Peter Pan

When it comes to pure entertainment, there are very few silent movies that come close to PETER PAN. This whimsical story is also exceptional because I think that adults would enjoy the film at least as much as kids. Why does the film deserve such praise? Well, the biggest reason is that for a movie made in 1924, it was amazingly modern for its time and it appears as if Paramount Studios spared little expense in bringing this J. M. Barrie story to the screen. One example are the flying sequences. In almost every instance, you could see no wires and the kids really looked like they were flying! Second, when they showed the home of Peter and the Lost Boys, it was a magical and wonderful place with giant mushrooms for chairs, glowing jack-o-lanterns as lights and the coolest beds I've ever seen. The place was a magical lair in every sense. Another example was when Hook's boat began to fly--it was a great scene. In fact, the more I think about it, there were many more wonderful scenes--too many to list here. The story just looked wonderful and had among the best set designs and stunts of any silent films and I would rank it among best best of the age, such as THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, FAUST or WINGS. This was a top production in every sense--well, every sense but one. While I liked it, it was kind of silly to make Nana the dog and the crocodile people in costumes. Some might really think this is cheesy, but I really thought it was charming.

As for the story itself, it was super entertaining. The only problem I noticed and reason the movie does not earn a 10 were the embarrassing and unnecessary pro-USA comments throughout the film. While I am very happy and proud to be an American, this film was inappropriate in making everyone gung ho Americans--even though in the original, they were English. Four different times in the movie they made reference to this--such as the Lost Boys singing patriotic American songs when they were caught and another time when Wendy told her brothers to "act like proper American gentlemen". You would almost think the movie had been made during the war due to all these references, but it wasn't. Still, apart from this minor problem, it was a heck of a wonderful film.

This video was released by KINO International. The print was absolutely pristine and the accompanying music exceptional.

This film has a very stagy feel & it should because it was taken from the show as it was running on the stage in 1924 & filmed for the most part. There is only a sequence on the ocean which is an early example of how pirate films made much later would be like. While the sets are much the same on the ocean, the fantasy is left intact with children conquering bitter pirates.

The real fantasy of this film is how George Ali, in his only film role, makes a costumed dog seem so realistic. The special effects with the fairy, etc. are very obviously borrowed from the stage play. To me, the story here & the moral are more defined than the later Walt Disney animated version of the same story.

If you want to make a great home movie night, watch this film, then watch "Finding Neverland" starring Johnny Depp made years later. This silent is so well done, it makes the later film seem even better. The silent film actually enhances the enjoyment of Neverland as this film prefaces it very well.

All the acting in this silent is well done. This is an epic silent film.

This is a very entertaining adaptation of the story of "Peter Pan", and the production, particularly in the visual effects, is rather impressive for its time. The cast is a good one, with a lot of enthusiasm for their roles, and the whole movie has a lively pace to go along with the interesting story and plenty of good visuals.

Betty Bronson delivers everything that you could expect as Peter, and it's easy to see why J.M. Barrie himself chose her for the role. She has plenty of energy and a believably boyish appearance. The rest of the cast is also good, and in some cases (Virginia Browne Faire and Anna May Wong) you wish you could have seen more of them. It would be hard to think of a better Captain Hook than Ernest Torrance, who gives the role just the right degree of exaggerated villainy. In what seems to have been her first screen role, Mary Brian is appealing as Wendy.

It sticks mostly to the essentials of the familiar story, which is usually appealing to children while potentially quite interesting to adults, for different reasons. Peter's desire to remain a boy, and the offbeat nature of the fantasy world, make the story much more than a whimsical daydream.

The visual effects, particularly the 'flying' sequences, work very well for their time, and they must have been very exciting for the movie's original audiences. The Tinkerbell effect also works well despite its simple means. The fantasy story is combined with just enough reality (back at the Darling home) for it to fit together nicely.

"Peter Pan" is a movie and stage perennial, so there is no shortage of versions to choose from. But this one is very enjoyable, and it is certainly recommended for anyone interested in seeing a silent movie version of the story.

When Sir James M. Barrie agreed to allow Famous Players—Lasky to make a movie version of his 1904 Christmas pantomime Peter Pan, he laid down some pretty stiff terms. Not only was he to have casting approval, but the title cards were to use as far as possible the dialogue of the stage play; the plot line was to keep to the original Three-Act structure; the characters were to be those of the play—none were to be eliminated and additional characters were not to be introduced; and above all, the characters were to fly realistically. Sir James also insisted on writing a long Preface to the movie in which he made the point that Peter Pan was a pantomime and needed to be accepted as such.

