With Disney set later this month to release the latest (and what must be the hundredth) adaptation of J.M. Barrie's famous tale of a boy who wouldn't grow up, it might be worth taking a look at the very first Peter Pan film, released by Paramount Pictures in 1924 and directed by Herbert Brenon in consultation with Barrie, who personally chose Betty Bronson as his famous flying boy of Never Never Land. So, of the dozen or so versions of this story over the past century, how does this first one hold up?
The best part about this first on-screen adaptation of Peter Pan, which helped set the standard for future versions, is its renowned special effects. The most notable example of this is the depiction of Tinker Bell, played here by Virginia Browne Faire, the role she's best remembered for. Using multiple exposure and lighting effects to create the small and translucent pal of Peter's, the film surely would have won an Oscar if such a category existed at the time. (Indeed, this would be impossible, as the Academy Awards didn't even start until five years later.) The children flying, while being one of the easier-to-explain effects, must have also looked breathtaking to young audience members at the time (including, one can assume, a twelve-year-old boy named Walt Disney, although there is no official record of whether or not he saw it as a child).
The most enjoyable scenes are in the opening moments of the film, when we are witness to the loving devotion the Darlings have to their children. They're so attached to them, they even have the dog, Nana, look after them as their literal nanny. Here, Nana (not actually a dog) appears like a surreal alien mollycoddling the Darling children, making their beds and dragging around blankets with her mouth, ordering them to take a bath. Nana is portrayed by "skin game" actor George Ali, who also plays the crocodile hungry for the rest of Captain Hook. What really helps make these moments work are the adorable nature of the three young actors playing the Darling children: Mary Brian as Wendy, Jack Murphy as John, and Philippe De Lacy as Michael. De Lacy in particular really shines. De Lacy barely survived World War I when a German shell killed his mother and siblings, and he was brought over to the United States, where he soon became a model and actor. The acting of Cyril Chadwick and Esther Ralston as the Darling children's loving parents is also commendable, bringing a pleasant sense of familial merriment to the film. So, too, does the inclusion of some of Barrie's best lines, like that candles are "the eyes a mother leaves behind to guard her children."
From there, things get a bit uneven. The effects, as mentioned, are spectacular, even today. The 2003 version of Peter Pan, which is still the best version, had wonderful visual effects, too, yet everyone knows how Industrial Light and Magic made them: through the use of computer-generated imagery. Few audience members today would watch the 1928 Peter Pan and know off the top of their head how such magic was created. (Incidentally, 1928 Peter Pan grossed over $1.5 million at the box office, making it one of the most financially successful silent films of all time. 2003 Peter Pan, as underrated as it is, was a more modest financial success.) Yet a Peter Pan film is only as good as the actors playing the two leads: the title character, and his arch nemesis, Captain Hook.
To prove my point, compare Jeremy Sumpter and Jason Isaacs from 2003 to Allison Williams and Christopher Walken in 2014. One pairing was unquestionably better. In 1924, the two characters were played by Betty Bronson and Ernest Torrence, respectively. While Torrence had already been acting on the screen for at least five years, often playing adversarial characters, this was Bronson's first credited role, turning her into a star. Yet its hard to divorce oneself from all the memories of all the other famous actors who played the parts in the century since, from Mary Martin to Robin Williams to Jude Law in the upcoming adaptation. Fair to say or not, all of them are more memorable than Bronson and Torrence, who ham it up to a level that seems gratuitous even for a silent film for children.
Yet it's not simply that the film doesn't hold up as well as later versions. Even at the time, some speculated that the film, even with all of its fancy special effects of flying children and a giant pirate ship, looked flat compared to Barrie's vision. Barrie supposedly complained that the film only repeated what had been done on stage, and historian Roger Green speculated that "[Barrie] would indefinitely have preferred the Walt Disney cartoon to the Paramount Picture of 1924 because Disney attempted to do more in the way of special effects and take advantage of the pictorial aspects."
This also is not a film devoid of some of the controversies involving Peter Pan, namely its depiction of indigenous people. The term "redskins" is used, as is offensive caricature dialogue, and Tiger Lilly is played by silent film superstar (and non-Native American) Anna Wong. (There were several cases of Asians playing Native Americans since, including Sessue Hayakawa in Black Wolf a year later and Kelsey Asbille appearing in Yellowstone and Wind River as recently as 2017.) And while not a big deal in any sense today (one would hope), one wonders if there was any controversy regarding the on-screen kiss between Bronson and Brian.
Ultimately, this beat-by-beat approach (that would have admittedly been novel at the time) will likely be difficult to enthusiastically view after seeing even just a few of the many versions that came after it. The trick to a successful on-screen adaptation of Peter Pan is not simply to try something new. Hook, the 1991 sequel to the story in which Peter has grown up to become a boring attorney, is neat for about thirty minutes, yet the gimmick grows tiring not long after Peter returns to Never Land to rescue his children. Pan, the 2015 prequel in which Peter goes up against Black Beard, was a mess. And Peter Pan Live! was roundly mocked. Novelty isn't always the solution.
Some authors have tried to take this famous story (which is now entirely in the public domain) and do something new with it. For example, Austin Chant wrote a book called Peter Darling in 2017 in which Peter is reimagined as a trans man, and Jodi Lynn Anderson wrote Tiger Lily five years earlier from the point of view of the famous character. As neat as the upcoming Disney version looks, one wonders why one of these more contemporary versions haven't been given their due on screen.
All in all, I don't mean to pick on 1924 Peter Pan, which must have been a real treat see nearly a century ago. But the reality is that I have seen so many other versions of Peter Pan that it was not possible for this version not to lose steam pretty quickly.