Five Days 'til the Smackdown

THE SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN OF 1977 is coming. You already met two of our panelists. And here are the other three (including me). 

MEET THE PANELISTS 

Panelist: Sara Black McCulloch
Bio: Sara Black McCulloch is a Toronto-based researcher, translator and writer. She has written for i-D, cleo Journal, Adult, The Hairpin, Gawker, Bitch Magazine and The National Post. You can read more of her work here. 

Question: What does 1977 mean to you? 

1977 seemed to be steeped in so much disillusionment. I think that, like the years that signal the end of a decade but don't quite bookend it, it was...fraught. The year was packed with events that pointed to change and fueled uncertainty. It was the year the U.S. signed the nuclear-proliferation pact and the same year that the U.S. government voted against covering elective abortions through Medicaid. The Apple II computer hit the market and Jimmy Carter warned Americans about their oil consumption. New York City had a blackout. Culturally, things were brewing, or at least clashing with traditions: The Sex Pistols crashed the Silver Jubilee; Saturday Night Fever and a Star Wars sequel were released; hip-hop was just getting started and Roots was sweeping tv ratings. 

So much of the art produced and general sentiment of the U.S. pointed to different internal and external conflicts -- pushing boundaries, but setting up borders; artists, citizens and politicians all wanted to turn a new leaf but they were still anchored to their past. The best way I can summarize 1977: it's like the last 10 seconds of New Year's Eve, but the clock freezes.

Panelist: Mark Harris
Bio: Mark Harris is an editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, and a contributor to New York magazine. He is the author of Pictures at a Revolution (2008) and Five Came Back (2014). He lives in New York City.
[Follow him on Twitter]  

Question: What does 1977 mean to you?

I was in eighth grade and living pretty deeply in the world of television--Happy Days, Good Times, All in the Family, Charlie's Angels, Saturday Night Live. But I do have some movie memories from that year: Seeing Network just before the Oscars and thinking it was one of the greatest movies ever. Seeing Annie Hall and not getting all the jokes but recognizing parts of my New York neighborhood. Seeing ads for Star Wars and thinking, "Ehhh, not really for me." Seeing ads for Saturday Night Fever and thinking, "100% for me." I now get all the jokes in Annie Hall. Everything else still stands.

Panelist & Host: Nathaniel R
Bio: You can read more about me here, but you already know me!
[Follow Nathaniel R on Twitter]

Question: What does 1977 mean to you?

I don't remember much. The only movie I physically remember sitting in the theater for was The Rescuers -- I was really into Evinrude the dragonfly and Medusa's pet alligators.  My most vivid showbiz memories of 1977 are two: making Bionic Woman noises while jumping around the backyard with my best friend and hearing my big sister playing Streisand's "Evergreen (The Theme From A Star is Born)" on the piano a lot.

ARE YOU VOTING ON THE SMACKDOWN, DEAR READER? Get your votes in by Friday early evening. 

The Nominees were...

Leslie Browne, The Turning Point
Quinn Cummings, The Goodbye Girl
Melinda Dillon, Close Encounters
Vanessa Redgrave, Julia
Tuesday Weld, Looking for Mr Goodbar 

Readers are our final panelist for the Smackdown so if you'd like to vote send Nathaniel an email with 1977 in the header line by Friday with your votes. Each performance you've seen should be rated on a scale of 1 to 5 hearts (1 being terrible 5 being stupendous) -- Remember to only vote for performances that you've seen; the votes are weighted to reflect numbers of voters per movies so no actress has an unfair advantage because her movie is popular. 

Twins: Disney Villains x 2

Celebrating twins daily at 2:22 PM while we're in Gemini

Not all twins share the same parents. Though I suppose one could argue that Walt Disney's children are legion.

Case #1

Ursula & Medusa

If Ursula had legs and Medusa could join her crocs in the water, they could practically become a synchronized swim team.

• One wave memorable up-dos offset by dangly earrings
• Drag queen ready make-up
• Explicitly bra-less bouncing boobage and slovenly bodies
• Adores lounging about on seashell like thrones
• Terrible at feigning niceness to young girls
• ...but great at manipulating them into dangerous situations.
• Two reptilian henchmen (Flotsam & Jetsam / Brutus & Nero)

Case #2

Lady Tremaine & Maleficent

• High cheekbones, arched eyebrows, altogether angular gorgon beauty
• Fond of the purple collar
• Really really fussy about Royal Events and who is and is not invited to such things
• Identical Twin voices courtesy of the same actress Eleanor Audley (pictured above)

Case #3... ??? Make it in the comments.

