by J. M. Barrie
“Wendy, you are wrong about Mothers. Long ago I flew back but the window was barred, and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed.”
We see Peter telling this. Then we have a vision of Peter looking through the window of his old nursery, and there is a baby in the bassinette. The window is iron barred. He beats on the window in vain and is furious.
Then we see John and Michael cross to Wendy in terror.
“Perhaps Mother is in half mourning by this time.”
Wendy says it, alarmed: and, in a vision, we have a picture of Mr and Mrs Darling at home brightly practising a new dance to a gramophone, and not in mourning.
“We must go back at once. You can all come with me. I am sure father and mother will adopt you.”
“Won’t they think us rather a handful, Wendy?”
“Oh no, it will only mean having a few beds in the drawing-room; they can be hidden behind screens on first Thursdays.”
Wendy is saying it. Then, in a vision, we see the little drawing-room first as an ordinary, but quite humble, room, and then the same room with many little beds in it, and one of the lost children in each. Then we see the boys delightedly getting their bundles to accompany Wendy, and all now dressed as in this scene in the play. All are jolly except Peter, who stands with arms folded. Wendy entreats him to get ready like the others.
“Nobody is going to make me a man: I want always to be a little boy and to have fun.”
He is saying this. He skips about, pretending heartlessness and playing his pipes. Wendy is in woe. She appeals to him in vain.
“You will remember about changing your flannels, Peter? and to take your medicine? I’ll pour it out for you.”
He nods sullenly. We see her pouring out his medicine and leaving it on a ledge at the back in a glass.
“What are your exact feelings for me, Peter?”
“Those of an adoredable son, Wendy.”
She asks him lovingly, but his reply makes her stamp her foot. They are about to ascend their trees when a sudden turmoil above terrifies them. This scene has been underground only—nothing above shown.
Now the scene changes to above ground. The pirate music is heard. The redskins start up into fighting positions, and at the same moment the pirates are upon them. Now takes place the great fight between pirates and redskins, which should be a much more realistic and grim affair than in the play. There it has to be more pretence, but here we should see real redskin warfare that will be recognised as such by all readers of Fenimore Cooper, etc. Alternated with it we should see the children below listening for the result in agony. Peter has seized a sword and wants to rush up to join in the fight, but Wendy holds him back and the terrified Michael clings to his knees. Some pirates are killed, but more redskins and the remaining redskins, including Tiger Lily, are put to flight. The bodies are removed. Then the pirates gather together and listen at the trees.
“If the redskins have won they will beat the tom-tom: it is always their sign of victory.”
Peter is saying it. All the children listen eagerly. At the same time we see the scene above. Hook, listening at tree has heard Peter’s remark. He sees how to deceive the children. He seizes the tom-tom and wickedly beats it.
“An Indian victory! You are quite safe now, Wendy. Goodbye. Tink, lead the way.”
Peter says it. All rejoice. Peter pulls the curtain of Tink’s room. Tink darts about—then disappears up a tree. Peter and Wendy have an affecting farewell. Peter is breaking down and the other boys look on inquisitively. He stamps and they turn their faces away in fear of him. When he is sure they are not looking he embraces Wendy, but like a child, not like a lover. Then all but Peter disappear in tree-trunks.
Above ground we see the pirates waiting devilishly at the trees to seize the children as they come up. Tink darts up and escapes them. She flutters around and is lost sight of. Then up their trees come the doomed children, one by one, to be immediately seized before they utter a cry. They are tossed like bales of cotton from one pirate to another, and this should be a quaint effect if exactly carried out. They should probably be on wires to get it right, but there must be no burlesquing of it. All should seem natural. The last is Wendy, to whom Hook gives his arm with horrible courtesy. She takes it in a dazed way. He gives the signal and all go except himself. He stands there, a dreadful figure in his cloak.
Next a brief picture of the surviving redskins in panic, striking their tents. The squaws carry babies in the Indian way.
Then we see the underground home again. Peter thinks they have all got safely away. We see him barring the doors of the trees.
Who was Peter Pan? No one really knows. Perhaps he was just somebody’s boy who never was born.
We have a picture of Peter sitting, a sad, solitary figure on the side of the bed. Then up above we see Hook listening. He produces from his pocket a bottle, and a close-up picture shows the word “Poison” on it. Scowling horribly he begins to descend a tree.
Then, below, we see Peter now lying on the bed. He has gone miserably to sleep. Hook’s head appears very devilishly above the door of the tree. He can’t reach the bar of the door to get in. He is foiled. Then he sees the medicine, which is within reach. He pours some poison into it. Then, with horrid triumph, he withdraws. We see him reappear at top, and now he is suddenly attacked by Tink, who flies at his face. She evidently stings him badly, but he drives her away, wraps his cloak around him and goes off villainously.
Again we see Peter on bed. Tink flies in and wakes him.
