Animation Celebration Saturday - The Thief and the Cobbler (Arabian Knight)

Miramax, 1995
Voices of Matthew Broderick, Jennifer Beals, Vincent Price, and Johnathan Winters
Directed by Richard Williams and others
Music by Robert Folk; Lyrics by Norman Gimbel

Richard Williams had one overwhelming desire - to create an independent animated film that had all the elegance and artistry of the big studios. He threw his heart into this movie for 30 years, taking other jobs like Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure and the animated portions of Who Framed Roger Rabbit to support its production, until it was finally taken out of his hands in 1992 and handed to others. How does the version of this much-maligned film that Miramax released to theaters in 1995 hold up today? Let's begin in old Baghdad as Tack the Cobbler (Broderick) tells us his story and find out...

The Story: Tack is a poor but kind cobbler who lives in the city, along with a nameless thief (Winters) who will take anything that's not nailed down (and probably a few things that are). One day, after getting tangled with the Thief, he accidentally drops a tack just as the Grand Vizier ZigZag (Price) is walking to the palace. ZigZag angrily arrests Tack and brings him to the castle to be imprisoned. Lovely and spirited Princess Yum Yum (Beals) takes a liking to Tack and lets him fix her shoe to keep him out of jail. ZigZag tosses him there anyway once the shoe is repaired.

Meanwhile, the Thief has his eyes on the golden balls on top of the palace's minarets. He has no idea that the balls are there to keep the terrible One-Eye monsters from invading Baghdad. After he steals them, they fall into the hands of ZigZag and his minions, who turn them over to the One-Eyes. King Nod (Clive Revill), Yum Yum's sleepy father, is horrified that his dream of the destruction of the city may now come true. Yum Yum, Tack, and her aging nurse (Toni Collette) head to the home of a witch (Collette) who may be able to help them. She tells them of the prophecy that tells of the smallest item being able to do the most damage...something as small as a tack...

The Animation: As you can guess from the lengthy and varied production, it's all over the map. The black and white 3-D sequences of characters running across halls or sliding down staircases are truly dazzling and dizzying...even more so for being made by hand, without the use of a computer. The color sequences directed by Fred Calvert and his team may be brighter, but they also show far less fluidity and imagination.

The Song and Dance: It's too bad Williams was never able to finish this one the way he intended. What exists now is a charming fairy tale with a few minutes of truly amazing artwork. I like Princess Yum Yum's spunk - she's the one who takes charge of the expedition to the witch and who recruits a group of layabout guards on the borders as her bodyguards. Vincent Price has a blast as nasty ZigZag, too, and Winters occasionally gets a few funny lines and some nifty gags as the thief who is determined to steal anything and everything, including golden balls on the top of a tower.

Favorite Number: Yum Yum wonders why she can't do more for her people in her "I want" song in the palace, "She Is More." "Bom Bom Beem Bom (That's What Happens When You Don't Go to School)" is a catchy chorus ditty that explains who the guards are and why they're working all the way out in the middle of nowhere.

Trivia: The story of this film's production and how Williams lost his magnum opus is far more complicated than I can relate here. I recommend the Wikipedia page on Thief and the Cobbler or the documentary Persistence of Vision if you want to learn more about the movie's complicated and troubled creation.

What I Don't Like: First of all, as funny as Winters can be at times, neither his dialogue nor Broderick's narration are necessary. The Thief was originally intended to be a silent character, and I suspect it would have worked better to let his gags speak for themselves. The songs aren't terribly memorable, especially the two love duets for Yum Yum and Tack. (The big romantic ballad "Am I Feeling Love" is so dull, the pop version is cut off by a reprise of "Bom Bom Beem Bom" before the credits end.)

Second, I really wish they'd let Williams finish, even if he did go over budget. Not only would the animation have been better, but the story might have made less sense. Miramax chopped a ton out of this to make it more family-friendly, including the death of One-Eye, the sequences with his slave girls, and a lot of the visit to the witch and the climatic battle. There was also supposed to be more of the thief, including a subplot involving him stealing an emerald.

It's entirely too easy to tell how long this was in production. The animation reminds me of the scratchy lines and geometric shapes and bright colors of cartoons in the 60's, but the music, sound effects, and voice acting are strictly 90's.

The Big Finale: Slightly better than I thought it would be, given it's reputation. From the comments on YouTube, this version seems to have a lot of fans who grew up watching the video in the late 90's. It's still only recommended for major fans of those viewings, the stars, or Williams and his work.

Home Media: The Miramax version is out of print and astronomically expensive on DVD. YouTube is currently your best bet for this and for "The Recobbled Cut" that fans made to get closer to Williams' original vision.

DVD
YouTube
YouTube - The Recobbled Cut