Richard Kiley is a pilot who is fed up with earthly literalness and takes to the sky. His airplane conks out and he lands in the middle of the Sahara desert. An oddly dressed little boy, Steven Warner, appears out of nowhere and has a fairy-tale conversation with the pilot about a far away planet that is so small you can walk around it in a few minutes. The songs are by Lerner and Loewe, about whom I've never thought much, but they're not nearly as bathetic as Rogers and Hammerstein who, flinging dignity to the winds, could bring themselves to write a simile in "The Sound of Music" as revolting as this -- "Like a lark who is learning to pray." I like Richard Kiley a lot. He's a decent actor, whether in an heroic role ("Phoenix City Story") or whether he's the kind of Commie villain who would blow off Thelma Ritter's poor gray head ("Pickup On South Street.") He's recited poetry for PBS. He can sing too, as he did in "Man Of La Mancha" on Broadway, and as he does here.
The little kid, Warner, I had to wrestle with, a little. Most children in movies should be left out of the movies. Big nuisances for the most part, cherubic and loathsome. But Warner clears the bar -- barely. His piping Brit voice sounds a little clotted and his big puffy blue eyes suggest somebody just coming down from battery acid, but he'll pass.
As for the rest of the cast -- well, WHAT a cast it is! The third person we're introduced to is Donna McKechney who plays a beautiful rose. Mighty like a rose or not, you ought to see her dance, which you can do on YouTube. You'll have an acute infraction of the myoculinary just watching her.
Anyway, the kid tells Kiley the story of his leaving his little planet and traveling to others where he meets diverse inhabitants, all of them silly, and all their professions mildly skewered by Warner's simple questions. To a king: "What are borders for?" And the nonsensical replies, as from a historian on another planet: "I make things up. That's my profession." And from a soldier: "You want to know what life's all about? Dying -- that's what life's all about." The roles are taken by respected performers like Joss Ackland, Victor Spinetti, and Graham Crowden. Stevens finally winds up on earth.
Kiley is desperately trying to fix the engine of his airplane but Stevens drags him away in search of an oasis, through a phantasmic desert landscape littered with the intact skeletons of giant fish and ruined trunks of palm trees. Of course they find water, and the kid tells the story of meeting a snake, a boa constrictor, scientific name Boa constrictor -- Bob Fosse, derby and all, in the wittiest and most entertaining number in the film. Fosse does a moon walk avant la lettre. Later, Gene Wilder shows up as a fox.
I don't think I'll give away the ending. It's sentimental, naturally, but not as touching as Judy Garland's exit from Oz.
The most suitable sort of adults will find this as touching and innocent as the children, who are likely to get a big kick out of it, if their taste for fairy tales hasn't been warped by computer-generated monsters ripping each other's heads off.
The little kid, Warner, I had to wrestle with, a little. Most children in movies should be left out of the movies. Big nuisances for the most part, cherubic and loathsome. But Warner clears the bar -- barely. His piping Brit voice sounds a little clotted and his big puffy blue eyes suggest somebody just coming down from battery acid, but he'll pass.
As for the rest of the cast -- well, WHAT a cast it is! The third person we're introduced to is Donna McKechney who plays a beautiful rose. Mighty like a rose or not, you ought to see her dance, which you can do on YouTube. You'll have an acute infraction of the myoculinary just watching her.
Anyway, the kid tells Kiley the story of his leaving his little planet and traveling to others where he meets diverse inhabitants, all of them silly, and all their professions mildly skewered by Warner's simple questions. To a king: "What are borders for?" And the nonsensical replies, as from a historian on another planet: "I make things up. That's my profession." And from a soldier: "You want to know what life's all about? Dying -- that's what life's all about." The roles are taken by respected performers like Joss Ackland, Victor Spinetti, and Graham Crowden. Stevens finally winds up on earth.
Kiley is desperately trying to fix the engine of his airplane but Stevens drags him away in search of an oasis, through a phantasmic desert landscape littered with the intact skeletons of giant fish and ruined trunks of palm trees. Of course they find water, and the kid tells the story of meeting a snake, a boa constrictor, scientific name Boa constrictor -- Bob Fosse, derby and all, in the wittiest and most entertaining number in the film. Fosse does a moon walk avant la lettre. Later, Gene Wilder shows up as a fox.
I don't think I'll give away the ending. It's sentimental, naturally, but not as touching as Judy Garland's exit from Oz.
The most suitable sort of adults will find this as touching and innocent as the children, who are likely to get a big kick out of it, if their taste for fairy tales hasn't been warped by computer-generated monsters ripping each other's heads off.