The Little Prince

A musical adapted from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's book. The story stands as written: a pilot whose plane has failed in the desert meets a child from another planet. The child describes the planets he has visited; on each is a single adult, and each represents a fixation: the king, the vain man, the businessman, the geographer. The songs are by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. It was the last work the writers of My Fair Lady and Camelot did together. Two names stand out in the cast. Bob Fosse plays the Snake and choreographed his own number; the sequence runs a few minutes and is a concentrated example of his known manner. Gene Wilder plays the Fox. Stanley Donen directed. Coming after classics like Singin' in the Rain and Funny Face, this belongs to the late part of his career. It drew no attention on release and failed commercially. An adaptation worth seeing for admirers of the book and anyone curious about classical musicals. For a viewer looking for the book's own register, the film fills the plainness of the text with songs, and that does not work everywhere.