by J. M. Barrie
“Just think lovely, wonderful thoughts, and they lift you up in the air.”
Peter is saying this to them, and shows them how to do it, but still they can’t. Then Nana is seen breaking her chain and rushing off down the street. She should be a real dog now.
“Wait till I blow the fairy dust on you.”
Peter blows fairy dust on the children. They are boastful because, as the result of this, they can fly a yard or so now, but they are still very bad at it.
Nana is next seen bursting a door open, and rushing up a stair into a room where the dining-party is. She tells in barks of the goings-on at home. The people dining rush to the window and pull the curtains slightly open. They don’t pull them open to anything like their full extent. About eighteen inches will be ample, and that only in the middle of the curtains, not the whole length. Through an aperture of about eighteen inches wide and deep the whole of the nursery window, about 80 yards away, will be seen. It is the only lighted win dow, and on it we can see the shadows of the children moving alarmingly on the nursery blind. Mr and Mrs Darling are much agitated, and rush with Nana out of the dining-room and down the stair.
Then we see the children flying in the nursery. They are clumsy compared to Peter, but are now able to revolve triumphantly round the nursery. They are in ecstasy. Then Mr and Mrs Darling hurrying with Nana along the snowy street. They point agitatedly to the window, against which the shadows of the children can be seen now flying round and round.
A close-up of this awful sight.
Then inside the nursery. All are going round in a mad delirium of delight: and then comes the flight of Peter and his companions through the window.
The parents and Nana burst into nursery just in time to see them disappear.
From the window they watch the children flying away over the house-tops.
The flight to the Never, Never Land has now begun. We see the truants flying over the Thames and the Houses of Parliament. Then an ordinary sitting of the House of Commons, faithfully reproduced. A policeman rushes in to the august Chamber and interrupts proceedings with startling news of what is happening in the air. All rush out to see, the Speaker, who is easily identified by his wig, being first. They get to the Terrace of the House and excitedly watch the flying group disappear.
Then the children flying over the Atlantic. The moon comes out. Wendy tires, Peter supports her.
Then they near New York. The Statue of Liberty becomes prominent. They are so tired that they all alight on it. It is slippery, and they can’t find a resting-place. At first we should think it a real statue. Then we should get the effect of the statue mothering them by coming to life, to the extent of making them comfortable in her arms for the night.
This should be one of the most striking pictures.
Next we see them resume their journey. They cross America, with Niagara seen.
Then they are over the Pacific, where the Never, Never Land is.
The Never, Never Land.
We see the island all glorious and peaceful in a warm sun. We see the whole of it as in a map, not a modern map but the old-fashioned pictorial kind with quaintly exaggerated details. I have a map of the Never, Never Land, in this style which should be reproduced.
Then we see the sun go down and the island become dark and threatening.
Wolves are seen chasing one of the Lost Boys.
Then wild animals drinking at the ford by moonlight.
Then redskins, in the Fenimore Cooper story manner, torturing a prisoner who is tied to a tree. He is a pirate.
Tiger Lily: “Every brave would have had her to wife, but she received their advances coldly.”
First Tiger Lily comes into view. Then we see a redskin evidently proposing to the beautiful creature, who is the Indian princess. She whips out her hatchet and fells him. She and all the redskins should be very tall in contrast with the children.
Then Peter is seen in the air, pointing out the distant pirate ship to Wendy. Then the dreadful ship comes into view, flying the Jolly Roger. We should have a fine, wicked pirate ship of the days when they attacked the Spanish galleons—a reproduction of some notorious ship, black and sinister, with an enormous hull which Peter is to climb presently. By and by we are to be shown various parts of the ship in detail. It is at anchor just now, and its sails are not showing. We don’t see the sails until Peter gives an order much later in the play.
Jas. Hook, the Pirate Captain (Eton and Balliol).
We have here a picture of Hook dressed as he is in the play, with an iron hook instead of a right hand—a double cigar in mouth, etc. He should be very tall.
