THE RESCUERS
US, 1977, 78 minutes, Colour.
Voices of: Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, Geraldine Page, Joe Flynn, Jeanette Nolan, Pat Buttram, John Mc Intire, Michelle Stacy.
Directed by John Lounsbery and Wolfgang Reitherman.
The Rescuers is based on a popular novel by Margery Sharp who also wrote another book, Miss Bianca, which was the basis of the 1990 Disney film sequel, The Rescuers Down Under. Margery Sharp had also written stories for a number of interesting films including Cluny Brown, Julia Misbehaves, Britannia Mews and The Notorious Landlady.
The film was co-directed by John Lounsbery and Wolfgang Reitherman. Reitherman had worked in the animation department for Disney Studios for many years and directed a number of films in the 1960s including 101 Dalmatians, Sword in the Stone as well as Robin Hood and The Aristocats.
The film focuses on two mice who belong to the Rescue Aid Society and receive a message in a bottle from a little girl who has been kidnapped by treasure hunters and in the power of Madame Medusa. They fly on the back of the albatross, Orville, and get help from the locals to rescue the little girl. Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor are Bernard and Bianca. Geraldine Page is the voice of the sinister Madame Medusa. Michelle Stacy is the voice of the little girl who has to be rescued.
This was a very popular Disney film – and remains so.
1. The quality of Disney animation? The appeal of Disney films, content, style? For what age audience?
2. The importance of the ingredients of the plot, humorous treatment, the visuals of the animation, the music, the characterisation of the voices?
3. Audience enjoyment of the plot because of the hero and heroine being mice, small, doing human heroic things?
4. The tone from the credits sequence and Penny needing rescuing, the bottle, the song, the mice finding the bottle?
5. The humour and gentle parody of the presentation of the United Nations, the mice with their own rescue society? The personalities and nationalities, the conduct of the meeting, the observations made, the song about the Rescue Aid
Society?
6. Bernard and his presence as the janitor, the bumbling hero, his clumsiness, yet his niceness? Miss Blanca as the Hungarian representative, style, femininity? The strength of the characterisations of the personalities? Hero and heroine, romance? Their going on the quest together? The humour of their being frightened in the zoo?
7. The humour in the visit to the orphanage, the encounter with Rufus, the flashback to Penny's story? The introduction of Medusa?
8. The humour of Orville and the parody of the helicopter, the plane, the air service and the take-off etc.? The characterisation of Orville?
9. The characterisation of Ellie Mae and the hillbilly types, the mosquito and his driving the leaf as a speedboat etc*? The moonshine and the effect that it had? The later rallying of the swamp folk for rescuing Penny?
10. How successful a villainess was Medusa? The scenes in New York, the driving of the car, her arrival, her boat over the swamps? Her treatment of her assistant, of the crocodiles? Her personality, visual presentation, cruelty? A witch? Her greed?
11. The contrast with Penny as heroine? Orphan, plain, her strength of mind, her escaping and being brought back, her searching for the jewel, her Teddy Bear, her hopes?
12. How well were the dangers presented, the nature of the quest, Bernard and Miss Blanca and their encounter with the crocodiles, all the dangers in the house, in the water, down the mine?
13. The search for the jewel, its discovery? The effect on Medusa, on her assistant? Thieves falling out?
14. The dramatics of the escape, the plan? The bats chasing the mosquito? The crocodiles? Driving the boat?
15. The happy ending, the success of the mission, Bernard and Miss Bianca together, Penny on television?
16. How successful was the light touch? The fantasy ingredients and audience identification because of the modern settings?
