FILM 1395: PETER PAN
TRIVIA: Though the film was
extremely successful, Walt Disney
himself was dissatisfied with the finished product, feeling that the character
of Peter Pan was cold and unlikable. However, experts on J.M. Barrie praise this as
a success, as they insist that Pan was originally written to be a heartless
sociopath.
In the original play, Hook loses
his right hand, but the Disney artists felt that would limit his actions too
much, and switched the hook to the left hand.
When Walt Disney was a child,
he played Peter Pan in a school function.
Bobby Driscoll (as a voice
actor) was the first male to play Peter Pan on film.
22 year-old Margaret Kerry (who
measured 35-25-36, and provides the voice of the red-haired mermaid) was the
real-life model for Tinker Bell. Persistent rumors have incorrectly named Marilyn Monroe in this
position.
In the play, the Lost Boys were
infants who fell out of their prams while the nurses weren't looking. Whereas
Peter Pan is a permanent resident of Never Never Land, the Lost Boys are only
temporary lodgers. If they seem to grow up, Pan would kill them
In compliance with the tradition of
the stage version, the same actor, Hans Conried,
performed the roles of both Mr. Darling and Captain Hook; the two characters'
looks were even modeled after his. Nana and the Crocodile are also a "dual
role" on stage, which the animators acknowledge by giving the Crocodile
canine qualities.
The Darling children become very
sleepy as their parents leave the room. This may not be merely because it is
their bed time. The "tonic" given to the children by Nana may have
been morphine. It was quite common in the early 20th century to give children
"soothing syrups" and "tonics" to control their behavior.
These concoctions turned out to consist of several different narcotics.
Michael Jackson's favorite
film. He bestowed the name Neverland on his ranch in Santa Barbara, complete
with a private amusement park. (Jackson was forced to vacate it after
controversy over his involvement with young, unsupervised children on the premises
in 2005.)
Walt Disney had been
trying to buy the film rights to J.M. Barrie's
play since 1935, having been smitten by a traveling production of the play when
he was a child. The hold-up in negotiations was because Barrie had bequeathed
the rights to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London. Disney
finally secured the rights in 1939.
The Reluctant Dragon
(1941) features a tour of the Disney studios in which drawings of Captain Hook
can be clearly seen, indicating that the film was in active development as
early as 1941.
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