She rings excitedly, and for some time. He understands the terrible news she is telling him and seizes his dagger. He vows vengeance. He sharpens the dagger on his grindstone.
“My medicine poisoned? Rot. I promised Wendy to take it, and I will.”
He is saying this to Tink, who is excitedly hopping around the glass. He takes the medicine in his hand.
She bravely drinks it.
When he sees she has done this he is amazed.
She begins to flutter about, and makes the bell-sounds.
“What? It was poisoned, and you drank it to save my life?”
Tink is fluttering about weakly. Peter is in distress.
“Tink, why did you do it?”
He asks despairingly. She tinkles back “You silly ass!” She flutters into her bedroom on to bed. Peter is in agony outside her room, looking in. Close-up picture of Tink writhing on bed. Peter’s head is peering into room and will be nearly as large as the room.
“She says she thinks she could get well again if children believed in fairies. Oh, say that you believe: Wave your handkerchiefs! Don’t let Tink die!”
Peter is addressing the audience. He, as it were, comes outside the scene to do so. We hope that, as in the play, the audience demonstrate. The light in the little room, which has been palpitating, grows stronger. Peter is triumphant: he thanks audience.
And now to rescue Wendy.
In a close-up we see Tink gaily dancing on her bed.
(From this point for a long time there are no words flung on screen.)
We now see Peter in pursuit of the pirates.
First he emerges from the tree. He looks for signs of which way they have gone. In a close-up we see their footmarks. He follows these. Then we see the pirates brutally leading the chained prisoners through the wood.
Then a brief picture of the redskins departing hurriedly in their Indian canoes for some new hunting-ground.
Then Hook alone triumphantly proceeding through the wood.
Then the crocodile alone (unknown to Hook) doggedly plodding after him.
Then Peter still following the trail by the footmarks.
There should be a feeling of danger in the air. It is dusk. We see the shadows of prowling wild animals. We don’t see the animals themselves, only their shadows, which should make the scene more creepy.
Then the two rowing boats. The children are tossed in, again like bales of cotton.
Hook comes. The boats pu
t off. We see them drawing near the pirate ship. Hook boards first. He hauls up the children by his hook.
We see Peter arrive at the water’s edge. He is looking about him when in a sudden lull of the music he hears (and we hear) the crocodile’s clock striking twice, to imply that it is half-past some hour of the evening. He searches and finds the crocodile, who was invisible when his clock struck. It is the striking of the clock that makes Peter know that the crocodile must be near by. We see Peter and the crocodile together by the water’s edge. Peter explains what he wants and the crocodile signifies assent. They then enter the water together.
Then we see the hold of the pirate ship with the children lying bound.
Then Hook in his cabin sitting on his bed smiling to himself. He is in great and horrible glee. We have a picture of what this desperado is chuckling over. It is a vision of Peter underground, drinking the medicine and then writhing in death throes on the floor. Then the deck of the ship with the pirates dancing to a fiddle. Smee is sitting working at a sewing-machine. Hook appears threateningly at the door of his cabin, which opens off the deck, and all stop dancing in fear of him. They shrink back. He paces the deck gloomily, a dark spirit. He is a sort of Hamlet figure in the “To be or not to be” soliloquy. Smee is still at his sewing-machine.
A strange mood of depression comes over Hook, as if he fears his coming dissolution. Scenes of his innocent days pass before him. He sees himself again at Eton answering at “Absence” and on the football field and in “pop”—Pictures of these visions (which will be given in detail later). Then again we see him on deck brooding. Smee tears a cloth as in the play and Hook thinks an accident has happened to his trousers. He calls Starkey privately to examine him. Then Smee quite innocently does it again. Hook realises the truth this time, and threatens Smee. All the business of the play here.
Hook sits beside a barrel, on which there are playing cards.
He gives an order and pirates descend into the hold and hoist up the manacled children. We see them first in the hold, and then being brutally hoisted up. Smee ties Wendy to the mast; he is ingratiating to her, but she scorns him. All stare at Hook, who goes on playing cards without seeming to notice them. Next we see Peter and the crocodile swimming side by side. Then the deck again. Hook suddenly turns on the children threateningly. They are frightened. He raises his hat and bows with fiendish politeness to Wendy, who replies with a look of contempt. He goes from one to another clawing at them, then gives an order, and, in response, the pirates get the plank ready and extend it over the water. In a close-up the terrified children are shown graphically what is meant by the phrase “walking the plank.” To the music of the pirate song Hook shows them what is to be their fate, by walking an imaginary plank.
“Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky Plank
You walks along it so,
Till it goes down, and you goes down
To Davy Jones below.”
We don’t hear the words, but his actions give the idea, and we hear the music. The pirates at the plank at the same time show how it works. All this should be much more graphic and realistic than in the play.
Next we see Peter and the crocodile reach the side of the ship. Peter indicates to crocodile to swim round and round the ship. Peter himself then begins his heroic ascent of the vessel, dagger in mouth. He does wonderful deeds of climbing not only up the huge hulk but among the rigging.
