TWO TINY HEROES, ONE BIG ADVENTURE!
When the Rescue Aid Society gathers in New York City, the Hungarian mouse Miss Bianca teams up with a janitor mouse, Bernard, for a rescue operation targeting a kidnapped human girl. The 1970s was not a great decade for Disney when it came to animated films, but this is an exception, a charming adventure that takes us from New York to the Louisiana bayou where the diabolical Madame Medusa is keeping poor Penny captive. She’s a good villain (echoing Cruella de Vil) and the film has a couple of cute sleuths on her trail, as well as fun supporting characters (like an unwieldy albatross) and a fine song score.
1977-U.S. Animated. 76 min. Color. Produced by Wolfgang Reitherman. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, John Lounsbery, Art Stevens. Novels: Margery Sharp. Song: Carol Connors, Ayn Robbins, Sammy Fain (”Someone’s Waiting for You”). Voices of Bob Newhart (Bernard), Eva Gabor (Miss Bianca), Geraldine Page (Madame Medusa), Joe Flynn, Jeanette Nolan, Pat Buttram.
Trivia: Followed by The Rescuers Down Under (1990).
Last word: “I remember the last scene I animated on ‘The Rescuers’. It was the scene at the end of the film where Madame Medusa was in the river riding the alligators. I had animated the water and the river boat smoke stacks as Medusa smacks into them with a splatter of soot. I finished my last drawing at about five o’clock and went upstairs to the Penthouse Club to join the group at a small wrap party, a very small party compared to what the gigantic parties would become in the future. The Penthouse Club was on the top floor of the animation building; there was a bar and restaurant, a barbershop and a gym. It was an all male club, a remnant of Walt’s good old boy’s early days.” (Animator Dorse Lanpher, “Flyin Chunks and Other Things to Duck”)