(NOTE.—About the playing of this part. Hook should be played absolutely seriously, and the actor must avoid all temptation to play the part as if he was conscious of its humours. There is such a temptation, and in the stage play the actors of the part have sometimes yielded to it, with fatal results. He is a blood-thirsty villain, all the more so because he is an educated man. The other pirates are rough scoundrels, but he can be horribly polite when he is most wicked. He should have the manners of a beau. But above all the part should be played with absolute seriousness and avoidance of trying to be funny. This should be insisted on throughout, and especially later in the pirate-ship scene. This same warning applies to all the pirates.)
Pathetic Smee, the Nonconformist Pirate.
Smee is in spectacles, and is the hopeless loveable-looking ruffian of the play. He is sitting on the floor in a corner of the ship. By his side are tea-pot, cup and saucer, etc. He is drinking his tea out of the saucer.
Every one of them a name of Terror on the Spanish Main.
We see the dreadful crew—about twenty in all. Starkey, Cecco, etc. Some should be dressed as in the play. The others copied from the books about buccaneers.
A pirate points out the flying children.
Then Peter in the air is giving the warning to Wendy and the others.
Then we see Long Tom, the great gun, being got ready on deck. All the pirates must be very tall. It is fired, by Hook’s command.
We see Peter and his companions blown away in different directions, but evidently not damaged otherwise. They roll about in the air and then fly on. They are now separated.
The Lost Boys awaiting Peter’s return.
The scene is the wood of the play with big trees that have hollow trunks. All trees should be very large to make children seem smaller. From a chimney in ground smoke is coming.
We see the children emerging above ground from their trees as in the play. First comes Slightly.
Slightly Soiled. He was so called because that was the name marked on the clothes he had been lost in.
Slightly comes, he is the comic figure among the Boys.
Tootles—Nibs—Curly—The Twins.
They come up, all differentiated as in the play. All are looking in the sky for Peter.
“Yo, ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
The flag of skull and bones.
A merry life, a hempen rope,
And hey for Davy Jones!”
Now the music of this pirate song is heard, but not the words. The Lost Boys quake for they know it means that the pirates are coming.
The boys all dart down their trees out of sight, except Nibs who steals off to reconnoitre, one of them first putting a mushroom over the chimney to hide the tell-tale smoke. The pirates are punting rafts upon a romantic river.
On one raft with cushions raising him high sits Hook regally. Several pictures of them on river. Then Hook gets off. All are looking for the boys. He signals to them to scout in different directions. They move off stealthily. Two or three of them are gigantic negroes. They are evidently villains of every race.
“ ’Twas Peter Pan cut off my arm and flung it to a crocodile that happened to be passing by. That crocodile liked my arm so much, Smee, that it has followed me about ever since from sea to sea and from land to land licking its lips for the rest of me.”
“In a way, Captain, it�
�s a sort of compliment.”
Hook is saying this to Smee horribly, near the underground house of whose existence they don’t know yet. One boy’s head is out of a tree-trunk listening. He withdraws it, horrified. The whole scene is now shown in vision of Peter fighting Hook, cutting off his arm and flinging it to the crocodile.
The whack with which the arm is cut off should be so terrific that we see Hook “seeing stars,” but it is not “stars” he sees; it is the trees around him all moving just for a few seconds. The same sort of curious effect as was got in my private film of Macbeth, when the trees were seen chasing Macbeth.
This should be in strange and dreadful scenery, quite unlike that of the island. Then we see the dogged pursuit of Hook by the crocodile on a great globe of the world. We see an actual globe. Wherever the ship goes the crocodile is swimming after it. If Hook takes to land it still follows. Thus they go over the globe, which slowly revolves for our benefit, the figures being small, but discernible and much larger than they could really be.
“One day, Smee, that crocodile swallowed a clock, which goes tick-tick inside him, and so before he can reach me I hear the tick and bolt.”
