The Unexpected Smash Hit
The 70s were a period of great change at Walt Disney Productions. After the upheaval of losing both Walt AND Roy within five years, the studio was moving farther and farther away from crafting works of animated artistry and the new regime of executives were steadfast in their determination to produce films as cheaply as possible and get children’s butts in seats by way of simplistic narratives and a lot of slapstick humour. Plus, Disney’s “Nine Old Men” were finally living up to their once ironic moniker and coming to the ends of their respective careers. To further develop the skills in the next generation of animators, Disney decide to alternate between large - scale”A-pictures” crafted by the more experienced animators, and smaller “B - picture” projects used as a training ground for the junior animators. In a miraculous twist of fate, it would be an upcoming B - project that became Disney’s biggest hit in years.
The initial idea of adapting the novel The Rescuers by Margery Sharp into a Disney film began in 1962. Once he secured the film rights, Walt and the story team crafted an initial treatment with Walt eying a possible release date of the mid - 60s. However, it was discovered that the source material contained a lot of political and social undertones, which made Walt unsure that the property was compatible with the studio’s family friendly image. So, the Rescuers was shelved indefinitely.
The senior animators were on the hunt for something the rookies could cut their teeth on. And after the second wave of feminism in the 60s and early 70s, the idea of a Disney film with a female secret agent suddenly became appealing. So thr Rescuers was revived and handed over to the “B - team” to work their wonders.
That young team featured several animators we now know to be legends; including John Musker, Ron Clements, Glen Keane and Andy Gaskill. Musker and Clements would go on to co - direct several upcoming classics, Gaskill would become the art director on a few of those and Keane would be the creator of several main characters from all of them.
This team of young newcomers was led by the great and powerful Don Bluth, who had been at the studio since 1955 as an assistant to Old Man John Lounsberry, the genius responsible for creating the likes of Dumbo, the Cheshire Cat, Lady, the Tramp and Pongo. This would be the first time Don worked as a directing animator. Bluth would leave Disney permanently with eleven other animators in 1979 and form his own rival studio, the content of which I may cover as well at some point.
Simultaneously, while the B - team were working on the Rescuers, the A - team were finishing up Robin Hood and beginning work on an adaptation of the Paul Gallico novel Scruffy, with Ken Anderson leading the production. The novel centred on a group[ of monkeys who face capture by the Nazis during WW2. Astonishingly, when the time came for the studio executives to greenlight one project for full production, the B - team won the toss, forcing Scruffy to be indefinitely shelved.
THE STORY
The Rescue Aid Society, a New York - based group of mice who carry out rescue missions for children in bad situations, recieves a letter in a bottle from a small girl named Penny, who has been kidnapped and imprisoned in the swamplands of Louisiana by an unscrupulous treasure hunter named Madame Medusa, who wants Penny to go down a hole, that apparently only she is small enough to fit through, into an abandoned pirates cave near her riverboat and find a large diamond called the Devil’s Eye.
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The veteran team of Old Men Milt Kahl, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, oversaw the Rescuers as it moved through story and animation development. Initially Bluth and Wolfgang Reitherman wanted to focus the film on Sharp’s most recent novel, Miss Bianca in the Antarctic, in which Miss Bianca ventures down there to rescue an imprisoned polar bear. But veteran Disney writer Frank Lucky felt the landscapes of the Antarctic were too stark for background animation.
Instead, this film became an adaptation of SHarp’s first book of the same name and it’s sequel, Miss Bianca. And its story focused on the rescue of Penny from Medusa, who was based on the Diamond Duchess from Miss Bianca. Initially, the story team considered making Cruella de Vil the antagonist for this movie too, but thankfully ended up feeling like it would be too cheap to simply recycle an existing character. The character design was based on the physical appearance and mannerisms of Kahl’s then - wife, Phyllis Bounds, who was also the niece of Lillian Disney. At the time, as you might have guessed, the couple were reaching a divorce, and Kahl genuinely detested her, hence Medusa’s rather hideous appearance. Plus, this was to be Kahl’s last Disney film, so he wanted the character to be his best ever creation, so he worked relentlessly on her design and refused to allow anyone else to contribute.
Since the birth of the Xerox in 1961, the animators had become more comfortable with the new tech, with the team finally making a new breakthrough with their latest project. The Rescuers would mark the first time the animators were able to craft drawings with medium - grey toners to create softer lines for the characters in the film. It’s the most detailed film in years from Disney, just like the classic aesthetic of old.
MY VERDICT
So, this film was an unprecedented success, the most successful Disney film to date, which is odd, considering the fact that we hear very little about it today. It’s a very simple story in which very little happens in the way of exciting visuals or story points. Having said this, there are only four songs in this film, and they are all memorable, if not exactly great. The animation is incredibly detailed and the voice cast is perfect.
Is The Rescuers A Disney Classic? It was undoubtedly successful at the time, this movie has sadly faded into semi obscurity by comparison to other Disney films. It kept the animation department afloat with it’s incredible animation and memorable songs, but that’s not quite enough reason to call it a Disney Classic.
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