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 ****
Review of The Little Prince
