In the mid-1970s, Stanley Donen teamed up with Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe - you know, the guys who did "My Fair Lady" - for a musical film based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry beloved gem, "The Little Prince"/"Le Petit Prince." The film was troubled given that the casting of The Pilot - Frank Sinatra, Gene Hackman, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Richard Burton were all suggested - proved gnawingly elusive.Reliable Richard Kiley would play the role.
The resulting film ran a trim 88 minutes which was considered perfect in some quarters and suspect in others. Studio intervention? Hmmm. Donna McKechnie's role as The Rose seemed particularly truncated. But, overall, the movie is a tiny gem. Donen got it right, particularly in his casting of Bob Fosse as The Snake and, truly inspired, Gene Wilder as The Fox.
The film's stand-out moment is also the book's: It comes when Wilder, with his champagne-colored, fluffy hair and dressed in a handsome auburn suit, scurries about and stops in a field of wheat to intone:
"It's only with the heart that one can see clearly. What's essential, is invisible to the eye."
Lovely. And, yes, indelible.
4 comments:
I so love this movie. For all the reasons you name, and especially for the long, lingering shot of Wilder, stock still in the middle of that field; however, nobody ever mentions the child. Donen's casting genius on this film must have reached some sort of apparitional high point in choosing the most perfect, most sober yet winsome child actor to portray the LP. Amazing.
OH MY! How have I never seen this movie! Not only is Gene Wilder one of my favorite actors he is my neighbor! Hello Netflix?
Abby! You're in for a treat. -J
There has been a great deal written about Donen as a stoyteller, but no one ever mentions his talent as visual stylists, and, with the possible exception of "Two for the Road," as a social commentator. I think he achieve both in "The Little Prince."
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