6/10
Sean Scully Makes Up for Adequate Adaptation of Twain Classic
29 April 2014
Sean Scully is "The Prince and the Pauper" in this Walt Disney adaptation of the Mark Twain story, which aired back in 1962 in 3 parts of 50 minutes each. The premise is that a prince is tired of his royal duties, studies and long, boring days and longs to play with kids his own age and just be able to do what he pleases and a pauper who dreams of being pampered. Through the miraculous happenstance that they resemble each other, they exchange places. The pauper as the prince stupefies everyone around him with his insistence he's not the prince and only wants to go home, but the plot gets too repetitive and tiresome, and the prince as the pauper is not really given much adventure to experience. Suffice it to say, I was a little disappointed in the film on the whole, as it wasn't as satisfying as I felt it could have been or as I felt it was going to be. It seemed a bit too long and/or complicated for young children. The copy I have of it is 2 hours and 7 minutes with short breaks, taped off the Disney channel back in the late 90s when they were showing more classics. How it got cut to this length, I don't know. Maybe I was just tired, but it didn't have the flair of the period that the 1930s Errol Flynn version had, which I think is much better, nor did it have the wit or humor reminiscent of a Mark Twain tall tale. But young Sean Scully is very good in both roles. If you can find this today, you may enjoy it once, but it lacks the pizazz an MGM touch could give it.
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