Hook is telling this triumphantly. He is sitting on a large mushroom at this time, the one that conceals the chimney. Then, in a vision, we see the incident happening. Hook appears in another woodland scene near a river, but again different kind of scenery. All these scenes should be different from each other and very picturesque. He has something concealed under his cloak. He is very cunning and criminal in manner. It is a clock which he winds up. It now ticks, and we hear the ticking. He places it on the ground and hides. The crocodile comes, shoves clock about curiously and eventually swallows clock. It continues ticking, but in a more muffled way. The crocodile turns his head, trying to look at his body and goes away puzzled. Hook emerges triumphant and exits in the opposite direction villainously.
Then we see Hook and Smee again. Hook rises, evidently feeling hot. They lift the big mushroom on which he has been sitting, and discover that it conceals a chimney from which smoke now comes. They point to the holes in the trees and indicate triumphantly that they have discovered the boys’ secret home. They draw their pistols and cutlasses and are about to descend the trees.
A boy has been watching again. He descends and tells the other boys. We now see the underground home, which will be described later. The boys there are all in terror, but they seize weapons.
Then, above ground again, Hook and Smee are about to descend trees when they hear an alarming sound, which we hear also. It is the tick-tick of the crocodile. They rush away. Crocodile music. The crocodile appears and plods after them. He is a sort of Nemesis, ever plodding after Hook. It will be found best sometimes to have a real crocodile of huge size, and sometimes a theatrical property.
Now boys’ heads peep out at tree-trunks, watching. They disappear down trees as the redskins appear on the warpath following the pirates in single file. This is slow and creepy, to the redskin music. The redskins go off dramatically, as in the play. When they have passed the boys emerge. Nibs comes running to them excitedly pointing upwards. We now see Wendy flying alone and with difficulty. First she is seen over another part of the wood—then over the boys. Tink is also in air, dashing about.
The jealous Tink calls “Shoot the Wendy Bird!”
The bells tinkle. Tootles gets bow and arrow and shoots Wendy. We see the arrow in her. The bells ring “You silly ass!” Wendy falls to the ground. The boys gather round her.
“This is no bird. I think it must be a lady. Let me see, I remember ladies. Ay, that’s a lady.”
Slightly, in his conceited way, shoves the others aside and makes this disturbing announcement. All take off their caps. Tootles is scared: suddenly all look up. Peter is seen flying alone. First they are delighted. Then all gather round Wendy to hide her. Peter comes flying down.
“Boys, great news! I have brought at last a mother for us all!”
They are woebegone. Tootles nobly makes them stand aside and let Peter see Wendy.
Peter is dramatic. He goes on his knees beside her and pulls out the arrow. Tootles, baring his chest, indicates that he is the guilty one. Peter raises the arrow to use it as a dagger on Tootles. Wendy’s arm rises, and a Twin points this phenomenon out to Peter who examines Wendy again. Suspense of boys.
“She lives! This is the kiss I gave her. The arrow struck against it. It has saved her life.”
Peter holds up the button from her chest.
There is a close-up picture of button.
“I remember kisses. Let me see. Ay, that’s a kiss.”
Slightly is shown the button and gives his confident opinion. Then a picture of Tink on a tree, and Peter sternly ordering her away. She flies away crying: “You silly ass!”
John and Michael are now seen first flying and then tottering down. They are so tired that they fall asleep at once against a tree.
Then the children try to carry Wendy down a tree-trunk. They cannot get her down. Peter confides to them a grand idea, which they proceed to put into execution. It is to build a house round her.
We now see them building a house round Wendy in the elaborate manner of the play, just about the size of herself, John and Michael being waked up to join in. The house should not be a make-believe affair built of canvas as it has to be in the acted play. Here it should be a real house, though comic. We should see the boys felling trees, carpentering, etc., actually building the house with miraculous speed, much as described in Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. We see them knocking in the posts, making doors, windows, etc., with lightning rapidity, and all this to music. When the little house is finished it is a beautiful little house of wood and moss, lop-sided and all wrong, but fascinating.
