Peter Pan (1924)
Peter Pan (1924), directed by Herbert Brenon.
I haven't made a study of Peter Pan in film -- I still have to get to Disney's Peter Pan (1953) -- but I don't recall any as joyous and exciting as this silent treatment, the first version made of the original play and book, still pretty new at the time.
It hits elements perhaps dropped later. The romance: Wendy wants kisses from Peter, but he has no idea what she means. The violence: when he first flies the children to Neverland, Peter says: "There's a pirate down there. Shall we kill him?" In the big swordfight at the end only two pirates escape with their lives.
Children may not want to grow up but can't help it. Peter's magic is that he is always a boy -- still with his baby teeth -- and perfectly free to have fun. The tension he and all the Lost Boys have is that they can escape their families -- or be abandoned by them -- but still yearn for a Mother. Wendy is happy to play that role for them, and even the pirates want her for their Mother.
The movie follows the book closely, maybe too much in spots. We have a long skit of Mr Darling slipping his medicine into the dog's bowl; I would have skipped it.
Cast and crew:
J.M. Barrie selected Betty Bronson, age 18, to play his Peter. The next year should would be Mary in Ben Hur (1925).
Mary Brian, age 18, is Wendy, last seen in The Front Page (1931).
Anna May Wong, age 19, is fierce warrior Tiger Lily of the Redskins, also sweet on Peter. She was the first Chinese-American star.
An early work, but not the first, from incredibly fruitful cinematographer James Wong Howe, age 25.
Notes from the book:
Tinker Bell is so-called because she mends fairy pots and pans.
She is described as "exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen to the best advantage". She was slightly inclined to embonpoint (= a plump hourglass figure).
Barrie says explicitly that Neverland is a map of the child's mind. When they arrive the children find familiar toys, and Wendy sees her imaginary pet wolf.
Mothers sit on the child's bed and sift through their thoughts as they sleep, cleaning out the rubbish.
Barrie was a pen-pal friend with RL Stevenson and some of his pirate names are taken from Treasure Island. Captain Hook is said to be the only man the Sea Cook feared (that would be Long John Silver, who worked as a cook).
The gentle Smee is only one of two pirates to survive. In later years he would claim to be the only man Captain Hook feared. And who could contradict him?
Is this the first audience participation play, book and movie? We have to clap our hands and say we believe in fairies to save Tinker Bell: she drank poison to save Peter.
Living in the eternal Now, Peter had a very poor memory. In an epilogue not used in the film, he revisits the Darlings from time to time. He has forgotten Captain Hook: "I always forget them after I kill them". Tinker Bell? Who is that? She's probably dead, fairies don't live very long. There have been so many.
Thought lost for many years, a restoration was made in 1994 from two rediscovered film sources.
The unrestored film is available online for free, for example at the Internet Archive. My thumbnails are from a Kino Blu-ray of the restoration. Score by Philip C. Carli and commentary track from Kat Ellinger.
