The Thief and the Cobbler, the Film That Took Over 20 Years to Make

I don't know if there is already a thread based off of this film, but I would like to speak my thoughts on it.

The Thief and the Cobbler is an animated film by Richard Williams, the animator for Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It originally began production as a film based on a book for which he did illustrations that were based on the philosopher Nasreddin. It started off as “Nasrudin!” but after a conflict on who owned the rights, Nasrudin was replaced with The Thief and the Cobbler.

It really got up off the ground sometime around 1975. The film took an eternity to work on. Two of the actors who did voices for it actually died before it was even near completion. Vincent Price and Anthony Quayle to be specific. Eventually, the film was taken away from Williams and production after that was handed over to Fred Calvert, a man known for Saturday morning cartoons. Calvert had one intention, to finish the film as quickly (and cheaply) as possible. Instead of completing the unfinished 15 minutes or so left in the film, he went ahead and completely changed it. Rewriting the dialogue, padding on pointless musical numbers, reanimating scenes, and rerecording dialogue. The film was eventually "completed" by multiple studios. None of the "complete" versions of the film even resembling the original concept that Richard Williams had. One of the versions being a cash in on Aladdin. All released versions of the film did poorly in the box office.

It's not all a loss though. Cut to 2006 and filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist began to work on a non-profit reedit of The Thief and the Cobbler, making it as loyal to the original concept as possible. This project went under the name The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut. The Recobbled Cut is updated frequently with new sources being discovered. It's right now in it's Mark 4 stage and is available on YouTube. If I recall correctly, Richard Williams himself actually approves of the project. Gilchrist also rediscovered some of Williams' shorts like The Sailor and the Devil and The Little Island.

Anyway, on to the film. It takes quite a bit of inspiration from the 1924 film The Thief of Bagdad. The animation is fantastic. It shifts through multiple angles and locations frequently. Moving through three dimensional fields. Some entire shots go down staircases following the characters that it's focused on. All without CGI. Most of these scenes were never included in the released versions of the film.

The animation is also very smooth. It flows perfectly with the art style used for it. The two major characters never speak. One being Charlie Chaplin like (Tack the Cobbler), and the other being more Wile E. Coyote-ish (The Thief). The entire film is in a way silent. The story is told mostly through the visuals. The soundtrack comprises of parts from Scheherazade, and bits of music that Williams himself wrote.

Well, I think I went on for long enough, I already made enough of a monologue. I would recommend to look up the film on Wikipedia first to get the full story, and to watch the Recobbled Cut after.


The first 11 minutes of the restored version of the film.