Peter Pan (1953)

Directed by: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Jack Kinney | 76 minutes | animation, adventure, family, fantasy, music | Original voice cast: Bobby Driscoll, Kathryn Beaumont, Hans Conried, Bill Thompson, Heather Angel, Paul Collins, Tommy Luske, Candy Candido, Tom Conway

“Nothing that happens to us after our twelfth birthday really matters,” said Scottish author James M. Barrie, spiritual father of Peter Pan, the boy who never wanted to grow up. And so it is. Michael Jackson identified with the Barrie-created character and named his famed ranch Neverland. Walt Disney was also a big fan of Barrie’s story and already planned a film version in 1935. It was intended to be Disney’s second full-length animated feature, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), but it took four years for Walt Disney to reach an agreement with the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, which Barrie had left the rights. The Second World War followed not much later and after 1945 there was not enough money available for a major film. Thus, it took until 1953 for the public to enjoy Disney’s version of Barrie’s classic 1904 play. It is the last film in which the legendary ‘Nine Old Men’, the talented Disney animators from the very beginning, all played their part.

All this has happened before. And it will all happen again. These are the well-known opening lines of ‘Peter Pan’ (1953). Central to the film are the children of the Darling family: Wendy (voiced by Kathryn Beaumont), John (Paul Collins) and Michael (Tommy Luske). Big sister Wendy entertains her brothers with the stories of Peter Pan (Bobby Driscoll), a fantasy character who has decided that he wants to be a child forever and lives on the island of Neverland, far away from here. He experiences exciting adventures in which he comes face to face with pirates and Indians. Father and mother Darling have heard all those stories for a long time, but now they think it’s time for Wendy to grow up. They want her to no longer sleep in the nursery, but in her own bedroom. However, Wendy doesn’t like that and prefers to dream away for a while. Peter Pan also hopes that she and her brothers will remain children for a while and comes to visit them, so that they can fly with him to Neverland. The Darlings have special adventures alongside Peter and his loyal sidekick Tinkerbell. However, the villainous Captain Hook (Hans Conried) still has a bone to pick with Peter Pan and makes clever use of Tinkerbell’s jealousy, who doesn’t like Peter having a good time with Wendy…

Of course, the story of Barrie is more than a century old, and the Disney film adaptation has also seen Abraham for a long time, so that ‘Peter Pan’ seems a bit dated should come as no surprise. The contemporary public will raise their eyebrows in astonishment, especially at the caricatural way in which the Indians are portrayed. As far as animations are concerned, ‘Peter Pan’ is in no way inferior to modern CGI violence. The film brims with energy and is packed with technical feats and colorful characters. The story is of course still rock solid. Fleeing into a fantasy world appeals to the imagination of children of all generations. The fact that Peter Pan must make big, mature decisions to save his friends from Captain Hook’s clutches adds a mildly moralizing twist to the story. Above all, however, ‘Peter Pan’ is a celebration of the power of fantasy and imagination. Adventurous and dynamic, with catchy songs and a great voice cast. The fact that ‘Peter Pan’ does not have the classic status of, for example, ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ or ‘Pinocchio’ (194) has more to do with the exceptional class of those films than the fact that the film itself falls short