Watch The Little Prince For Free

Touches You

Excellent adaptation.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This gets 5 stars for pretty good special effects and nice production values. (Director Stanley Donen probably got practice for these pre-CGI effects by directing Fred Astaire dance up the walls in "Royal Wedding")For the rest of it: How can a musical by Lerner & Loewe ("My Fair Lady", "Gigi", "Camelot", "Brigadoon", etc.) directed by Stanley Donen ("Singing in the Rain", "Bedazzled", "Charade", etc.) go wrong, especially if it features a small but notable cast that includes guest shots by Bob Fosse and Gene Wilder? Quite easily, actually.Perhaps part of the problem is the source material. The young adult book THE LITTLE PRINCE is a sweet but didactic tome. Lerner, arguably the best lyric writer of his time (a time including Oscar Hammerstein III) was also a slow and lazy worker. He was also known for filling his body with large amounts of chemicals. He always had a problem with structure and always did better work when he started with good source material ("Pygmalion"/"My Fair Lady").THE LITTLE PRINCE has an episodic structure. One would think Lerner would leap at the opportunity to present songs in different worlds, with characters having such various points of view.Instead, the bulk of the songs are given to the aviator character by Richard Kiley (notable exceptions are Fosse and Wilder). Lerner alters the character of the King and changes the Geographer into an Historian (rendering the character senseless). He drops other promising figures, adds a General to the mix, and makes the whole story even more doctrinaire than the original.Clive Revill and Victor Spinetti do superb jobs in shamefully short roles, as the Businessman and the Historian, respectively. They do not have unique songs. As they are photographed in exactly the same way (through some weird fish-eye lens -- I'm no photographer so I don't know a more precise term), their characters are not distinctive. One may be forgiven for thinking they're on the same world and might be related.In slightly longer roles, Bob Fosse and Gene Wilder have unique songs, and also interesting settings. Both play animals. Fosse is the Snake and he has a sinuous dance that might be beautiful if it weren't shown in bits and pieces (there is also a real snake and it plays a large part in the movie for all you Ophidiophobics -- including me). Wilder is the Fox and he's fairly typical early Wilder. But they're lost in the whole of the movie.And Stanley Donen? Lest we forget, he also directed "Blame it on Rio." To be fair, he apparently helmed only one movie between 1967's "Bedazzled" and 1974's "Little Prince." He may have been rusty.The main problem here is Lerner. Loewe's music is good in his last outing with Lerner, even if the tunes lack his typical hummability. Lerner's lyrics lack his clever wordplay. They're repetitive, redundant (those two words in juxtaposition give you some idea of what the lyrics are like) and lackluster. The actors do their best. Richard Kiley is a strong anchor for the show as a whole. But "The Little Prince" leaves one unsatisfied.

This movie might be best appreciated by those who have read the book firsthand and want to see the characters live in the flesh. While this film follows the story very closely, and features good performers (including Bob Fosse and Gene Wilder), it would be difficult for a newcomer to appreciate just how magical this classic fable is if he/she only watches this movie without reading the book. I suppose it would have come out better as an animated feature.Still, the movie definitely has its merits. The kid playing the Little Prince does very well - why didn't he have a successful career after this? And the music is very beautiful at parts. I don't know why some say it is not up to the standards of Lerner and Leowe. The title theme (such a haunting melody) and "I never met a Rose" - both sung by the Pilot - are beautiful, and the happy song sung by the Little Prince and the Fox as they come close and dance together is charming and jaunty.7 out of 10.

Many have disliked THE LITTLE PRINCE, it was not what one would call a great success. What a pity! It embodies all those great attributes of the musical era of fantasy, entertainment and charm. Stanley Donen is a master craftsman of the musical genre of film making. A lifetime of devotion to his craft of musical theatre - on and off the silver screen. It is a pity the film is not available on DVD, that the film has not made a comeback after all these years. There are no criticisms, gratefulness yes for the likes of Bob Fosse, Victor Spinetti, the elegance of Richard Kiley, and Gene Wilder in perhaps one of his finest, controlled and loving roles ever on screen.Watch the film and if you have children watch it with them! This film should be a must for once a year screening, in the tradition of THE WIZARD OF OZ. It is music, film, story magic, that touches the heart, touches the soul, touches imagination.

Spoilers herein.Children's books are a literature like no other. In `regular' books, you nominally have the world of the reader, the writer/narrator and the characters. In the children's case, you add the extra dimension that the reader is not the person whose imagination is targeted.The `Little Prince' follows the lead of `Alice in Wonderland' in exploiting the relationships among these four worlds: and it does so by creating a fifth within the story. Its a sort of double story about a boy and a man who remembers himself as a boy: about each layer drawing the other: about surveying the forces that build the world, the two worlds.I'm an `Alice' guy myself and don't particularly like the `Prince' book. It's too patronizing and shallow for my tastes, but the FORM of the book is very sophisticated.Now along come thugs from the musical theater tradition. In trying to turn a flower into a gem they produce a turnip. That's because they completely misunderstand the necessary narrative layering that makes the book work.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.