The Rescuers

The Rescuers (1977) grows out of one Disney conceit: a mouse organisation that meets in the basement of the United Nations and answers calls for help from around the world. A note in a bottle arrives from a girl named Penny, and two mice, Bernard and Bianca, go to find her. It was made during what is usually considered Disney's weakest period, the decade after Walt Disney's death, and it was the most successful thing the studio did in those years. What the film is most discussed for now surfaced in 1999. In the scene where Bianca and Bernard fly over New York on a bird's back, a blurred photograph of a topless woman sits in the background. It appears in two non consecutive frames and cannot be seen at normal speed. On 8 January 1999 Disney recalled roughly 3.4 million videotapes, three days after putting them on sale. The company said the images had been inserted during post production and declined to say who had done it. It runs 78 minutes. Good for: seventies hand drawn Disney, short and unhurried children's films, and rescue adventure. Less good for: the animation is coarse and the linework wobbles, a consequence of the budgets of the era. The villain's threat is dark for young children and the pace is far slower than modern children's films.