Animated Adaptations of One Thousand and One Nights

All of us are familiar with Disney's Aladdin, but there are a surprising number of other cartoons based on similar premises. 

Background on the Tales

One Thousand and One Arabian Nights is one of the world's most famous collections of fairytales and folktales. It is also one of the oldest literary works. Although the story was originally published in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age, many of the stories are far older and originate from not only Arabian countries but also Egyptian, Indian and Mesopotamian cultures. The stories first became popular in the Western world after their publication into French in the early 1700s by Antoine Galland. English translations soon followed, becoming increasingly common during the 1800s. Translations have continued to be made and revised up into recent years, as scholars endlessly debate about the accuracy of their sources and interpretations. (Earlier translations made during the Victorian era tended to cut out certain stories or aspects due to their depiction of violence and sex. Not all of these stories were originally intended for children. Pretty much the same thing could be said about Grimm's Fairytales.)

An illustration for Aladdin by Errol le Cain. 

For those unfamiliar with One Thousand and One Nights's basic premise, it is a frame story. Everyday the king Shahryar takes a new bride only to behead her by the next day, and then takes another. (Shahryar holds a grudge after finding out his first wife was unfaithful to him.) Eventually the vizier can no longer find any more virgin brides for the king. The vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, offers herself to be the next bride, and the vizier reluctantly agrees. Later that night after the marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell Shahryar a fantastical story. The story does not end and segues into another tale. The king becomes curious about how the tale concludes, so he postpones his bride's execution. This continues to be repeat until one thousand and one nights have passed and Scheherazade has run out of stories to tell. However, Shahryar has fallen in love with Scheherazade over the course of almost three years. So Scheherazade's life is spared and she becomes queen.

An illustration of Scheherazade and Shahryar by Edmund Dulac.

Most of the stories that Scheherazade tells are highly fantastical, involving various heroes journeying to far off lands in search of love or warriors fighting against fearsome monsters. Arguably, the most famous of these stories are Sinbad the Sailor, Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Adaptations based upon these tales range from classical pieces to role playing games. (So many works have been influenced by these tales that they even have their own Wikipedia page!) Naturally, One Thousand and One Nights has been adapted numerous times into film as well, perhaps most famously by The Thief of Baghdad (both the 1924 and the 1940 versions) and the 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). The number of animated films adapted from One Thousand and One Nights is quite high as well. The stories provide a perfect vehicle for the medium given how imaginative and other worldly they are.

A brief synopsis and review for The Thief of Baghdad (1940).

The Thief and the Cobbler Trailers

As with just about every film reviewed on this site (except the really bad ones), here are some trailers to promote the movie. First up is the trailer for the Recobbled Cut which really gives a sense of The Thief and the Cobbler's visual splendor. The second trailer was a made for a promotional champaign for Warner Brothers that never fell through. At one point The Thief was meant to be screened in Germany, but it never happened, yet a German trailer was made. The last trailer is....ugh! It shows what happened when the film fell into Calvert's hands (which means bad animation, unnecessary dialogue, and terrible songs).

The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut (Review)

Director: Richard Williams

Company: Richard Williams Productions

Year: never released as intended / unfinished, fan restoration first released in 2006

Country: United Kingdom

Two silent protagonists interact with one another amongst trippy backdrops.

As mentioned earlier on this blog, The Thief  was supposed to be Richard William's ultimate labor of love, but never was released as it was intended to be. The Recobbled Cut gives us an interesting insight on what could have been. The plot follows two mute characters, a polite yet timid cobbler named Tack, and the world's most determined thief. They live in the Golden City which is reined over by the very inept and lazy King Nod. The city is protected by three golden balls atop the tallest minaret. If the balls are removed, the city is prophesied to fall into ruin unless it is saved by the "simplest soul with the smallest and simplest of things." 

One day, the Thief bumps into Tack causing him to accidentally spill all of his tacks onto the street. King Nod's Grand Vizier, the egocentric Zigzag, steps on the tacks and has the cobbler arrested. Luckily, the King's daughter, Princess Yumyum, takes a liking to Tack and convinces her father that she needs her shoes repaired. Meanwhile, the Thief attempts to steal the golden balls, but loses them in the process. Zigzag seizes the opportunity to steal the balls. After Nod refuses to allow him to wed Yumyum, Zigzag delivers them to the tribe of violent One Eyes. Thus Tack, the princess, and her nanny set off to try and seek help from a mad witch who lives in the desert. Trailing behind them is the Thief, never missing an opportunity to find treasure.

