Cartoon Vault: The Rescuers

My last vault entry was somewhat terrible thanks to the crappy nature of the Return to Oz film so lets restore some faith with a bit of Disney magic with the Rescuers.

In a Bayou where an abandoned river boat lies, a young girl drops a message in a bottle, the opening scene plays out to dramatic music and water color painting of the bottle's journey all the way to New York where mice retrieve the bottle and send it to the Rescue Aid Society, a group of mice who help out in international kidnapping cases all discussed and delegated in the United Nations building. The focus is on Miss Bianca, a delegate from Hungary whose passion for her job envokes her to take on the assignment regarding the kidnapped little girl Penny. During the meeting the Janitor named Bernard, makes the suggestion that Bianca takes a co-agent but the naturally superstitious mouse is shocked when Miss Bianca picks him, not knowing that Bianca is smitten with him.
Upon investigating the kidnapping by questioning Rufus the cat at the orphanage, they are led to the main villain and the main plot. Medusa, a pawn shop owner is searching for a rare jewel known as the Devil's Eye and needs Penny to retrieve it from a catacomb only she can fit down but problems back in the Bayou with Medusa's associate Snoops unable to keep Penny in line forces her to travel to the Devil's Bayou herself to get her back using her pet crocodiles Brutus and Nero and again attempt to force her down into the Catacomb, meanwhile Bernard and Bianca travel by Albatross to the Bayou and with assistance from the locals, attempt to free Penny from Medusa's clutches.
This is one of the first Disney Films I ever watched as a child so it holds a lot of nostalgic memories for me.
But its by no means Disney's best, lets start with what I didn't like.
The big flaw of Rescuers in general is Penny, the writers can't decide whether or not she's supposed to be Prewcious, (Not a typo that is sarcasm) or female Kevin McCallister from Home Alone, what I mean is, she gets really upset in some scenes and who wouldn't be, your surrounded by crocs and the villain has no qualms about holding you at gunpoint with a shotgun, but then in other scenes is acting all resourceful and knows exactly how to plan her own escape.
There's also the infamous naked woman frame which baffles me how it even managed to get into the final cut, it's one of those uncomfortable Easter Eggs you wish you didn't find and finally they needed a voice for Evinrude, he's a fine enough character but the noise he makes is dreadful, it's like someone crossed Pokemon language with a Motorboat.
Now onto what I liked, the art is beautiful, the action has great suspense well backed up by the gloriously murky Devil's Bayou, also helped by the fact that Medusa is wonderfully psychotic in her portrayal and I love the music, but the best thing about the Rescuers is the chemistry between Bernard and Bianca, their romance is hinted at and done in a subtle enough way to allow the viewers to draw their own conclusions, this is well backed up by one of Disney's most romantic moments in the song sequence "Tomorrow is another day" which today has a more special meaning to me than it did when I first watched it.

Goodnight everyone

End