THE LITTLE PRINCE

US, 1974, 89 Minutes, Colour.
Richard Kiley, Steven Warner. Bob Fosse, Gene Wilder, Joss Ackland, Clive Revill, Victor Spinetti, Graham Crowden.
Directed by Stanley Donen.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint- Expury is a fable that has charmed many readers with its emphasis on the nostalgia for the innocence and single-minded vision of childhood. Lerner and Loewe have written some pleasing songs in the vein of the original and Alan Jay Lerner has written a screenplay that transfers the major elements of the book into attractive visual equivalents, trick photography and sets for the Rose, the King, Businessman etc. Bob Fosse and his choreography for the Snake, Gene Wilder and his friendly doleful style for the Fox. Steven Warner makes a very credible Prince. Richard Kiley is the pilot. A cinema fable for adults about childhood.

1. The appeal of the film? The appeal of the original book? The story, the fairy-tale aspects, the fable and allegory?

2. How successful a musical adaptation of the book? The presentation of the songs, their lyrics, the dancing? The transfer of the literary impact to visuals? The limitations of visuals, the clarity of visuals? The magical overtone of colour and movement?

3. The basic optimism of childhood? of the Little Prince? The theme of caring and loving? How does this contrast with the pessimism of growing older, unimaginative, selfish?

4. The nostalgia for childhood? The presentation of childhood in the film? The drawing? The reaction of adults? Their capacity to see? The innocence and the beauty of childhood? How sad is the nostalgia?

5. The importance of the theme of seeing with the heart? The elephant with the boa constrictor inside, the sheep etc.? Why cannot adults see? Why can children see? Why are things so obvious to children?

6. The opening with the pilot: the drawing, the happy child? The visual tableaux of childhood in France? The songs of the pressures of childhood and their impact?

7. The pilot as he grew older? What kind of person, how real an adult? His professional skill? How bland in accepting his adulthood? His capacity for learning and remembering? The song of flight and feeling free in the air?

8. The presentation of the little Prince? As a genuine child, but not precocious? The quaintness of his clothes? His unexpected arrival in the desert? His drawing, his relationship to the pilot, his telling his story, his wanting to care, survive? The Little Prince and his imagination and needs? The prince as a symbol for childhood and the nostalgia?

9. The importance of the desert environment? That the story is told in desert isolation? The film's use of the desert in song? The beauty and emptiness of the desert? The water? Comment on the Song of the Desert, the camera techniques accompanying it, the finding of water and the playfulness, the freeze techniques of the photography?

10. How enjoyable was the Little Prince's journey? The lyrics of the songs, the blend of animation and real life, the use of techniques for creating a different world for each of the planets visited, the use of distorted lenses etc? The rose and her selfishness, the character of the rose? The Little Prince's idolizing of the rose? The presentation of the king and his obsession with power, the businessman and his counting the stars, the historian and his books and truth, the General and his militaristic overtones without an army? What lessons did the Little Prince learn? How interesting the characterizations of each of the four men?

11. How enjoyable was the encounter with the fox? The technique of having an actor as the fox (as with the snake)? The song of coming closer and closer? Learning to tame and care and love for things? The wisdom of the sequence with the fox?

12. The contrast with the snake? The personality of the snake, the overtones of stories of snakes and temptation? The significance of the song and the snake in the grass? The quality of the choreography? The temptation to escape for the little prince?

13. The inevitability of the Little Prince's death? His return to his planet? The significance of his laughter filling the sky?

14. The impact of the Little Prince's story and presence on the pilot? His having to go on? Learning to accept adulthood with the nostalgia of childhood?

15. How appropriate was it to make a musical of this story? The blending of the plot and the musical comedy conventions?

16. The importance of this kind of fable for modern audiences? The imaginative approach to themes of life?