The Radical Child

Based on a book series by Margery Sharp, The Rescuers opens with an orphan girl, a captive of Madame Medusa in a derelict riverboat in Devil’s Bayou, Louisiana, who drops a message in a bottle into the water that miraculously finds its way to the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse-populated offshoot of the United Nations, in New York City. The organization’s Hungarian ambassador, Miss Bianca, voiced by Eva Gabor (in her second animated film role after the feline Duchess in The Aristocats), recruits janitor Bernard, voiced by Bob Newhart, to first investigate Medusa’s NYC pawn shop, afterward taking an albatross to the bayou to rescue Penny, whom her kidnapper wishes to use to find a valuable diamond called the Devil’s Eye.

Overall, this is one of my less-favorite Disney films. Walt Disney had initially refused its production due to being “too political." However, aside from the appearance of the United Nations and its rodent nonunion equivalent, I thought that was BS since the film doesn’t take shots at any specific individual or group or have a ham-fisted message. Most of Shelby Flint’s music, with a few exceptions, is decent, but the Rescue Aid Society’s theme comes across as campy. One could say the same of most of the voice performances, but Gabor’s performance as Miss Bianca was the capstone of the voicework. The Mouse Scouts were cute, but the animation, acting, and music date it to the 1970s, and I’ve seen better from the studio.