Peter Pan. 1924. Directed by Herbert Brenon.

(8/7/01-8/10/01)

I really wasn't able to get into the right spirit for Peter Pan. I'm sorry about that. The fun of the battle on the ship was pretty much lost on me.

But I did love Nana the dog. That dog, played by George Ali, had so much personality and was a delight. So was Ernest Torrence as Captain Hook. He doesn't quite live up to the rapturous description of his performance in Classics of the Silent Screen--but then, who could? Actually, that description does his performance a disservice because it leaves you paying more attention to him than you really should.

I was quite moved by Esther Ralston as Mrs. Darling. She has a truly aristocratic bearing. I thought she was so poignant in the scene where the children return and she thinks she's imagining it, although that scene itself somehow did not work as far as I was concerned.

As for Betty Bronson, I am ambivalent. It is traditional, I know, to have Peter Pan played by a female on stage, but on a movie screen it just feels wrong. That's my reaction, anyway. There is inevitably an androgynous quality about Bronson's Peter which bothers me in scenes such as the one in which Wendy teaches him/her about kissingt. It seems unnatural and I don't see any point in it. Would it have been better with a boy as Peter? Frankly, I don't know. (However, Bronson is nonetheless moving in scenes such as the one in which Peter tells how he had run away, but then came home only to find the window barred.)

The film changed the locale from England to America. (At least they had an American flag.) I don't think that adds any improvement and somehow the story of Peter Pan seems to belong more to an English setting. And perhaps a female Peter Pan just seems to fit better in a production with an English background.

Differnt parts of this film don't seem to go together well. The exterior scenes don't really feel as if they belong in the same film with the scenes of Never Never Land. The different scenes have different textures which at least jar and possibly break the spell.

Some things happen too quickly--or too abruptly--in this picture. I almost missed it when the crocodile spit out Captain Hook's hook and when Wendy is shot down by an arrow at Tinker Bell's instigation it happens too quickly for me. I remember feeling that I had missed something--or almost missed something.

The photography of the fairies was quite amazing, but, again, I missed Tinker Bell coming back to life. Perhaps I was distracted by having to clap my hands and assert my belief in fairies. When Tinker Bell is poisoned Peter asks the audience to clap their hands to show that they believe in fairies(which will save Tinker Bell's life.) This breaking down of the barrier between reality and the illusion being projected before us is unsettling. It made me uneasy and I really felt that being asked to affirm a belief in fairies was an imposition.

There is actually quite a bit to the story of Peter Pan--more than I had remembered. There is the fact that he has suffered a terrible psychological trauma. He had run away from home--flown away, to be precise--but had come back only to find the window barred and another boy sleeping in his bed.

Peter Pan is supposedly a boy who will not grow up, but when Wendy wants to return home he goes to her home to shut the window and make her think her family is rejecting her, but changes his mind when he sees their grief. This act of genuine compassion is a very grown-up thing to do.
It is also interesting to me that Peter is offered what he really wants--a family--but at a price he considers unacceptable. He will not grow up and go to work in an office. This is an act of self-assertion that shows real integrity and self-knowledge. This is not the action of a simplistic "boy who will not grow up."

And then there is that very strange ending in which Mrs. Darling says that Wendy can go to Peter's land for one week every year. It strikes me as a beautiful act of compassion and on some level a reward for Peter's act of maturity. But I can't help wondering if it has even more significance. It seems to echo the mythe of Persephone going to the underworld for half of the year.