They survey the completed house. Peter evidently sees there is one thing wanting. He indicates that it is a chimney. He knocks the top out of John’s tall hat (which John has been wearing since he left home) and puts it on roof as a chimney. Immediately smoke comes out of the hat.
Wendy consents to be their mother.
They are gathered round the little house expectantly. Peter knocks at the door. Wendy comes out in a daze. Then the scene of the play, with its business. They go on their knees, arms outstretched, asking her to be their mother. She consents. Glee. Wendy is at once maternal in manner. They dance round the house. All romp inside except Peter, who remains outside on guard with drawn sword. It gets dark. The little house is lighted up inside. The shadows of wild beasts pass in background. Peter drives away wolves. The last one is a baby wolf, so small and young, that it does not know how to run away. He lifts it up in his arms and carries it to its mother, who goes off thankfully with it. Then Peter falls asleep by the door of the little house.
Tink comes cautiously. She hops on to his knee, then on to his shoulder, kisses him. She remains there. Peter sleeps on.
One day soon after her arrival Peter took Wendy to the lagoon to see the Mermaids.
A gay procession is seen setting forth through romantic scenery. First Tootles, Nibs, Slightly, Twins, and Curly on foot gaily rollicking, leap-frogging, etc. Their clothes are now carefully darned, etc. Then Wendy, sitting on a rough little home-made sledge which is pulled by a kite string, the kite being high in the air. Then John and Michael on foot and very gay. Then last Peter riding on his goat. A peculiar effect should be tried for here, which may be got by the same mechanical means as the trees moving in earlier scene when Peter cut off Hook’s arm. The effect wanted is that, as Peter passes along a sort of path, flowers come moving after him in a long procession.
“Look at those beastly flowers following me again!”
Peter is looking behind him and saying this indignantly. He signs to the flowers authoritatively to stop it, and they now stand still. He goes on, and as soon as he has disappeared they begin to follow again. He has only been hiding and now pops round the corner and catches them following. Again they stop—he waves to them to go back, and then we see
them all go back till there are none left. They behave precisely like a dog following its master and ordered home. Peter now rides forward.
(NOTE.—We have now about twenty minutes of pictures without words.)
The next incident is that the kite string breaks because John tries to sit on sledge—thus showing that the kite can’t pull two. Wendy tumbles out of the sledge, and the kite disappears in the air. The sledge is abandoned. Peter gallantly dismounts to let Wendy ride the goat, and on they go. Then Peter signs caution, Wendy dismounts, and they proceed stealthily on tip-toe to take the mermaids by surprise. They hide among long grass and peer at the beautiful mermaids’ lagoon which now comes into view. It should be a lovely romantic lagoon in a coral island; coral reefs and Pacific vegetation. There are no mermaids at present. Peter points out objects of interest to Wendy, the chief one being a rock in the water called Marooners’ Rock, of which we are to see more presently.
Then they are excited over an incident that takes place. A branch of a tree on which is a great nest breaks off and falls into the water. The mother bird is on the nest and continues to sit on it as it floats away from the branch into the lagoon. Wendy kisses her hand to it in praise of its maternal behaviour.
Next we see the mermaids. The children watch from their hiding-place. The mermaid pictures should be a beautiful series of considerable length. First the mermaids are far away, scores of them basking lazily by the shores of the lagoon, some in the water, some out of it. They should mostly be at a distance as in this way the illusion will carry best. We may see one nearer on a rock combing her hair if this can be done without the tail being unnatural. Excitement of Wendy, Peter signs caution. All the children dive stealthily into the water, Peter leading, with the object of catching a mermaid. Alternative pictures of mermaids, and then the children swimming craftily toward them. They jump up to catch the one combing hair, but she slips through their fingers. Peter takes a flying leap through the air and alights on her back. He is wildly gay. No one else can be so gay as Peter, nor so serious, nor so gallant, nor so cocky.
