The Little Prince
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Movie Reviews of The Little Prince
Movie Review: Creepy, is right...
Summary: 1 Stars
...this film is not for adults or children. Yeck! After seeing the opera version, I mistakenly thought the film version would also please. Yeee-uck! Just thinking of Bob Fosse's way too long dance routine in front of anyone let alone a child gives a healthy wave of nausea. And, what sick director or casting dude would ever think of putting Gene Wilder in the role of the fox to speak the most important lines of this -- one of world's most beloved -- book?! Rachel Portman's opera does the story justice -- it's true to the spirit of the story. Now, I must go melt this film-version DVD, lest it fall into the hands of someone else whose innocent love of St. Exupery's work has yet to be assaulted. Then, I must take a shower. Buy the opera DVD, but, more importantly, buy the book and read it, again.Movie Review: I can't get enough of that laugh
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of my Mom and my favorite movies. I belive it is a wonderful movie for kids and adults alike. We had this on VHS but had to have it on DVD. I was disappointed that there weren't any special features like outtakes or commentary or anything, but 100% pure Steven Warner and Richard Kiley (and Gene Wilder) will work for me. My younger brother loves this movie and we all enjoy the clever songs and sayings from it together. happy watching.Movie Review: This charming and faithful film thoroughly "tamed" me.
Summary: 5 Stars
I cannot too highly praise this 1974 film of "The Little Prince" produced and directed by Stanley Donen. The presentation is rather that of an American musical or a "Singspiel": spoken dialogue interspersed with musical numbers. The lyrics and music of Lerner and Loewe do not terribly impress me but they are suitable and essentially effective. To my surprise and delight, everything else works: Richard Kiley is absolutely convincing as The Pilot. His acting is first rate, he sings very well indeed, and his handsome, expressive face and athletic body present a Pilot who is at the same time very strong and very gentle. I think of the exuberance of the scene in which he and the Little Prince playfully splash about in the water of the oasis or of the final moments when his sense of loss and sorrow comes across so powerfully as he carries the Little Prince in his arms after the snake has given its gift of transformation and the essence of the child is no longer in his body. Stephen Warner somehow speaks to me as The Little Prince, Saint-Exupery's Little Prince himself, incarnate in his every word and movement, and in the costuming as well.
The irrepressible Gene Wilder brilliantly zips about as a hyper-active and most loveable fox who allows himself (indeed desires)
to be tamed at last by love. The great choreographer Bob Fosse, at the height of his career, dances a shifty, jazzy snake, even if the length of the dance is a bit self-indulgent. The visual movement back and forth between animals and human actors is very effective. The ballet of the roses is delightfuly reminiscent of a production number in a 1930s Busby Berkley musical.
I should mention, in light of an earlier review, that since very ancient times the desert viper has been seen as a creature that both takes and gives life. The snake is an agent of transformation. Two snakes entwined on the staff of Hermes (Mercury) still signify the art of the physician and the science of medicine. The Little Prince does not, in effect, commit suicide; instead, with the help of the snake he ascends to a higher plane; he returns to his beloved planet with its rose and three volcanos. I have always found that children intuitively understand this, perhaps more easily than many of us adults who have been trained to fear snakes as harbingers of evil rather than as the wonderfully beautiful, lithe and complex creatures that they are.
All in all, I find this film a source of great joy and personally prefer it to the more recent operatic version of "The Little Prince" also available on DVD.
Movie Review: "If she learns that there are hundreds of flowers..."
Summary: 4 Stars
"...just like her, it will break her heart." The little, nameless prince comments about his flower/friend who is his sole companion of his tiny planet whilst roaming through fields of wild rose bushes on planet earth. I haven't read the book, yet the boa constrictor story is in both. I know this because I once tried to read The Little Prince in Spanish to a little hispanic girl who started laughing hysterically when I got to the boa constrictor that ate an elephant part of the story. My rudimentary Spanish did not include the Spanish word for boa constrictor in my vocabulary, so I was totally clueless as to her reaction. I had to ask her to explain to me in her rudimentary English, the story. (So much for my bilingual story telling days!) I do like the movie, though it's a bit dated and a little strange! I'm not so bothered about the fact that the little prince decides to seal his fate by becoming prey to a poisonous snake. What would you do if you were stranded in the middle of the Sahara desert with no one to take you back to your tiny planet, no telling how many light years away? I'm no judge of content appropriate for small children, not being a parent myself, yet if you consider when Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry wrote the book, in 1943, and think of the fate of so many innocent children in Europe and elsewhere in the world during the world wars, I think one would realize that, unfortunately, little children are so many times witnesses and victims of so many terrible, and terrifying things. Perhaps, Antoine de Saint-Exup?ry was trying to make some sense of that sort of tragedy in his book since he was actively involved in fighting for the French in WWII. I love the story of the friendship that develops between the stranded pilot and the extraterrestrial, little prince which is mainly the plot of the whole story. Watching the movie I was reminded of so many biblical themes, of wanderings, temptations in deserts, the fall of man in Genesis, of the symbolism of water in religious rituals, and of life's basic necessities such as friendship, love, food and water. Plus, there are so many wise proverbs said by the little prince and his lost aviator companion to entertain.Movie Review: Too Weird but my niece loved it
Summary: 3 Stars
Now I like weird movies and I have always loved the story of Le Petite Prince. And I tend to like musicals. Still, I thought the whole movie was a little too weird - in fact somewhat creepy. I did not particularly like it. Someone get the snake (Bob Fosse) an editor. His dance scene went on soooo long I almost fast forwarded through it. But I didn't because my 6 year old niece loved this movie. Particularly Gene Wilder. Go figure - one reviewer thought adults would get more out of it, just not the case here. I think 6-7 is the highest age range that could really enjoy this movie.