Vidicom : The Desert Prince : Text

When the heroes of early aviation established the first airmail routes in "flying crates" way too unsafe for passengers, the father of the best-selling Little Prince was one of them: French flight pioneer and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry flew the mail over northwest Africa and in South America. Linking continents and countries, minds and mentalities was the right kind of mission for a man who sought to look at danger and adventure with a poet's eyes.

In The Desert Prince, we join "Saint-Ex" as he becomes head of a remote outpost in the North African Sahara in 1927 - and find that his adventurous life was every bit as fascinating as his books. Threatened by rebellious nomads, he was in a demanding position between skillful diplomacy and heroic action. Time and again, he saved crashed and captured air mail pilots from the rebels.

With magnificent images in the spirit of "The English Patient" and authentic historic footage from the days of the air-mail pioneers, The Desert Prince is a fascinating and romantic take on a remarkable life that ended much too soon: When France went to war with Hitler Germany, Saint-Exupéry became a military pilot. Aged 44, he left for his last mission, a reconnaissance flight over occupied France. From an American air base in North Africa, he took off to cross the Mediterranean Sea. He did not return. His plane was never found, his death remains a mystery.