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The Happy Prince and Other Tales: the book vs. the movie

The Happy Prince (1974) — the 25-minute Canadian animated short narrated by Christopher Plummer, with Glynis Johns — made for television and hard to find today · The Selfish Giant (1971) — Oscar-nominated animated short from the same studio, with a Silver Bear from Berlin

Read first, or watch first?

Book first, by simple arithmetic: the title story takes fifteen minutes to read aloud and the films are genuinely hard to find, so the page is the version your family will actually meet. If the 1974 short or the Oscar-nominated Selfish Giant ever crosses your path — a library DVD, a classroom archive — both are gentle, faithful, and worth the detour. The one thing to know cold: the 2018 The Happy Prince on streaming services is Rupert Everett's R-rated film about Wilde's final years in exile. It is not the fairy tale, and it is not for kids.

What the movie changed

Only two of the five tales were ever filmed

Potterton Productions animated the title story in 1974 — 25 minutes, narrated by Christopher Plummer with Glynis Johns in the voice cast — after its 1971 short of The Selfish Giant earned an Academy Award nomination and a Silver Bear at Berlin. The Nightingale, the Devoted Friend, and the Rocket have never had a film of any note.

Made for television, then nearly lost

The Happy Prince premiered on Canadian television in December 1974 and ran in American syndication the following year. Neither short ever got a proper US streaming or disc release, which is why there is no watch link on this page — these turn up in school archives and library collections, not on movie night menus.

The title now belongs to a different movie

Search 'The Happy Prince movie' today and the top result is the 2018 drama written, directed by, and starring Rupert Everett — the story of Wilde's own last years, rated R for good reason. It is a serious film for adults that happens to share a title with a children's book; queue it for family night by accident and you will be reaching for the remote in the first ten minutes.

What only the book has

Three tales no camera has touched

The Nightingale pressing her heart against the thorn while the oak tree begs her to stop, the Miller's magnificent friendship speeches rolling over little Hans, the Rocket lecturing fireworks half his size — the collection's strangest and funniest pages exist only here.

Wilde's telling voice

These stories began as bedtime performances for Wilde's sons, and the prose keeps the teller's timing — asides, repetitions, jokes pitched over the child's head to the adult in the doorway. It is some of the most read-aloud-able English ever written, and no narrator's summary of it survives adaptation.

Charles Robinson's pictures

Our edition is the 1913 printing he illustrated: twelve colour paintings, cherub-filled margins, and a decorated initial opening each tale. Robinson's Happy Prince stands on his column in gold against a violet dusk — an image no animation cel came near.

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Works both directions, by the way: how to use a movie to spark the book →