Impressions: The Rescuers (1977)
A longer version is available at https://notalisonblog.com/reflections-the-rescuers-1977/.
The Rescuers was one of those Disney movies I was ready to see over and over during my childhood. I liked the mice, the albatross, and, even more, the dragonfly and alligators—but what really captured my interest was the skull.
Human skulls were not common in children’s entertainment in those days (late 1970s, early 80s). The skull was realistic enough to be creepy and make me feel like squirming, and then it had a jewel in its eye socket! Invisible shivers.
The Rescuers has no spectacular catchy music; “Rescue Aid So-ci-e-ty” is likable, but not amazing, and that’s the only tune that tends to stay with me. And yet the other songs are quite nice, just gentle (or sad), like slightly more hopeful Carpenters songs.
I was an adult before I understood the movie was based on a series of books, and it wasn’t until a year ago that I read the first two. The things I remember most are:
1. There are vast differences between the movie and the books.
2. The second book (Miss Bianca) includes crazy wind-up robot maids that are utterly unrealistic even today.
3. The first book ended so conclusively there could not be a continuation featuring these two mice, and yet there was, and the resolution of the first one was conveniently forgotten.
Disney sort of took the Bianca-and-Bernard-meet-and-get-to-know-each-other material from book one, transformed and transplanted the captive-girl-and-rich-crazy-woman aspects of book two, then added in their own plot (possibly with other elements lifted from later books I didn’t read). Basically, don’t expect to find the movie story in one of the Margery Sharp books.
Although the artwork is much more polished and finished than what you see in The Aristocats, this movie too has some of that sketch-like style created by leaving some working lines unerased and visible under the colors. It’s mostly seen around the outer edges of a character, particularly when someone is moving quickly.
In Madame Medusa’s pawn shop, she has an NRA badge hanging on the bars protecting the cashier’s window. Boy does she live up to it.
Decades later, I still enjoy The Rescuers a lot.
