The Rescuers

Country: United States

Language: English

Release Date June 22, 1977

Runtime 77 Minutes

Rating G

## Plot

n an abandoned riverboat in Devil's Bayou, Louisiana, a young orphan named Penny drops a message in a bottle, containing a plea for help, into the river. The Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization inside the United Nations, finds the bottle when it washes up in New York City. The Hungarian representative, Miss Bianca, volunteers to accept the case. She 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, prompting the mice to investigate her pawn shop for clues.

At the pawn shop, Bianca and Bernard discover that Medusa and her partner, Mr. Snoops, are searching for the world's largest diamond, the Devil's Eye. The mice learn that Medusa and Snoops are currently at the Devil's Bayou with Penny, whom they have kidnapped and placed under the guard of two trained crocodiles, Brutus and Nero. With the help of an albatross named 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 blowhole that leads down into a blocked-off pirates' cave where the Devil's Eye is located.

Bernard and 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 cloud of bats. The following morning, Medusa and Snoops send Penny down into the cave to find the gem. Unbeknownst to Medusa, Bianca and Bernard are hiding in Penny's dress 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 the gem through it, but soon the oceanic tide rises and floods the cave. The three barely manage to escape with the diamond.

Medusa betrays Snoops and hides the diamond 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 and the diamond to Penny, who runs away with them. The local animals arrive at the riverboat and aid Bernard and Bianca in trapping Brutus and Nero, then set off Mr. 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. As the riverboat sinks from the fireworks' damage, Medusa crashes and is left clinging to the boat's smoke stacks. Mr. Snoops escapes on a raft and laughs at her, while the irritated Brutus and Nero turn on her and circle below.

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

## Cast:

* Bob Newhart as Bernard, Rescue Aid Society's timid janitor, who reluctantly tags along with \*Miss Bianca on her journey to the Devil's Bayou to rescue Penny. He is highly superstitious about the number 13 and dislikes flying (the latter being a personality trait of Newhart).
* Eva Gabor as Miss Bianca, the Hungarian representative of the Rescue Aid Society. She is sophisticated and adventurous, and fond of Bernard, choosing him as her co-agent as she sets out to rescue Penny. Her Hungarian nationality was derived from that of her voice actress.
* Geraldine Page as Madame Medusa, a greedy, redheaded, wicked pawn-shop owner. Upon discovering the Devil's Eye diamond hidden in a blowhole, she kidnaps the small orphan, Penny, to retrieve it for her, as Penny is the only one small enough to fit in it. She has two pet crocodiles, who turn on her after she is thwarted by Bernard, Bianca, and Penny.
* Joe Flynn as Mr. Snoops, Medusa's clumsy and incompetent business partner, who obeys his boss's orders to steal the Devil's Eye in exchange for half of it. Upon being betrayed by Medusa, however, he turns on her and flees by raft, laughing at her. This was Flynn's final role, with the film being released after his death in 1974.
* Jeanette Nolan as Ellie Mae and Pat Buttram as Luke, two muskrats who reside in a Southern-style home on a patch of land in Devil's Bayou. Luke drinks very strong, homemade liquor, which is used to help Bernard and Evinrude regain energy when they need it. Its most important usage is for fuel for powering Medusa's swamp-mobile in the film's climax.
* Jim Jordan as Orville (named after Orville Wright of the Wright brothers, the inventors of the airplane; most likely influenced from Bob Newhart's stand-up sketch "Merchandising the Wright Brothers"), an albatross who gives Bernard and Bianca a ride to Devil's Bayou. Jordan, 80 years old by the time the film was completed, had been lured out of retirement and had not performed since the death of his wife and comic partner Marian in 1961; it would serve as Jordan's last public performance.
* John McIntire as Rufus, an elderly cat who resides at Morningside Orphanage and comforts Penny when she is sad. Although his time onscreen is rather brief, he provides the film's most important theme, faith. He was designed by animator Ollie Johnston, who retired after the film following a 40-year career with Disney.
* Michelle Stacy as Penny, a lonely six-year-old orphan girl, residing at Morningside Orphanage in New York City. She is kidnapped by Medusa in an attempt to retrieve the world's largest diamond, the Devil's Eye.
* Bernard Fox as Mr. Chairman, the chairman to the Rescue Aid Society.
* Larry Clemmons as Gramps, a grumpy, yet kind old turtle who carries a brown cane.
* James MacDonald as Evinrude (named after a brand of outboard motors), a dragonfly who mans a leaf boat across Devil's Bayou, giving Bernard and Miss Bianca a ride across the swamp waters.
* George Lindsey as Deadeye, a fisher rabbit who is one of Luke and Ellie Mae's friends.
* Bill McMillian as TV Announcer
* Dub Taylor as Digger, a mole.
* John Fiedler as Deacon Owl