Medusa is easily the most criminally underrated of Disney's villains! She manages to be detestably vile, and at the same time, deliciously comedic, thanks to Geraldine Page's delightfully hammy vocal performance, coupled with the vibrant animation by Milt Kahl. He went out with a bang on his last assignment!
Yes, even her theme is ominous and sinister more than any other Disney Villain. If Cruella was heartless towards animals then Madam Medusa is pure evil and diabolical towards children. Her wickedness knows no bounds.
I read in a book about all the Disney characters that the phone in the scene when Medusa hangs up and begins to pack for the trip represents Snoops. When Medusa says she will catch a plane to Devil's Bayou, she is poking the receiver. If it were Snoops, the finger would have poked him in the chest or in the eye. When Medusa shakes the phone, she is either strangling Snoops or shaking him. Hanging up the phone is a resounding slap across his face.
When I was studying animation, we were shown this clip, as an example of a masterclass in animation and acting. It's jaw-droppingly brilliant. Madame Medusa is so over-the-top, you get a great sense of who she is through her acting and animation.
I would recommend an animation class studying the Disney short Peter and the Wolf and the sequence from Peter Pan in which Mr. Darling trips on Nana and goes rolling around the nursery and winds up with toys all over him.
Geraldine Page's voice work here, as Madame Medusa, has a musical quality to it, with rhythm and pitch. When she seethes, then loses her temper completely, it is like a spoken-word performance of poetry ("You caught Penny... sending messages... in BOTTLES?! YOU BLUNDERING FOOL, CAN'T YOU... CONTROL A... LITTLE... GIRL?!"). No cursing, just the power of tone, tempo, and words to make you feel, not just hear, her rage. Mix that with the visual of those haunting green eyes, and it leaves you with chills. This movie has been a big part of my life since I was too young to remember, and Medusa is basically my introduction to Disney villains. You never forget your first one.
It pairs incredibly well with the music of this movie which is some of the most incredibly haunting and foreboding of any Disney movie- there was a palpable sense of danger throughout the entire movie - and ESPECIALLY the whole scene in the cave. My god the entire time you watch that it is absolutely harrowing. A brilliant choice to have the greatest danger be not the fantastic villain, her alligator minions, not even the dark depths of a flooded pirate cave itself... but a hole... a bottomless black pit in the deepest recesses of the cave that unpredictably vomits up a flash flood that will drag you into its depths Talk about a perfectly unholy trigger for a child's imagination.
Geraldine Page won 2 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama - Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory for playing Woman, Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - The Thanksgiving Visitor for playing Miss Sook and an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role - The Trip to Bountiful for playing Mrs. Watts.
@@WillScarlet16 Don Bluth is hardly a reputable source on these matters. He's bitter that his name is associated with some of the most grotesque pieces of big-budget animation ever put out there. He was a talented animator when following someone else's lead. As a director... yikes.
@@1987AnimeBoy Not all, though I can't think of one that is actually good. "A Troll in Central Park," "Anastasia" and specially "Thumbelina" are embarrassingly dreadful - he even tried to blame the negative responses on a general bias against non-Disney releases... the weak characters, the horrendous character designs, stuffy environments, etc. had nothing to do with it. I hate to say it, also, but his animation directing in "The Rescuers" is without a doubt that film's weakest link. The heliport scene just sticks out like a sore thumb for lacking aesthetic, clumsy pacing, half-baked backgrounds... It shows that the artists working under his guidance were not inspired by his proposals. Hard to believe there's a poster for colorful Hawaii inside the Albatross Air Servives cabin, for it blends into the rest of the background, without so much as color. Don Bluth served better as a follower, not a leader. He just doesn't grasp visual appeal and aesthetics.
