cove fills with water (how this happens when bayous don’t have any tides is beyond us). After successfully bringing it out, Madame Medusa betrays Penny and Mr. Snoops and puts the diamond in Penny’s Teddy bear. Medusa ends up springing the trap set by Bianca and Bernard and they take back the bear, commandeer Medusa’s swampmobile she used to navigate the bayou, and sink the riverboat with Snoops’ supply of fireworks. Medusa ends up clinging for life on the riverboat after trying to use Brutus and Nero as waterskis, earning their ire. With all this, the Devil’s eye is turned into the Smithsonian and Penny is adopted, with Bernard and Bianca headed out to another case.
If Madame Medusa seems quite similar to Cruella de Ville to anyone…well, that’s because she’s supposed to be. Originally, the villain was going to be Cruella, however Disney had a pretty strict “no sequel policy” so that idea got axed. Milt Kahl still saw it as an opportunity to outdo Marc Davis’ animation on Cruella de Ville. He actually based Medusa after an ex-wife he hated. Geraldine Paige managed to do all her lines for her in one take!
They had also originally planned for Louis Prima to have a major role in this movie, which shifted many times until they had to cut it. Poor Louis Prima lapsed into a coma by the time they agreed on the role, so they had no choice but to cut his part, and the song he recorded for it (Peoplitis). This was also the last film that Joe Flynn was a part of. He died 3 years before the film was completed (poor guy drowned), but they had enough of his part that they could finish the film. Penny would also have been put into another movie (Oliver and Company) until her character was redesigned at the last moment.
With this success for Disney, many mark this movie as the end of the bronze age and the next one, Fox and the Hound, as the beginning of the dark age, especially because this was the first success the studio had without Walt himself…and it sure showed. Many films would try to emulate the tone of this…and didn’t quite hit the mark.
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