CAST: Vincent Price (ZigZag), Anthony Quayle (King Nod — original version), Hilary Pritchard (Princess YumYum — original version), Joan Sims (Mad Holy Old Witch — original version), Windsor Davies (Chief Roofless), Felix Aylmer (Narrator — original version), Paul Matthews (Mighty One Eye — original version), Clinton Sundberg (Dying Soldier), Donald Pleasence (Phido the Vulture). Directed by Richard Williams.
SYNOPSIS: In a kingdom run by the perpetually sleepy King Nod, invaders look to conquer it, especially the Mighty One Eye with his army and massive war machine. A prophecy foretells that the kingdom will remain safe as long as the three golden balls remain on top of the minaret. One day, a gold-craving thief sneaks into the cobbler’s shop while he sleeps and attempts to rob him. The cobbler wakes up and during a struggle, they tumble out of the store with the cobbler dropping his shoe tacks in the street. At that moment, ZigZag, the king’s vizier, comes through the town and steps on one of the tacks. Enraged, ZigZag’s guards seize the cobbler and take him back to the palace, where he is brought before the king with ZigZag demanding permission to execute him for the offense. However, the king’s daughter Princess Yum Yum takes pity on the cobbler and saves his life by breaking her shoe and asking her father to spare the stranger’s life so that he may work for her. The king agrees and an infuriated ZigZag storms off. At the same time, the thief has made his way into the palace and after numerous attempts manages to knock the three golden balls off the top of the minaret. In the chaos and confusion, ZigZag has his henchmen steal and hide the golden balls; he then approaches the king with his vulture Phido (Donald Pleasence) and offers to find the golden balls in return for Princess Yum Yum’s hand in marriage. When the king refuses it is up to the cobbler to stop ZigZag and the Mighty One Eye and return the golden balls and win the affection of Princess Yum Yum.
COMMENTARY: As an animated feature that took twenty-eight years to complete, The Princess and the Cobbler, a.k.a. The Thief and the Cobbler, has a most fascinating and complex history. In 1964, Canadian animator Richard Williams began the project based on the folklore of the wise fool Mulla Nasruddin. Williams had to take on side projects to fund The Princess and the Cobbler that underwent a number of title changes over the years. Williams was a big fan of horror star Vincent Price who was one of the first actors to be hired to record dialogue for this film; ironically, due to taking so many years for the film to be completed, The Princess and the Cobbler became Price’s last work to be released before his death. For the next twenty years, the project languished with work being completed at a snail’s pace until Williams directed the hit animated feature Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1990) and used his success to get Warner Bros. interested in funding and releasing The Princess and the Cobbler. However, this deal fell apart when Williams failed to complete the film according to the deadline and ended up being kicked off his own project. The film was then taken over by the Completion Bond Company and under orders to finish it quickly and cheaply, new producer Fred Calvert re-edited the film. In 1993, it finally appeared in theatres overseas under the title The Princess and the Cobbler and in 1995 in the US under the title Arabian Knight.
Pleasence lent his voice as Phido the vulture for the original production and most probably did the recording back in the early 1970s. His character is quite comical, clumsily crashing about while attempting not to sleep, and when ZigZag fails to keep his promise to feed his pet that backfires in the end, Phido makes a tasty snack of his head in a darkened pit. While The Princess and the Cobbler provided Pleasence with the opportunity to appear in his first and only animated film, his role was not large and unfortunately was limited to only sounds made by the vulture sans dialogue. This is unfortunate as Phido was the pet of ZigZag (voiced by Vincent Price) and Pleasence could have shared dialogue with Price, another great actor known for his villainous roles. Making matters worse is that Pleasence’s voice was totally cut from the 1995 Miramax version, replaced by Eric Bogosian who did share some dialogue opposite Price’s ZigZag.