The films strongest point is, unsurprisingly, its art direction and distinctive character animation. It is easy to identify each character's personality just by the way they move and dress. For instance, Zigzag pridefully strides around as he walks and generally acts in an exaggerated manner. (Which is only fitting, since he was voiced by Vincent Price!) Tack, on the other hand, is very calm and collected. The fact that he never speaks and is primarily black and white in color, alludes to the actors of the Silent Era. The whole style of the film is very unique. It can be described as Disney crossed with The Yellow Submarine. Many of the backgrounds are drawn to resemble Persian miniatures and sometimes even resemble the works of Mc Esher. Since many, many years were spent on this film, it contains some of the most intricate and beautiful animation ever created. It's importance for preserving the skills of animators from the Golden Age can not be stated enough.

The most amazing chase scene in cinematic history.

The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut is not without its flaws. Being an unfinished film, it does tend to abruptly change scenes occasionally and certain scenes tend to drag on a bit too long, particularly the drawn out climax were the Thief tries to escape a burning war machine. (Some say William's spent too long on certain segments just to show off the animation, as opposed to focusing more on the story.) Still, the characters are very likable and there are many fun and funny scenes involving Zigzag's pompous airs and the Thief's ridiculous antics. It's really hard to be too harsh on this film, since it was never completed.

One can only imagine how years were spent working on this scene alone.

Vincent Price is Zigzag. I'm sold. 

 The Recobbled Cut is not a film that I would recommend to those expecting a stereotypical Disney / family oriented film. (There are a few slightly adult scenes, but this mainly because of the its somewhat unorthodox style and uneven pacing.) This film is one of the most unusual and strangely intriguing movies out there. Although definitely not perfect, this is a movie that any lover of animation or art should see. 

Rating: 3.5/5

The Long & Complicated Production of The Thief & The Cobbler

This unique film's fate is perhaps one of the most tragic in movie history.

The Thief and the Cobbler was supposed to be the masterpiece of renowned animator, Richard Williams. Today, it is best remembered for its infamous production history. In 1964, after having success at making several short films, Williams set out to create an animated adaptation based off of the tales of Nasreddin. However, the translator of the original Nasreddin stories, Idries Shah, demanded that Williams give him 50% of the film's profits. Thus in 1972, Williams was forced to make major changes to the plot and replaced the titular character with two new ones, a willy thief and a humble cobbler named Tack. In order to fund his project Williams continued to create commercials and short films. In 1977, he hired several famous animators from the Golden Age to work on The Thief, including Art Babbitt, Ken Harris, Grim Natwick, and Ollie Johnston. As years passed, Williams's project became more and more ambitious (and expensive). He wanted to make The Thief his magnum opus.

The Thief eventually caught the attention of Robert Zemeckis and Steven Speilberg. Williams was hired to be the animation director for Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and finally had the much needed financial backing to complete his film. But, Williams failed to complete The Thief and the Cobbler by its 1991 deadline. Even though only 15 minutes of screen time were needed to be finished, Williams lost control of the project and Miramax handed it over to Fred Calvert.

An unfinished scene using a storyboard of Tack and Princess Yumyum.

Calvert butchered the film. He completed the remaining animation as cheaply as possible, cut several scenes, and removed scenes that were more adult in nature (not realizing the film was supposed to be for the art house crowd). By far the worse offense committed was adding unnecessary dialogue for the Thief and Tack, who were supposed to be silent, and adding very poorly written musical numbers not in the original script. To make matters worse, several of the animators working for Williams had gone on to work for Disney, resulting in many similarities to Aladdin. When the edited version of the film was released in 1993, it failed miserably at the box office and was torn apart by the critics.

The feather doesn't have a reflection! It must be a vampire! (The Fred Calvert version of this film is awful.)

Disney, you're not fooling anyone. (Image courtesy of Jbsdesigns.)

However, the workprint of the original film survived. Appreciation of the film grew among film and animation enthusiasts. At the 2000 Annecy Festival, Williams showed the faded print to Roy E. Disney (Walt Disney's nephew). Roy collected several pencil tests and artwork from the film, but the project never came into fruition. In 2006, filmmaker and dedicated fan, Garrett Gilchrist, created a non-profit restoration named The Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut. This edit gained support from many animators who worked on the film and several of them gave Gilchrist rare material to work with. Since then, The Recobbled Cut has gone under several revisions, using cleaner footage or newly discovered animation. Currently a 'Mark 3' version, released in 2008, is available on Youtube. The 'Mark 4' version is planned to be completed in 2013. In 2012, a non-profit documentary about Williams's life long project (Persistence of Vision) was released by Kevin Schreck.

Trailer for The Persistence of Vision.