Peter Pan (1924)

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Movie
German title Peter Pan
Original title Peter Pan
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1924
length 105 minutes
Rod
Director Herbert Brenon
script Willis Goldbeck based on the play by James M. Barrie
production Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, Production Manager: Herbert Brenon
music Philip Carli (1999 version)
camera James Wong Howe , Roy Pomeroy (trick camera)
occupation

Peter Pan is an American film directed by Herbert Brenon from 1924 based on motifs from novels by James M. Barrie .

action

Peter Pan , the boy who never wanted to grow up, comes to the Darling family in search of his shadow. The Darlings' three children, Wendy, Michael and John, accompany him to the magical dream island of Neverland , where the lost boys and a people of loyal Indians live. In Neverland, the children are kidnapped by the pirate captain Hook who wants revenge on Peter for losing his hand to a crocodile because of Peter. But Peter frees the children.

Production, theatrical release and restoration

Poster from 1924

Herbert Brenon's version of Peter Pan is the first film adaptation of Barrie's play of the same name, which premiered in 1904. The film, whose exterior shots were shot on the Santa Catalina Island off Los Angeles , largely preserves the stage character of the original thanks to its static camera work, which clearly distinguishes it from later film adaptations. The fact that the male title role was cast by a woman has to do with the fact that this was already a tradition with the stage version (e.g. with Maude Adams). The stage effects of the play included flight numbers that could be implemented more easily with a graceful female actress who was lifted into the air on the stage on ropes than with a male leading actor. The role was cast - by the author Barrie himself, by the way - with 17-year-old Betty Bronson, who he chose not least because she had received ballet training from Michel Fokine , which made her particularly convincing in the flight scenes.

While Peter Pan was already the seventh film for Bronson, her partner Mary Brian , who was almost the same age , was in front of the camera for the first time. The small role of Princess Tiger Lily was cast with the Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong .

Peter Pan premiered in the USA on December 29, 1924. Paramount Pictures took over the distribution of the film . In Germany, where the first performance took place in December 1925, it was awarded by Ufa .

Since there was no national film archive in the USA and Paramount had no interest in long-term exploitation of the film - films are only kept in the program by the distributors for as long as they bring in money - most of the copies were made by Peter Pan over the years destroyed. For decades, only heavily damaged copies were available until James Card, film restorer and curator of Eastman House in Rochester , rediscovered a well-preserved copy that David Pierce restored at Walt Disney Studios in the 1990s . Philip C. Carli composed a new film score that was performed by the Flower City Society Orchestra. The restored version premiered on April 8, 2001 at The El Capitan Theater in Hollywood .

criticism

Film historians and critics alike consider Peter Pan to be one of the most successful adaptations of Barrie's play, because on the one hand it preserves the effects of the stage version and on the other hand enriches it with outdoor shots and camera tricks (especially in scenes with the fairy Tinker Bell ).

Awards

literature

  • James Matthew Barrie : Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Didn't Want to Grow Up . German by Bernd Wilms . Deutscher Theaterverlag, Weinheim / Bergstrasse around 1994
  • Jacqueline Rose: Writing as Auto-Visualization. Notes on a Scenario and Film of Peter Pan; in: Screen 16: 3 (1975), pp. 29-53 (English)

Web links