Wolfgang Reitherman stated: "I took Margery Sharp's books along and there was in there a mean woman in a crystal palace. When I got back I called some of the guys together and I said, 'We've got to get a villain in this thing.'" The villainess and her motive to steal a diamond was adapted from the Diamond Duchess in Miss Bianca. The setting was then changed to the bayous found in the Southern United States. By August 1973, the villainess was named the Grand Duchess with Phyllis Diller cast in the role. A month later, conceptual artist Ken Anderson began depicting Cruella de Vil, the villainess from One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), as the main antagonist of the film. Anderson had drawn several sketches of Cruella de Vil sporting alligator-leathered chic attire and sunglasses; one sketch depicted her wearing bell-bottom pants and platform shoes. However, several staff members such as animator Ollie Johnston stated it felt wrong to attempt a sequel for the character. Furthermore, Mattinson explained that Milt Kahl did not want to animate Cruella de Vil. "Milt, of course, was very strong against that, 'Oh, no no. We're gonna have a new character. I'm not gonna do Cruella'," Mattinson recalled, "Because he felt that Marc [Davis had animated] Cruella beautifully. He was not gonna go and take his character." The new version of the character was renamed Madame Medusa, and her appearance was based on Kahl's then-wife, Phyllis Bounds (who was the niece of Lillian Disney), whom he divorced in 1978 This was Kahl's last film for the studio, and he wanted his final character to be his best. He was so insistent on perfecting Madame Medusa that he ended up doing almost all the animation for the character himself.
this is a criminally underrated Disney movie and Medusa is a criminally underrated Disney villain!!! She is my favorite female Disney villain of all-time!!!
You know I am at the moment rewatching the old Disney classics after many years. And I must say, this one is the darkest/most depressing one of them all! I do really like it but its totally different from the rest somehow. Also probably because the way everything looks, dirty, drab, rainy, old decrepit buildings etc. This one hits different, its not cheery at all
@@emafuchsova1649she was supposed to be Cruella De vil but it got changed Fun fact The German voice actor Gisela Reißmann voiced Cruella De vil Madame Medusa and Ursula
I like how her shop has shotguns in a corner and the NRA sticker at the counter. No wonder she's quite formidable with her shotgun despite missing to hit Bernard and Bianca.
Medusa is just an amazing villain. As a child she was more scary than Ursula, but as a 38 year old I think its just the best animation and Page's voice work is fantastic!
Imagine you’re watching this scene while pretending that you’re sneaking into the pawn shop like Bernard and Bianca, and when you hear the phone ring, you hide anywhere in the room and stay hidden during the phone call while waiting for Madame Medusa to leave.
Some sources haves pointed to how the calendar says Thursday the 12th. Then at the end of the movie, it is Friday January 13th when Penny gets adopted and Bernard and Bianca go off on their next mission. This must mean the film takes place from May 11th to May 15th 1966. Then the Epilogue takes place on January 13th, 1967. I think that makes sense because Penny couldn't have gotten adopted immediately after returning. The process would have taken a while.
Medusa: "Oh! Why won't this stupid thing CLOSE?!" I'd tell her, "Maybe it would if you folded the clothes first." But I guess she'd respond with, "Oh, shut up!"
Me: Madame Medusa, that temper of yours is going to get you into a lot of trouble someday! Madame Medusa: TEMPER?! TEMPER?! BOY, YOU AIN'T SEEN MY TEMPER!!! If I ever catch that little brat escaping Devil's Bayou again, I'll blast her! And next time, I won't miss!
Did y’all know that there were almost *10* writers for the script on this film? *9* to be exact, I believe. When there are that many writers for a single script, the film *usually* turns out to be _terrible._ The Rescuers, above a few others, are an exception. _(I personally think)_ However, I *still* have yet to learn of another film that has as many screenwriters as The Rescuers.
@@ryangomez2093there no way the plane would make it to Devi's Bayou, she would fly from JFK to New Orleans and take the bus closer to Devil's Bayou. or or take the cab from New Orlean airport to the river where she might have hide here rocketjet ski.
It was a pawn shop. So it's not surprising school books would be there. People donate books of all kinds constantly to thrift and pawn shops. Medusa could have told the police it was a donated book.
@@emily7103 Not to mention that the police were not on their trail. Penny was an unwanted/unclaimed orphan -the reason Madame Medusa abducted her-, who was believed to have run away from the orphanage, not kidnapped. Without funding, pressure or interest, the police had abandoned the search. It's pretty heart-wrenching when you think about it.
