After ORLANDO (1992, 7/10), here is another film adaptation of a novel which is regarded as difficult to bring onto the silver screen, LE PETIT PRINCE by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the main concern is the book is rather tiny, but the director is the over-the-hill Stanley Donen (SINGING IN THE RAIN 1952 and SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS 1954, 6/10), so it is par for the course that it is a musical picture suitable for a more general family audience. First of all, Steven Warner is an ideally choice to play the little prince, a cutie-pie with curly blonde-hair who is able to recite verbose lines with ease and proper cadence, conspicuously challenges the terse facts of life-on-earth with his guileless questions and unaffected intuition. Richard Kiley is the pilot, aka. the author's avatar, counterbalances Warner's prodigious debut with a weary gravitas. The most exhilarating show-piece nevertheless is Bob Fosse's SNAKE IN THE GRASS dance routine, anticipated a George Michael and Michael Jackson amalgam, he might not present too much venom of the snake, but it is graphically entertaining and trend-setting at that time. The über-talented Gene Wilder is agile and playful as the fox awaits to be tamed by the little prince and Donna McKechnie is sultry and tantalizing as the doted rose, quite surprising for a kid-friendly flick. The montages of a woman superimposed onto a flower marks the effort from the visual technique department to recreate the extraterrestrial otherworldliness in a modest budget and to visualize little prince's interstellar journey with cartoon doves carrying him around. DP Christopher Challis distinctively deploys the low-angle shots and the fish-eye shots in the film to magnify the wackiness of the story, also the wonderful desert scenery can satiate one's fastidious eyes. Overall, this live-action movie is dotted with interesting music numbers to dampen the tautology of its text, and meanwhile it adequately disseminates its source's philosophical gist, after 40 years, one must admire it does't age too badly and it is also a bold musical, nominated for two Oscars (BEST ORIGINAL SONG and ORIGINAL SCORE). Finally, let's also look forward to an animation adaptation next year, from Mark Osborne, the man who co-directs the incredibly pleasing KUNG FU PANDA (2008, 7/10).

I saw this movie when it came out in 1974 at Radio City Music Hall. I was about 10 and while I didn't necessarily grasp the deeper meaning presented, I fell in love with the film and did seem to appreciate it for what it was trying to teach about human nature and our capacity for love, trust and understanding. Here I am now (older and experienced) and the message of course has more weight for me now that I've lived life and experienced love, betrayal, human understanding and human shortcomings. I'm looking forward to receiving a used copy of the film which I will watch and share with relish.I see now they are remaking the film which is to be released in 2015(with James Franco God help us) and can't help but wonder if it will be murdered. Oh well...I highly recommend it but keep in mind it was done in the 1970s so...buckle up!

Should you compare this derivative work to the book it was loosely based on, you would be disappointed. However, if you can put some distance between the two in your mind and see them as distinct works, you just might be delighted with this little film.Others have mentioned that the songs aren't terribly catchy; while this may be true, the lines are certainly memorable. This is an incredibly quotable movie, probably because the messages are so clear and ageless. Yes, there were blatant Cold War references and the metaphors weren't always too subtle (remember, though, that this is a family film), but there were a lot of very subtle delights, too. In "Why is the Desert," the Pilot asks "Why is the desert so lovely at night?" and the Little Prince answers, "Because at night the desert is hiding the sun." There are poetics here, there are subtle postmodern elements. Some have complained about the first several minutes of the movie, but that piece was delightful for its own imaginative reasons and it did well in reinterpreting St. Exupery's original message about the dangers of allowing oneself to become too much of an adult.As for other complaints; no, the movie is NOT shot primarily with fish-eye lens, only the scenes that are meant to go together (that is, those scenes where the Little Prince meets other people on other planets). Yes, the fish-eye can become rather irritating, but the scenes aren't very long and there aren't that many of them---about three in all. The desert panoramas are magnificent.The acting was, all in all, pretty fantastic. The redundancies and similarities among those characters on the other planets didn't bother me because it reinforced the idea that adults are all the same---dull and unimaginative. This is where their actors truly shine; in parts that are very similar, they manage to add just that touch of individuality that makes you know you are experiencing another consciousness.All this being said, there were some terribly awkward moments that were a tad difficult to watch. But if you can put your adult mind aside and view it all with that innocence and imaginativeness of childhood, it is an absolutely magical film with a wonderful, ageless message---definitely on par with Mary Poppins or Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang.

The Little Prince has gotten a bad rep, possibly because expectations were so high for a new Lerner and Lowe musical. Once you get past the beginning, it is absolutely delightful. But the heavy handed opening, with fish-eye camera lenses and a Message drummed into you that you already know and don't need to hear again, certainly puts viewers in a bad mood. Once The Little Prince arrives on earth, everything is magical. Songs like "The Little Prince" and "I Never Met a Rose" deserve to be standards. Gene Wilder as the fox is fabulous. And the tour de force performance of Bob Fosse as the snake is enough to make even devoted fans of All that Jazz sit up and take notice. If only it weren't too late to go back and reshoot the first fifteen minutes.