The Little Prince

Stanley Donen directed this lugubrious musical fantasy based on the classic Antoine de Saint-Exupery children's parable, featuring a musical score by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe -- their first film score since Gigi. The simple story concerns a French aviator (Richard Kiley) who crashes his airplane in the middle of the Sahara desert and comes upon a young blonde prince (Steven Warner) from another planet. The Little Prince tells the pilot that he is inspecting the universe and stays in the desert long enough to convey to the pilot his impressions of the earth and stories of other planets he has visited. In a supporting role as a serpent that the Little Prince met amongst his travels in the universe, Bob Fosse stops the show with a slithery dance routine.