Yahoo Web Search

Search results

  1. The Thief and the Cobbler is an animated fantasy film co-written and directed by Richard Williams, [4] who intended it to be his masterpiece and a milestone in the animated medium. Originally devised in the 1960s, the film was in and out of production for nearly three decades due to independent funding and ambitiously complex animation.

    • Production History
    • Releases
    • Arabian Knight Is Poorly Received by Critics
    • Where's The Artwork?
    • Early Restoration Attempts
    • The Recobbled Cut
    • So What's Next?
    • Plot
    • Voice Cast

    Development and early production on Nasruddin

    Richard Williams began development work on The Thief and the Cobblerin 1964, planning to do a film about the Mulla Nasruddin, a "wise fool" of Near Eastern folklore. Williams had previously illustrated a series of books by Idries Shah, which collected the philosophical yet humorously wise tales of Nasrudin. Production took place at Richard Williams Productions in Soho Square, London. An early reference to the project came in the 1968 International Film Guide, which noted that Williams was abo...

    Nasruddin becomes The Thief and the Cobbler

    The film went through many name-changes before becoming The Thief and the Cobbler - other names included "The Cobbler and the Thief," The Thief Who Never Gave Up' and Once... Idries Shah demanded 50% of the profits from the film, and Idries Shah’s sister, who had done some of the fine translations for the Nasrudin book, claimed that she owned the stories. Williams also felt that Omar Shah was stealing from the film's budget for his own purposes. As a result, Williams had a falling-out with th...

    Prolonged production

    Williams worked on the production as a side project in-between various television commercial, television special, and feature film title assignments, such as the 1977 feature Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure. Because he had no money or time to have a full team working on the film, and due to the film being a "giant epic", and because this was a learning project, production dragged for decades. In order to save money, scenes were kept in pencil stage without putting it into colour, as a...

    After the film was taken from Richard Williams, it was turned into a Disney-type musical. The Miramax version has been said to resemble a plagiarism/rip-off of Aladdin. After the film's completion, Jake Eberts' Allied Filmmakers, along with Majestic Films, reacquired the distribution rights from the Completion Bond Company. Calvert's version of the...

    Although the film's executive producer Jake Eberts found that "It was significantly enhanced and changed by Miramax after Miramax stepped in and acquired the domestic [distribution] rights," the Miramax version of the film was a commercial failure. Critical response to this version was negative. Film website Rotten Tomatoes, which compiles reviews ...

    During the Fred Calvert/Completion Bond Company production of the film, much of the artwork from the film was thrown away. Other artwork fell into private hands. Before losing control of the film, Williams had originally kept all the film's artwork safe in a fireproof basement, as seen in the documentary I Drew Roger Rabbit. It is believed that Dis...

    For years, low-quality video copies of Richard Williams' workprint have been shared among animation fans and professionals. At the 2000 Annecy Festival, Williams showed Walt Disney Feature Animation head Roy E. Disney a faded work print of The Thief, which Disney liked, and began a project to restore The Thief and the Cobbler to as close to William...

    In 2006, a fan of Richard Williams' work named Garrett Gilchrist created a non-profit fan restoration of William's workprint, named The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut. It was done in as high quality as possible by combining available sources, such as a bootleg copy of Williams' workprint and better-quality footage from DVD and VHS copies ...

    Currently, neither The Weinstein Company or Disney have any plans to restore the film. The 2006 Weinstein Company release of the film on DVD featured a pop-up packaging portraying Tack and Yumyum on a flying carpet, a scene which appears in Aladdin, not The Thief and the Cobbler, suggesting that the Weinstein Company is happy to portray The Thief a...

    The Thief and the Cobbler

    The film opens with the narrator describing a Golden City. According to a prophecy, if the three golden balls on the top of its highest minaret are taken away, the city will fall to destruction and death; however, the city can be saved by the "simplest soul with the smallest and simplest of things". The two titular characters, an unsuccessful but persistent thief, and Tack the poor and lonely cobbler, are both mute and have no dialogue. When the thief tries his luck at the home of Tack, Tack...

    Changes made in The Princess and the Cobbler

    The version by Fred Calvert is considerably different from Williams' workprint. Four songs have been added - the film originally had none. Many scenes have been cut: These include the thief attempting to steal various objects and a subplot where Zigzag tries to feed Tack to Phido. Also removed are any references to the "bountiful maiden from Mombassa", whom Zigzag gives to king Nod as "a plaything" in the workprint. Tack, who was (almost) mute in the original, speaks many times in the film an...

    Changes made in Arabian Knight

    The Miramax version includes all changes made in The Princess and the Cobbler, and adds the following: 1. Several previously mute characters were given voices, most notably the thief (as Tack explains in this version, the thief is "a man of few words, but many thoughts"). Other characters that have added voices are Phido and the alligators. 2. The Golden City is called Baghdad, though Tack is the only character who calls it that. 3. The Witch is the benevolent twin sister of the evil One-Eye....

    Notes

    In the original version of the film, the thief is heard making short grunts/wheezes in a few scenes - though not as many as in the Majestic Films version. It is unclear who provided these sounds, but it is known that Ed E. Carroll did the additional ones for the Majestic Films version. Although Sir Anthony Quayle's voice was mostly redubbed by Clive Revill in the re-edited versions of the film by Miramax and Majestic Films, Quayle's voice (uncredited) can still be heard for an entire scene wh...

  2. Zigzag, also known as Zigzag the Grand Vizier, is the main antagonist of the 1993 animated fantasy film The Thief and the Cobbler. He is King Nod's former Grand Vizier, and later King Mighty One-Eye's henchman, who usually speaks in rhymes in a manipulating fashion before allying himself with...

  3. The Thief and the Cobbler (originally released in theaters as Arabian Knight) is a 1993 British animated fantasy film produced by Richard Williams, and distributed by Majestic (Princess), Miramax (Arabian) and Lionsgate Home Entertainment (Arabian and UK Release).

  4. The Thief and the Cobbler (also known as "The Princess and the Cobbler" and "Arabian Knight") is a 1993 British-American-Canadian animated fantasy film directed, co-written & co-produced by Richard Williams.

  5. Tack is the titular main protagonist of the late Richard Williams' film The Thief and the Cobbler. He is the latter of the title characters, the other one being a clever thief. His love interest is Princess Yum Yum.

  6. People also ask

  7. Oct 28, 2021 · Nearly 30 years in the making, The Thief and the Cobbler has been widely regarded as “the greatest animated film never made”, despite receiving multiple theatrical and home video...

  1. People also search for