I had only the foggiest recollection of The Rescuers. I know that I have seen it at some point in my development, but the only thing I could really remember about it was the scene where Madame Medusa rips off her fake eyelashes and removes her makeup. Aside from this, my memories of Bernard and Miss Bianca mostly come from the sequel, The Rescuers Down Under.
Pity that my brain couldn’t remember more about the movie, because it is absolutely charming. If the other Disney film released in 1977, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, resided primarily in tones of gentleness and charm, The Rescuers is all about battered hope and optimism in the face of adversity. Look no further than a scene where orphan girl Penny talks with the orphanage’s pet cat, Rufus. Through tears and cracked voice, Penny tells Rufus that it was adoption day, and she was looked over because she wasn’t as pretty as the redheaded little girl who was chosen. Rufus, compassionate and tender, tells Penny that she is pretty, worthy of love, and will someday find a family. He continues to comfort her by reciting a poem called “Faith is a Bluebird,” and I cried.
It is this continual practice of faith, hope, and connection in front of seemingly insurmountable odds that keeps The Rescuers humming along. The story doesn’t waste a moment on a stray or unnecessary comedic bit, musical interlude, or supporting player. Each step along the journey Bernard and Miss Bianca take towards saving Penny from Madame Medusa is a logical progression. This streamlined structure works wonders, allowing the film to bump over its sloppy animation, yet still finding time to develop a lovable cast of players.
Shame that Madame Medusa isn’t a better villain. Geraldine Page’s vocal work is stellar, and she plays up every droll line or histrionic moment with the relish of a drag queen quoting Mommie Dearest. The scene I mentioned before, where Medusa removes her makeup, is played for grotesque thrills, revealing an even more cracked visage behind her heavily made up one. Yet Medusa feels like warmed over Cruella De Vil, or like the difference between a designer label and a cheap knockoff. No wonder, as De Vil was briefly talked about as reappearing in the major villainess role here, but that was dropped in favor of crafting a new character. Except her major plot isn’t very interesting, she’s kidnapped Penny because she’s small enough to fit into a cave and steal a diamond. That’s it, and it’s not as pleasing as De Vil’s maniacal pursuit of haute couture.
Operating much better are the various heroic figures orbiting and anchoring the film. Bernard and Miss Bianca are the closest that Disney would get to its own variation of Nick and Nora Charles, although only Bianca is really the sophisticate of the pair. Both contain a sense of adventure and deep empathy, while Bernard is the more cerebral and nervous of the pair. Half of their likability and charm is in the animation, which sometimes veers off model or gets overly messy with scores of visible lines clouding the image, and the other half is in the great voice work of Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor. Newhart and Gabor are played towards their established types, yet it still works exceptionally well.
The only major problem I had with the film is the xerography method of animation. The process has clearly improved with this film, as the lines no longer look so heavy or bold which allows for the characters to appear more limbered and animated, strangely enough. A wider range of colors was brought in as well, which helps. From the time the process was brought to the studio it left a strange mark on the various films made with it. Some of them adopted well to the process, but most just looked sloppy and like the animators weren’t committed. The Rescuers has these moments, the alligators frequently display extraneous lines, Medusa occasionally develops strange crosshatching and stray lines while gesticulating, and the sketch-like appearance of a few characters can easily go off-model when they’re not cleaned up. Yet this won’t stop me from recommending it highly.
It must be a truism that Disney does well when it focuses on telling stories with mice. This film did so well, in fact, it provided the opportunity for Disney's first sequel, and the template for the show that would eventually emerge as Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers. This was the Bronze Era's lone major hit, both critically and artistically, and the studio would hit a dry spell that wouldn't alleviate until 1989's The Little Mermaid returned it to prominence. This would be the last film for five of the "Nine Old Men," the rest of whom had either already moved on or were about to. No film since the death of Disney marked such a sea change for the studio, but if any film from this era shows that the studio still had some fight in them up to this point, it's this one.