"Who Will Rescue Me?"

I'm lost at sea without a friend
This journey, will it ever end?
Who will rescue me?

So... goes the ballad that opens The Rescuers (1977), as Little Orphan Penny drops her message in a bottle into the swamp. I swear Shelby Flint's vocals dribbled out over the sides of my television like syrup. Who will rescue me from this treacle?!?

It wasn't always this way with The Rescuers and me. In fact, as a child it was one of my favorite movies. (When you voted for it in a poll some time ago, I was excited to revisit it!) As it turns out, sometimes childhood loves are best left in childhood.

Has this ever happened to you with an old formerly beloved movie?

As you can see in the still above, the animation team let the texture of the canvas bleed through and for a few seconds as the movie kicked off I thought "how lovely" (I'm not always so pleased with today's beautiful and shiny but often sterile animated images) but as the movie progressed it turned out not so lovely at all, a mess of inconsistent animation that often looked rushed through production.

For those who need a refresher, The Rescuers is about a girl named Penny who has been "borrowed" from her orphanage by a pawn shop owner named "Medusa" (wicked highly enjoyable voicework from Oscar regular Geraldine Page). Medusa wants a gargantuan diamond called The Devil's Eye which is buried in a cave that Penny is small enough to slip into in a creepy place called Devil's Bayou. Penny's bottled cry for help reaches the Rescue Aid Society, an international organization of ethnically and geographically stereotyped mice who meet in the United Nations building: HIGH CONCEPT!

While the characters are cute enough -- particularly elegant rodent Bianca (Eva Gabor) and a dragonfly named Evinrud -- the primary emotion that The Rescuers seems to be going for is pity. It works but "pity" isn't the most cathartic or endearing emotion to rest a whole movie on. Penny is either too young, too dumb or too helpless to be carrying this picture. The other significant problem is that despite a scant 78 minute running time, there's not enough plot to fill it with. Time and again we have a plot complications that are as thrilling as treading water. The narrative doesn't actually move until the complication is over. Like so:

1. Oh no, the mice are in trouble.
2. Cue frantic activity on or offscreen!
3. Whew, the mice are okay. So...
4. Back to the plot where you left it. Proceed.

And let's not even talk about the excessive amount of time we spent with the albatross Orville [yawn]. He's mere connective tissue to take you from Act 1 (New York) to Act 2 (Devil's Bayou) and last time I checked no intermission between acts ever lasted as long as Orville's fumbling flying routine.

The pictures sole bright spot then is Madame Medusa.

Seeing the movie as an adult, it's shocking to realize that she's nearly a carbon copy of Cruella de Vil: She enters the picture throwing open a door violently; She loses her temper constantly; She drives like a madwoman in vehicles that leave huge puffs of smoke behind them; She has a bumbling human henchman she despises; She has a one track mind (fur/diamonds) and she even has a scene where she slows down her "car" creepily while searching for the hiding protagonist, that immediately brings the famous "soot" scene in 101 Dalmatians to mind. When she's not recalling Cruella she's lifting Miss Hannigan from Annie.

In other words, she's no original.

Disney Generations: Cruela begat Medusa begat Ursula.

But if we needed Medusa as a missing link evolutionary step to get us from Cruella to Ursula than we owe Medusa a bag full of those diamonds she covets. Movie buffs have long noted that Disney has two types of villains: rotund or spindly. Medusa splits the difference, her arms and legs are skinny and her movements scream "bony villain" with their sharp angles, yet her body is saggy and slovenly. You know she's not the slip of a thing that she used to be. In 10 more years, she'll be a big as a house(boat). 

Though I can no longer claim I have any affection for The Rescuers, I still completely dig Medusa and her darling crocodiles Flotsam and Jetsam.... I mean, Nero and Brutus! They're keepers. Or at least placeholders until Ursula, Flotsam & Jetsam arrive 12 years later for The Little Mermaid.

The Rescuers: C
Related Posts: Beauty & The Beast and 101 Dalmatians.