The Disney Discussion - Peter Pan

Over the course of the year, we'll be spending our Wednesdays with Walt, having a discussion about each of Disney's animated films...

Movie #14 of The Disney Discussion

Peter Pan (1953)

Featuring the voice talents of Bobby Driscoll, Kathryn Beaumont, Hans Conried, Bill Thompson, Tommy Luske, and Paul Collins

Directed by Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, and Wilfred Jackson

Summary (in 150 words or less):

The non-aging Peter Pan whisks the three Darling siblings -- Wendy, John, and Michael -- off to Neverland where they meet a wide array of characters including the nefarious Captain Hook who will stop at nothing to capture the film's title character.

Let the Discussion Begin...

Peter Pan is the Walt Disney Company's fourteenth full-length animated film and it was released on February 5, 1953.  

The film was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival, but didn't walk away with a win.  It did, however, receive the honor of being the highest-grossing film of 1953 which was a huge boon to Disney after the disappointment of Alice in Wonderland.  Made for $4 million, the film had made $7 million by 1955 and through subsequent re-releases has a (unadjusted for inflation) gross of $87 million.

Walt Disney intended for Peter Pan to be his fourth animated film and work was begun on the film as early as the 1930s, but WWII brought a stop to production.  Throughout the downtime, various changes to J.M. Barrie's original story were proposed, but in the end Disney decided to stick close to the original source material.

Peter Pan is the final Disney-produced animated film to be released by RKO Pictures.  After this film, Disney founded his own distribution company.  Also interesting to note, Peter Pan is the last animated feature in which all of Disney's Nine Old Men worked together.  So, this was the end of an era in more ways than one for the Disney team.

The Characters

(The Best...The Worst...The Villains...)

What's unique about Peter Pan is this is Disney's first full-length animated feature to place a male front and center -- a human male, that is.  (Yes, Pinocchio had a male character as the lead, but was he really human?  Not until the final moments...I rest my case.)  Heretofore, Disney's leading stars have been ladies and now we finally get a guy's perspective at the forefront.  I must admit that it was a refreshing change.  Granted, our title character is a bit of a rapscallion, but his joie de vivre and youthful exuberance (brought to life in part thanks to a nice vocal performance from Bobby Driscoll) is unique thus far in the Disney landscape.

As is often the case in Disney's films, for every protagonist there is an antagonist and Peter Pan is no exception, bringing to the screen the iconic role of Captain Hook.  Hook is an interesting character in that in our first glimpse of him, he's seen shooting one of his crew members simply because he wouldn't stop singing.  This tells us right off the bat that Hook isn't a guy to be take lightly.  However, as the film progresses, we see that the character of Hook is placed into more comedically treacherous situations and the bumbling nature of his first mate Mr. Smee never really permits Hook to gain that maliciousness that is so common amongst Disney's villains.  While some would criticize this atypical villain characterization, I loved Captain Hook.  I've always viewed Hook as a melodramatically over-the-top kind of guy -- the perfect character for a proper British actor to sink his teeth into and have a lot of fun.  That's the case here with Hans Conried perfectly embodying the role.  Carrying on the tradition of the stage play, Conried also plays the role of the father in the Darling household and it's interesting to see how the persona isn't all that different from Hook.

Speaking of the Darling household, Peter Pan wouldn't be complete without the siblings our title character brings to Neverland.  Older sister Wendy (voiced with motherly compassion by Kathryn Beaumont, Alice in Wonderland's title character) and her brothers John and Michael are, like the aforementioned Hook and Peter, wonderfully animated.  The animators were really getting into the swing of creating smooth, realistic movements and all three were given unique personalities.

Considering that in all previous incarnations of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell was simply a spot of light that bounced around the stage, the Disney animators took it upon themselves to give this character a face and body for the first time.  According to Leonard Maltin's wonderful book The Disney Films, Disney was quoted in a magazine article as stating that Tinker Bell was modeled after Marilyn Monroe who was rising in popularity around the development of this film.  If there's truth to that statement, it's certainly believable as Tinker Bell, despite her nymph size, exudes a sassy sexiness.  She's well endowed both in front and behind -- a characteristic that the animators use in a comedic bit at the beginning of the film as she finds herself unable to fit through a keyhole -- and has a "mean girl" attitude that is absolutely conveyed despite the fact that she says nary a word throughout the whole film.

All this and I've failed to mention the rambunctious Lost Boys, the adorable Darling dog Nana, and I've only given a passing word on the humorous Mr. Smee.  Quite honestly, the film is full of rich characters and the Disney folk have J.M. Barrie to thank for that.