Unfortunately, he was unaware of the fact that Americans do not know what a panto is, let alone what are its traditions. Luckily, this didn't really matter. The picture was a huge success anyway and catapulted eighteen-year-old Betty Bronson (whom Barrie himself had chosen for the lead) into celebrity status overnight.

So to really appreciate the picture we need first to understand what a panto is and what Barrie did to change or modify its structure and traditions.

By the turn of the century, the annual Christmas pantomime had become a very elaborate affair. In fact, every year theatre managements vied with each other to offer presentations even more spectacular than they had staged in the past. (A successful panto didn't just fill the theatre at Yuletide but would run right through Easter). Although largely (and very loosely) based on nursery rhymes and fairy tales, pantomimes had a rigid cast system. The lead role was always the Dame—a middle-aged woman, enacted by a leading funnyman, the more raucous, the better. Next in line, was the Principal Boy, always played by a very sexy young lady who wore abbreviated costumes to show off her legs. The Villain was usually billed next, and then came the specialty acts. These were vaudeville turns by jugglers, singers, magicians, etc., often used to entertain the audience while stagehands readied the spectacular main set for the next Act, but just as often actually interpolated into the panto itself. Of course, pantos always had plenty of real children milling around the stage, but the leader (who had practically all the lines) was a young adult (even though he or she might be a impersonating a character supposedly ten or twelve years younger).

Doubling was quite common in the panto. Often it was a matter of necessity, but just as often it was done deliberately. Barrie intended that Mr Darling and Captain Hook always be played by the same actor. Unfortunately, both Brenon and Paramount jibed at this idea and finally convinced Barrie that on a motion picture set, it was impractical.

The principal change (and it was a brilliant one) that Barrie made to the traditional structure was not to turn the Dame into a dog (Dames had often played comic animals in the past) or even to restrict the Dame's frolics to Two Acts (although top-billed, the Dame's role was often not all that large. In some pantos, he/she didn't even make her entrance until the Second Act). What Barrie did was absolutely startling. He made the Dame silent. He/she doesn't utter a word. The role is all pantomime, you see. Pantomime yet—in a pantomime! Brilliant!

Now we can appreciate the movie for what it is: not just a filmed pantomime but one that goes beyond the restrictions of the stage to make the spectacle more spectacular, and the special effects even more wonderful and startling.

Also we can now enjoy the way the movie is cast and played. It's a pity Hook and Darling are no longer played by the same man (though admittedly it is just as hard to imagine dull Chadwick, perfect as stuffy Darling, brandishing a villainous hook, as it is to see Ernest Torrence toning down the foam as Wendy's dad). However, super-sexy Betty Bronson makes an ideal Peter Pan (it's important that the character be lasciviously attractive yet act as if she is totally unaware of this fact—and this Miss Bronson accomplishes remarkably well, no doubt due to Brenon's meticulous direction).

Eighteen-year-old Mary Brian is also superbly cast as Wendy. Even though her stage age is around twelve or thirteen, she is not only the leader of the children, but a genuine mother figure and is supposed to look just a few years younger than the actress playing her mother, in this case twenty-two year old Esther Ralston. (You're not supposed to be mathematically minded and try to work out how a twenty-two year old can have a twelve year old daughter. Pantomimes are inevitably fanciful). The father figure is usually much older. Forty-five year old Cyril Chadwick fits the bill nicely.

It's a tribute to Brenon's skillful yet sensitive direction, James Wong Howe's beautiful photography, Pomeroy's fascinating special effects and the enduring charm and cleverness of Barrie's fairy tale that the movie is just as enchanting in 2007 as it seemed to appreciative worldwide audiences in 1925.

I really didn´t know about that there is a silent movie PETER PAN. The only version I´ve ever seen was the Disney version which I always loved. Here in Germany we have a culture-channel on TV. There was a theme evening about PETER PAN. A biography about James Mathew Barrie and after that they showed the silent movie from 1924. I was blown away ! There is magic in it and the tragical side of Peter is deep in it. My english isn´t good enough to describe all I want to, bit this is one of my absolutely favourites. I voted "10".