The Rescuers

The Rescuers is a 1977 American animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Walt Disney

Productions and first released on June 22, 1977, by Buena Vista Distribution. The 23rd Disney animated feature film, the film is about the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization headquartered in New York City and shadowing the United Nations, dedicated to helping abduction victims around the world at large. Two of these mice, jittery janitor Bernard (Bob Newhart) and his co-agent, the elegant Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor), set out to rescue Penny (Michelle Stacy), an orphan girl being held prisoner in the Devil's Bayou by treasure huntressMadame Medusa (Geraldine Page).

The film is based on a series of books by Margery Sharp, most notably The Rescuers and Miss Bianca. Due to the film's success, a sequel titled The Rescuers Down Under was released in 1990, which made this film the first Disney animated film to have a sequel.

Plot
In an abandoned river boat in Devil's Bayou, a young orphan named Penny drops a message in a bottle, containing a plea for help into the river. The bottle washes up in New York City, where it is found by the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization inside the United Nations. The Hungarian representative, Miss Bianca, volunteers to accept the case and chooses Bernard, a stammering janitor, as her co-agent. The two visit Morningside Orphanage, where Penny lived, and meet an old cat named Rufus. He tells them about a woman named Madame Medusa who once tried to lure Penny into her car and may have succeeded in abducting Penny this time.

The mice travel to Medusa's pawn shop, where they discover that she and her partner, Mr. Snoops, are on a quest to find the world's largest diamond, the Devil's Eye. The mice learn that Medusa and Mr. Snoops are currently at the Devil's Bayou with Penny, whom they have indeed kidnapped and placed under the guard of two trained alligators, Brutus and Nero. With the help of an albatrossnamed Orville and a dragonfly named Evinrude, the mice follow Medusa to the bayou. There, they learn that Medusa plans to force Penny to enter a small hole that leads down into a pirates' cave where the Devil's Eye is located.

Bernard and Miss Bianca find Penny and devise a plan of escape. They send Evinrude to alert the local animals, who loathe Medusa, but Evinrude is delayed when he is forced to take shelter from a flock of bats. The following morning, Medusa and Mr. Snoops send Penny down into the cave to find the gem. Unbeknownst to Medusa, Miss Bianca and Bernard are hiding in Penny's skirt pocket. The three soon find the Devil's Eye within a pirate skull. As Penny pries the mouth open with a sword, the mice push it out from within, but soon the oceanic tide rises and floods the cave. The three barely manage to retrieve the diamond and escape.

Medusa breaks her promise to Snoops that he can have half the diamond, and hides it in Penny's teddy bear while holding Penny and Snoops at gunpoint. When she trips over a cable set as a trap by Bernard and Bianca, Medusa loses the bear to Penny, who runs away with it. The local animals arrive at the riverboat and aid Bernard and Bianca in trapping Brutus and Nero, then set off Snoops's fireworks to create more chaos. Meanwhile, Penny and the mice commandeer Medusa's swamp-mobile, a makeshift airboat. Medusa unsuccessfully pursues them, using Brutus and Nero as water-skis, and is left clinging to the boat's smoke stacks as Snoops escapes on a raft and laughs at Medusa, while the irritated Brutus and Nero turn on her and circle below.

Back in New York, the Rescue Aid Society watch a news report of how Penny found the Devil's Eye, which has been given to the Smithsonian Institution, and how she has been adopted. The meeting is interrupted when Evinrude arrives with a call for help, sending Bernard and Bianca on a new adventure.

With the Voice Talents of

 * Bob Newhart as Bernard
 * Eva Gabor as Miss Bianca
 * and Geraldine Page as Madame Medusa
 * Joe Flynn - Mr. Snoops
 * Jeanette Nolan - Ellie Mae
 * Pat Buttram - Luke
 * Jim Jordan - Orville
 * John McIntire - Rufus
 * Michelle Stacy - Penny
 * Bernard Fox - The Chairman
 * Larry Clemmons - Gramps
 * James MacDonald - Evinrude
 * George Lindsey - Rabbit
 * Bill McMillan - TV Announcer
 * Dub Taylor - Digger
 * John Fiedler - Owl

Uncredited

 * Ruth Buzzi - German Mouse
 * Candy Candido - Brutus, Nero
 * Shelby Flint - Singer
 * Robie Lester - Miss Bianca (singing)
 * Peter Renaday - American Delegate

Music
The songwriting team of Carol Connors and Ayn Robbins first met in 1973 on a double date. Connors had earlier co-composed successful songs such as "To Know Him Is to Love Him" and "Hey Little Cobra" for the Teddy Bears. Meanwhile, Robbins worked as a personal secretary to actors George Kennedy and Eva Gabor and wrote unpublished poetry. On their first collaboration, they composed eleven songs for a Christmas show for an unproduced animated film. In spite of this, they were offered an interview from Walt Disney Productions to compose songs for The Rescuers. Describing their collaborative process, Robbins noted "...Carol plays the piano and I play the pencil."[21] Additionally, Connors and Robbins collaborated with composer Sammy Fain on the song, "Someone's Waiting for You". Most of the songs they wrote for the film were performed by Shelby Flint.[22] Also, notably for the first time since Bambi (1942), all the most significant songs were sung as part of a narrative, as opposed to by the film's characters as in most Disney animated films.