What do you say we make a little trip to Neverland (sometimes called Never Never Land like in this case) today?
I have for you the first movie adaptation of the J. M. Barrie's play and later novel about the boy who wouldn't grow up - "Peter Pan" from 1924.
Again, you are probably familiar with the plot more or less.
First we meet the Darling family with Mother, Father, their three children Wendy, John, and Michael, and the nurse dog Nana. The Darlings are ready to go out for the evening.
When Mr. Darling is annoyed by Nana, his wife tells him about having seen a face at the window and that the same little boy had been in the room the other day, but that Nana had jumped at him and the boy - who had a bright light for company - escaped without his shadow. She thinks he might be coming back, but Father ties Nana up in the garden, anyway.
When the Darlings are gone, the boy comes back indeed to look for his shadow. It's of course Peter Pan and his fairy Tinker Bell who finds the shadow in the drawer.
He starts crying when he can't stick it back on and Wendy wakes up. They introduce themselves and Wendy sews on Peter's shadow after hearing he doesn't have a mother to do it.
Peter tells Wendy that he ran away the day he was born and that he lived among fairies. He lets Tinker Bell out of the drawer. When Wendy tells him that he can give her a "thimble" meaning a kiss, though, Tinker Bell gets jealous and pulls her hair.
Now Peter says he has to return to Never Never Land and the Lost Boys - boys who fell out of their perambulators as babies - because they will be afraid of the pirates on the island. Wendy is sad, so Peter invites her to come along and be their mother.
He teaches Wendy, John, and Michael how to fly thanks to happy thoughts and fairy dust, and although Nana breaks free to alert their parents, the children follow Peter and Tinker Bell.
On the island of Never Never Land, the Lost Boys see Wendy approaching. Jealous Tink tells them that Peter wants them to shoot "the Wendy bird", and Tootles shoots her down, but the arrow hits the "kiss" (an acorn) Peter has given her.
Peter banishes Tink for a week.
So, Wendy becomes the boys' "mother" with Peter as their "father", but while she has fallen in love with him, Peter's feelings for her are those "of a devoted son". He lets her know that Tiger Lily, the princess of the tribe living on the island (we're getting to that later) also wants to be something for him, but not his mother.
Wendy tells the Lost Boys about a mother's love and that the window will always be left open for their return, but Peter says that he tried to go back and the window was barred and another little boy was sleeping in his bed.
Now Wendy is afraid that will happen to them and she wants to go home and take all the Lost Boys with them for her parents to adopt them. Peter refuses to go with them because he doesn't want to grow up, but promises to send Tink along to show them the way.
Meanwhile, the pirates have ambushed the tribe who's guarding Peter's underground home.
Captain Hook, whose hand Peter had cut off which then has been eaten by a crocodile, has the drum beaten to make them think the tribe has won, and Wendy, her brothers, and the Lost Boys are taken prisoners and carried to the pirate ship.
To get rid of Peter, he then poisons his medicine.
Before Peter can take it, however, Tinker Bell drinks it and is about to die. Only if children believe in fairies, she can survive, so Peter implores the audience to clap their hands (and I bet it got loud in that theater!).
On the pirate ship, Hook wants to send the boys over the plank, especially after none of them is ready to become a cabin boy. But of course Peter is there in time to save them all and instead send Hook over the plank ... where the crocodile has already been waiting.
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| Hook was a great villain, surprisingly it was a different actor than Mr. Darling, usually they were both played by the same one. |
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| The crocodile spitting out Hook's hook ... |
Before the others arrive at home, Peter orders Tink to close the window because he hopes that Wendy will come back to the island with him then, but seeing the sad Darlings he can't do it after all.
While Mr. Darling is looking for space to accodomate all their new children, Mrs. Darling tells Peter to stay with them as well, but he refuses and asks Wendy again to come with him. Mrs. Darling doesn't allow that, but promises to send Wendy once a year for a week of spring cleaning.
So Peter returns to Never Never Land alone.
Before watching the movie, I had only known about the play from "Finding Neverland" and then seeing the play (directed by Sally Cookson) on National Theatre at Home (here's a trailer) which was very fascinating despite being very long, and from which I first learned about the dark side of Peter Pan.
I then decided I would also watch the Disney movie, which I only knew in parts, and read the novelization of the original stage play.
I know that there are of course loads of adaptations, old ones, modern ones, musicals, sequels, Peter as a grown-up, even horror, but you have to stop somewhere, and I think I did a pretty nice mix.
And actually, this movie is my favorite so far.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room first.
The tribe I mentioned are Native Americans, but "We redskins - you the great white father" doesn't go down well anymore in our times, neither do the stereotypes, even if a review from 1905 said "Mr. Barrie presents not the pirate or Indian of grown-up fiction but the creations seen by childish eyes." Contemporary productions have to find their own ways to deal with that. You can find an interesting article in the Smithsonian Magazine.
I also mentioned the dark side of "Peter Pan" which actually comes across even more in the novel.
Did you know that Peter "thins the boys out when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules", however you want to interpret that? Actually, there's quite a bit of killing in the novel - although in the film the swords go visibly between body and arm like in childplay - and Peter is not a simple hero, either. With his dodging responsibility and always being ready for the next adventure also comes that he's often selfish and forgets things quickly. No wonder he needed a mother!
In the novel, he even forgets again and again to pick up Wendy for the spring cleaning and thus is very surprised one day when he finds her grown up with a daughter of her own and eventually that daughter with a daughter of her own ...
I don't think I would have noticed it that much in the movie, though, without reading the novel first although it really seems to be very close to the original play.
By the way, Peter was traditionally played by young women for a long time, the reason being that children weren't allowed on stage that late and grown up men not being right for the role for their looks, but also their weight. There's a lot of "flying"! (In the play I saw it was a grown-up man and I have to admit that it didn't satisfy me completely.)
The intertitles are mostly quotes, only Americanized in some cases, for example when being loyal to the King is changed to being loyal to the Stars and Stripes.
"Peter Pan" is another film that was thought to be lost until a print turned up in 1971. What a pity it would have been if it had vanished!
One blog author criticized Betty Bronson's play as overacting, but I thought it worked really well in this context as I imagined Peter as a bit of a show-off, and to complain about wires (which I didn't even notice during the first viewing because I was so immersed in the plot) in a movie of that time is just ridiculous to me.
A lot of well-known actresses of the time are said to have been after this role, but Barrie himself chose Bronson.
I also thought the special effects were great for the time - big fan of Tinker Bell's little room here - but we can't forget Nana, either. Who would have thought that a man in a dog costume would be able to move like that? But then George Ali specialized in playing animals on stage and screen. Possibly he was the crocodile, too.
And because I already shared more pictures than I usually do, here's the Mermaid Queen.
Can you tell how much I enjoyed the movie? The video I saw also had a score that worked beautifully.
A truly magical experience with a very interesting backstory, absolutely a recommendation from me.
Last but not least I want to share a picture of the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens.
The first time I saw it we were there with a five year old and it was great to see how much she loved it (so do I). This picture is from the time I went with a slightly bigger ex 😉
Barrie commissioned the statue and had it set up secretly during the night. Can you imagine the surprise for people finding it the next day?
Sources and further reading:
1. Lea Stans: Thoughts On: "Peter Pan" (1924). On: Silent-ology, December 6, 2018
2. Rick Aragon: Peter Pan (1924): A Review. On: Rick's Cafe Texan, February 8, 2012
3. Evelyn Harper: The Making of a Legend: How Peter Pan (1924) Enchanted the Silent Screen. On: Dark Skies, October 27, 2025
