Red Room Where the Writers Are

 

 

 

 

There have been times I’ve wanted to be rescued.  From a bad teacher, from a bad work situation—from life. Usually, I had books and movies to help me escape.  One of the first movies I saw in a theater especially helped me at times, and the title is perfect for this week’s blog: The Rescuers.

My parents made a deal when they split up: Dad would take me to Disney movies. Mom doesn’t have anything against Disney; however, she’s never been a cartoon fan. Dad was the one who took me to see revivals of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. He also took me to Pete’s Dragon, The Great Mouse Detective, and The Rescuers. The Rescuers grabbed me from the first scene: A little girl is on a boat, holding her teddy bear. In the dark night, she drops a bottle in the dark waters below her. I instantly wondered: Who is the little girl? Why did she have to go out in the dark? 

 

The bottle slowly makes its way to New York. Found by mice, it is brought to the Rescue Aid Society, which has its headquarters in the basement of the United Nations. They bring the bottle out, and read the note that says HELP!  IN TERRIBLE TROUBLE! PENNY. Okay, the note is a bit vague. However, they put Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor), the hot-to-trot Hungarian mouse on the case. She has to have someone go with her, and she chooses the janitor Bernard (Bob Newhart) a likable schlep of a mouse.

 

When I watched it that first time, I noticed was a couple of things: I loved how Miss Bianca dressed.  Always spotting a pillbox hat, Miss Bianca wore long, fashionable coats and scarves, and she always had on hand an old fashioned perfume bottle. She wasn’t scared of walking in the dark, and she and Bernard figured out things as a team; he telling her what to do, nor did she tell him.

 

They go to Morningside Orphanage (Penny mentioned in the note she lived there), and they meet a cat named Rufus.Rufus says that Penny got discouraged because she felt she would never get adopted. He gave her a pep talk; however, she “ran away” although Rufus remembers a scary woman who tried to get Penny in her car one day but Penny ran away from her.  Bernard and Bianca figure it out: This scary woman is the one to find.

 

They troop over to Medusa’s Pawn Shop, where Medusa (Geraldine Page) is yelling at someone and says she is going to Devil’s Island on her own.  Forget Cinderella’s stepmother, forget MAN in Bambi—Medusa frightened me.  She was real.  She didn’t have wicked powers and she couldn’t make people go to sleep for years, but Medusa was one scary, awful woman who could easily exist in my world.

Helped by a bird named Orville, Bernard and Bianca go to Devil’s Island and find out what’s going on. Medusa and her colleague Snoops (Joe Flynn in his last role) kidnapped Penny to go down in a cave and find the Devil’s Eye diamond. Penny was chosen because of her small size.  After Medusa tells Penny that no one in their right mind would adopt her, Penny trudges to her room, discouraged. It is then that Bernard and Bianca make their presence known.  Delighted that someone found her note, Penny asks them who else was with them: the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines? Bianca tells her it’s just her and Bernard. Now Penny is bummed. I can’t say I blamed her; she throws out the bottle, and maybe she is hoping Wonder Woman or Steve McQueen can come get her. However, Miss Bianca tells her that no, it’s just them.  Penny is definitely bummed.  All she gets is mice?  Cute mice, but mice?  However, Miss Bianca reassures Penny, telling her that just because they are small, it doesn’t mean they won’t try their best to get the job done. Yes, I’m tearing up. If you guessed that Bernard and Miss Bianca save the day (with help from Evenrude the dragonfly and other swamp mice), you’re right!

 

Needless to say, I loved The Rescuers. I got the tape/storybook version where I would read it over and over again. It was the first soundtrack album I ever received. I played the songs over and over again: “R—e-s-c-u-e! Rescue Aid Society! Side by side heads held high…”  Another favorite was “Someone’s Waiting For You” which was nominated for Best Song in 1977. The lyrics gave me hope at times: Be brave little one./Make a wish for each sad little tear/Hold your head up though no one is near
Someone's waiting for you. At times when things felt scary; school, my grandmother’s illness and death, the song gave me hope.

I went to both revivals of The Rescuers in the 1980s. 1983 I saw it again and I wondered if it was true, that someone could be rescued and saved. I was promoted to sixth grade, but I was a mess because of my bad teacher. I couldn’t tell my mother that my teacher embarrassed me every day over my inability to do math, how I was “pretending” to have bad handwriting, how she pushed my friend down on the floor for asking to go to the bathroom, and how, while every student in class got shiny new desks, I was stuck with an old one that was about thirty years old. She was my Medusa; however, with Medusa you knew she was in Crazy-Evil Town. My teacher was a nun. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.

I was never able to tell my mother the whole story until years later. She knew something was up because I was making myself throw up in the mornings and putting a thermometer on a light bulb so it looked like I had a fever.  She took me out of Catholic School and I repeated fifth grade at my cousin’s school. I was rescued—intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. My mother became Miss Bianca, the small mouse who could save a little girl.

In 1989 I was seventeen and saw The Rescuers again. I have to laugh when I think about it now; I was seventeen, wearing my jeans and China flats, my hair long and Lord of the Flies in my backpack.  Along with a few kids and their mothers, I sang along with the soundtrack and smiled, amazed how time could pass when I wasn’t looking.

Three years ago I tried to get my niece to watch the movie. She dismissed it as being “too scary.” I’ll try again soon. In the toy chest I keep for my niece and nephew, I have an old picture book of The Rescuers I bought for fifty cents at a book sale. It’s theirs if they want to read it.

There was a sequel to The Rescuers, and there’s been talk about another sequel, this time with Penny running away from her adoptive family and going on Broadway. I don’t know if I’ll ever see the previous sequel or this new one. I like how the original ended, with Penny hugging her adoptive parents. I keep the image in my memory, along with Bernard and Miss Bianca, flying in the periwinkle sky, ready for another rescue.