False. Ken Anderson used Cruella de Vil as a stand-in character for his concept art sketches before an actual villain was developed for the film. The idea of re-using Cruella was unanimously dismissed from the start, though Anderson grew to like the idea.
@@samperry5383 That's a common untruth. Cruella was never actually going to be re-used; she was simply used as a stand-in in early concept art because Madame Medusa had not been developed as a character yet.
Cruella de Vil and Madame Medusa look... nothing alike? Madame Medusa does in fact look identical to the "beautiful, lovely and fair" version of Mad Madame Mim, who was also animated by Milt Kahl. Based on that, we can assume that Madame Medusa is Khal's idea of mature female beauty.
For as long as I remember,iv always wondered if Snoops made the phone call to medusas pawnshop from the riverboat or from some local place near the riverboat because I seriously doubt that devils bayou has good reception.
Imagine how many plots of old movies would be over in minutes with the advent of cell phones? X3 I grew up in the 90s when payphones were still a thing. It made the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere actually f e e l isolated. :3
Since Medusa says who could be calling at this time of night, does she live over the shop? if so, how would she hear the phone even back then? It's 1979 so there is no cell phone but answering machines DID exist and given how inflated her prices were, I'm sure she could have afforded it.
@William Harding The folks at Disney had odd conceptions about mice's tails. One would never frizzle up like that, and they certainly wouldn't get tied up in knots, as seen in "Cinderella."
Hey, if she has a hold of a Ti-99/4A computer, she could send an audio cassette in a waterproof container hoping someone would run the program she made.
came here from a short apparently Medusa was revenge. The main animator or an animator drew inspiration from his ex wife to show the world how he saw her. though as I care not to research if this is true or not I find it funny
On 1:57-2:02, about whichever bottle or 2 Penny, the little orphan girl, gives a message(s) to whoever receives it, do you think Mr. Snoops, Madam Medusa's henchman, was drinking whatever that was in there and is probably drunk? (🤪+🍾)or(🥴+🍾) (😟+🍾+📃+🐁)
Madame Medusa is very much like Cruella Deville 1.Both serve as the main antagonist of their films,Cruella Deville:101 Dalmatians Madame Medusa:The rescuers 2.Both are murderous 3.Both are ugly women 4.Both have absolutely Terrifying road rage/Both drive recklessly 5.Both have bad tempers 6.Both live in a popular busy city,Cruella Deville:London Madame Medusa:New York city 7.Both have red cars 8.Both have old fashioned telephones 9.Both appear to Extremely Rich 10.Both appear to hate a certain animal,Cruella Deville:Dogs Madame Medusa:Mice 11.Both have unintelligent henchmen who fail them ,Cruella Deville:Horace and Jasper Madame Medusa:Snoops 12.Both kidnap to achieve their goals,Cruella Deville:Puppies Madame Medusa:A little girl 13.Both are seen to yell and verbally abuse their henchmen in anger through the phone 14.Both kidnap and hurt the innocent in order to achieve one thing,Cruella Deville:A fur coat Madame Medusa:A magnificent diamond 15.Both have a run down secret hideout,Cruella Deville:Her mansion aka hell hall Madame Medusa:A magnificent riverboat in a swamp 16.Both get outsmarted and outwitted by animals in the end 17.Both are Slender 18.Both are devil women 19.Both break down crying after they realized they forever lost what they wanted 20.Both are Terrifying
Neither Madame Medusa nor Cruella de Vil are ugly women. And simply because Mr. Snoops's heart isn't entirely in the evil scheme doesn't mean he's unintelligent. He is every bit as greedy as Madame, but evil isn't part of his personality, so he comes off as inept. Jasper is also not unintelligent; he's clearly the brains of the duo, and Horace follows along because he doesn't actually agree with the scheme, either. Actually the similarities between Madame Medusa and Ursula and Jafar are better, and more fun to spot.
@@alexanderip1003 I doubt Brutus and Nero would have eaten her. She behaves badly to them at the end, but not enough to warrant death at their claws. Madame Medusa and Mr. Snoops both lived to settle their affairs without bothering anyone.
