The Thief And The Cobbler Movie Was Met

The movie was met with critical acclaim across the board; Roger Ebert gave it four stars and wrote, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is sheer, enchanted entertainment from the first frame to the lasta joyous, giddy, goofy celebration of the kind of fun you can have with a movie camera.

Creator Richard Williams never got the chance to complete his magnum opus; the movie was eventually taken away by its completion bond company and handed over to producer Fred Calvert to finish.

The edited film added new scenes and music to help make it more marketable, but it hampered Williamss original vision.

The commandeered film was never a commercial success, but it is often seen as a triumph in traditional animation.

Many animators today are still inspired by the movie and Williamss work.

Thanks to Kevin Schrecks documentary, Persistence of Vision, we now know the story of this ill-fated movie and its turbulent history.

The books were based on popular Eastern folklore of a satirical Sufi, a wise fool who travels to exotic lands.

While working on the shorts, Williams one day decided to turn them into a full-length feature film.

He created a world for Nasrudin to explore and created new characters.

The thief made an appearance in this work in progress, but with a more sideline role: He would silently follow the main character around and steal his belongings when he wasnt looking.

Shahs brother, Omar Ali-Shah, became the producer of the movie.

Williams worked hard on animating the story and eventually accumulated over three hours of footage.

The Thief And The Cobbler Series Of Shorts

The movie, at that point, was just a series of shorts with nothing connecting them together.

Blake explained that characters needed to be developed and go somewhere.

When Williams mentioned that the Shahs would be resistant to the idea, Blake saw there was a problem.

Williams broke their deal and the Shahs left with Mulla Nasrudin.

The thief was Williamss original character, so he became an integral part of the new story (the movies working title was The Cobbler, the Thief, and the Grand Vizier ).

He modeled his characters on famous silent movie stars like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

Williams and Culhane visited the British Film Institute to watch movies of Chaplin and Harry Langdon to get inspiration.

Williams had planned to keep both characters entirely silent, save for one line: At the end of the movie, Tack would tell Princess Yum Yum, I love you.

Eventually actor Steve Lively voiced Tack in the Majestic Films version and Broderick voiced the lead in the Miramax version.

It was great to watch the rushes where you see all this actingfantastic actingthis incredible unfolding of ideas without the cheesy dialogue.

Upon accepting the position, Williams told Spielberg, Im your living pencil.