The Music

I don't know why, but I remembered music playing a much more pivotal role in Peter Pan than it actually does.  That isn't to say that there are some stand-out numbers (two, in fact), but the remainder of the tunes are throwaways and one, in particular, should've been left on the cutting room floor.  (And, in retrospect, I imagine the PC Disney Police wish it never made it into the film as well...but more on that later...)

The film's most iconic song is Sammy Cahn and Sammy Fain's "You Can Fly, You Can Fly, You Can Fly," but perhaps most interestingly, it starts off as simply rhythmic talking.  Peter starts talking the words and the Darling children pick up where he leaves off, but none of the characters burst into song.  Instead, as Peter, Tink, and the Darlings fly out over the beautifully animated London landscape, the Jud Conlon Chorus omnisciently takes up the banner of doing the actual singing.  It's actually a rather brilliantly conceived scene.

The other standout song is "Following the Leader" (by Oliver Wallace, Ted Sears, and Winston Hibler), but it's admittedly a bit of a unnecessary piece that doesn't advance the story so much as it gives the animators a chance to wow us with their brightly colored backdrops as well as giving us quite a few chuckles as the previously serious John takes the Lost Boys (and his constantly lagging-behind younger brother Michael) on a journey to find Neverland's tribe of Indians.

And as for those Indians...well, this is where I imagine the current crop of Disney management wishes Walt had the foresight to know what would've been deemed "improper" in future decades.  I probably don't have to say anything else other than the title of a song for you to know where the un-PCness lies -- "What Makes the Red Man Red?"  Um...yeah.  Personally, I'm not offended by the song's subject matter -- what offends me is that the song is horrible.  That said, I'm happy Disney didn't remove the song from the recent Blu-Ray release (as we've seen them do with flicks like Fantasia and Melody Time) as retroactively making things politically correct in this manner makes us forget our past.

My Favorite Scene

I think the aforementioned songs -- "You Can Fly" and "Following the Leader" -- are the best portions of the film.  Both are whimsically enjoyable and beautifully animated.  This film, more than any other so far in this Disney journey I've embarked upon, was actually most difficult to pick out a favorite scene.  And that's not because I didn't like it -- in fact, it's been one of my favorites thus far.  Instead, I think the difficulty stems from the scenes in the movie flowing rather effortlessly from one to the other.  The movie felt "whole" rather than feeling like "individual set pieces," if that makes any sense.

Random Thoughts

• The film starts with a male narrator introducing us to the Darling family.  The omniscient voice, however, is abandoned after about two minutes.  It's something I absolutely don't remember and don't feel was necessary in the slightest.  We didn't need the exposition provided by the narrator to grasp the story.
• This is the first film in this Disney Discussion where the musical score (here by Oliver Wallace) was noticeable to me.   Peter Pan has a three note trill that pops up often when he appears and it's still stuck in my head hours later.
• I certainly remembered that Tinker Bell wasn't fond of Wendy's encroachment into Peter Pan's life, but she's nearly as evil as Captain Hook in that she sets out to kill Wendy right off the bat out of sheer jealousy.  
• I've already mentioned the sexy design of Tinker Bell, but then the animators throw in half-clothed mermaids as well.  It's not surprising to me that some in the public weren't fond of these more curvy designs.
• Shadows play a major role in the beginning of the film and I very much enjoyed the way the animators utilized them.
• On tapes and cd's from my youth and in a piano book collection of Disney songs I own, the tune "Never Smile at a Crocodile" is given prominence.  Much to my surprise, the song was cut from the film.  Although the music appears in the movie as a prelude to the Tick Tock Crocodile's appearances, there are no lyrics in the film.  While it's probably a good choice story-wise to abandon the lyrics, I was taken aback by their absence.

Final Analysis

(Does It Belong in the Revered Disney Pantheon and How Does It Stack Up to Past Films?)

I won't deny that Peter Pan has its faults -- the Indian subplot was actually completely unnecessary -- but I had a smile on my face pretty much from the get go while watching this one.  While Alice in Wonderland felt like the animators failed to create a cohesive film, Peter Pan (based on another famous British novel) comes together fantastically.  The colors, the animation, the voice acting, the story -- all of it works swimmingly.  Peter Pan doesn't necessarily have any "WOW" moments, but it's delightful and completely enjoyable...so it absolutely deserves a spot in the revered Disney Pantheon.

The RyMickey Rating: A-

Join us next Wednesday for Lady and the Tramp, the fifteenth film in The Disney Discussion.