The Little Prince (1974)

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A good movie from a great book. Favorite book of all times for many of us, The Little Prince has the capacity to absorb you in that world we all wish could still exist. The movie was great until... the end, it felt rushed. What happens with her test? Her school? Her future? Her mother relationship? Her father? Was him on that asteroid?Like... YOU CAN'T finish a movie like this. It was all about that one day and that one test and the you cut it out? In so many moments I thought "okay she now will know what to answer at that final test because/thanks to this experience". It was out of the blue. But overall a great/feel good movie :)

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).

nice, out not very great ambition, a drawing ad usum delphini more than adaptation, charming, honest, with not inspired songs, prey of its time, not great, not impressive but subject for good entrainment. the tale of Little Prince is only soul of a book. the letters, the drawings, the delight of reading are secrets to feel the profound message or the sense of this extraordinary trip. because the work of Saint - Exupery is not comedy, drama or musical. it is a mirror. so, the great virtue of this small film is to be invitation to discover Sain-Exupery masterpiece.and Steven Warner is perfect road sign. just an instrument to a fabulous castle. out of that, a boy and his need of root. a flower, a snake, few planets, a plain and a dialog with mystics nuances. tale about truth. and freedom of elephant from hat.

A noble attempt to film French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's cult children's book "Le Petit Prince" as a musical; while it doesn't quite work overall, there are splendid scenes. An aviator crash-lands his plane in the Sahara desert, where he is visited by a Cockney child in royal garb who claims to be from a tiny planet in the galaxy. This Little Prince, in search of knowledge, in turn teaches the pilot, who has been robbed of his imagination. Director Stanley Donen is careful not to get too heavy with the pedagogical moments of insight, and he's aided by Christopher Challis' brilliant cinematography and a rich set design, but the song score (by Alan Jay Lerner, who also scripted, and Frederick Loewe) slows the pacing down. The editing is lax as well, allowing sequences such as the Prince's encounter with the Fox, played by Gene Wilder, to go on and on; a montage in a desert oasis (and the journey there by foot) is also interminable. The 'touching' sentiments in the film's final stages are forced, muffling the emotional impact, while the appealing look of the picture is never allowed to give the narrative its wings. This fantasy is grounded, quite literally. ** from ****