Next we see the crocodile in the water beside the ship and we hear its clock begin to strike the hour of 12. When it has struck 3 the scene changes to the deck of the ship, but the striking of the clock still goes on. It strikes 12 altogether. Hook hears it and is unmanned. He crouches at the side of the deck and some pirates gather round him to conceal him, while others look over the vessel’s side for the crocodile. While this is going on Peter arrives on deck to the delight of the children. He does not come in the simple way followed in the play. He leaps from rope to rope, crawls along perilous masts and comes down the rigging with extraordinary courage and agility. He does not carry a clock as in play, as this is not now needed. He signs caution. A pirate comes from the back and is neatly knifed and flung overboard. Always when anyone goes overboard we should have the effect of the splash. Peter steals into Hook’s cabin. The pirates peering overboard indicate to Hook that the danger is past. Hook swaggers again. He sees Slightly jeering at him, seizes him and is about to make him walk the plank at once when he has an idea. We have a vision of this idea. The vision is of the cat-o’-nine-tails hanging up in his cabin. We have a close-up picture of it.
“Fetch the cat, Jukes; it’s in the cabin.”
Then we see him order the pirate, Jukes, into the cabin, obviously to fetch the cat. Jukes goes. Then the music of the pirate song. Hook and pirates sing another verse which evidently, from the action, is about the cat, but before they reach the end of the verse they stop and the music itself stops abruptly. The sudden silence should be among the most impressive moments in the ship scene. This pause is because of a dreadful long-drawn-out cry from the cabin, which we need not hear. Evidently the pirates have heard something dreadful. The sudden silence should be very dramatic. After a pause Cecco goes cautiously to the cabin door and looks in. In the semi-darkness we don’t see Peter, but we see his shadow standing silent against a wall, a figure of fate. Jukes is seen lying dead on the floor. Hook sees the children looking pleased, and threateningly he orders Cecco into the cabin. Cecco pleads for mercy, then shuddering goes, as dramatically as in the play. All listen intently.
There is no more dancing. Then they are again evidently startled by an awful cry. The children delightedly know that Peter must be dealing out death. Then when Hook threatens they dissemble. Starkey, quaking, peeps in at the cabin door, and we now see Cecco’s body lying across that of Jukes. Peter’s shadow is again seen motionless. Then another picture of the cabin, with now five bodies lying across each other, the topmost a negro. Peter’s terrible shadow is still seen.
Next Hook orders Starkey into cabin, but rather than obey Starkey leaps overboard as in the play. All this scene should be very intense. Hook wants to pick out another victim, but the superstitious pirates gather together mutinously. He indicates that he will go in himself. He lifts a musket, then casts it down, and clawing with his hook (his best weapon) he goes into the cabin.
There is a moment’s awful silence, and then he staggers out in a daze. Evidently from his action of clutching his brow someone has struck him a dreadful blow on the head. The pirates talk together mutinously, and while they are doing so Peter, unseen by them, emerges from the cabin. He is carrying cutlasses. He gives them to the boys who begin to cut their bonds.
Then another picture of all in same positions as before. Peter comes out: but we see that the boys’ bonds are now cut. Wendy seems to be standing against the mast as before, but though the audience (or such of them as don’t know the play) are meant to think that this is Wendy, it is really Peter in her cloak with face hidden. The actual Wendy is unseen. The mutinous crew now advance threateningly on Hook.
“Never was luck on a pirate ship wi’ a woman aboard. Into the water with her, bullies.”
He indicates Wendy as the Jonah, and that she should be flung overboard. The pirates think it is a good idea. All advance on the supposed Wendy, when suddenly the cloak is flung off, and the figure is revealed as Peter Pan, the Avenger. This should be as much a surprise to the audience as to the pirates who shrink back for a moment from the terrible boy. Wendy now puts her head out of a barrel, which lets us see where she has been hidden.
Now the fight takes place, and instead of, as in the play, its being all on deck and trivial, it should take place in various parts of the ship, and be a real stern conflict. There are individual contests in which the pirates are killed by Nibs, say, or Tootles, or John. Some pirates leap overboard—and sometimes the boys seem to be the losers, though only wounded. We don’t see Peter or Hook just now. Then we see two of the boys pursued up the hatchway by Hook. They are being
hard pressed by him.
Suddenly Peter appears and strikes up the swords. He and Hook stand gazing at each other. Their swords describe a circuit, and then the points reach the ground at the same time. Peter is now like a figure of fate. What he has said to the boys is “Put up your swords, boys; this man is mine.”
“Rash and presumptuous youth, prepare to meet thy doom.”
“Dark and sinister man, have at thee.”
It should be a very real fight now between Hook and Peter, and both must be good fencers. First the one is beaten to his knees, then the other. At one point Wendy tries to save Peter. He flings her across his shoulder and fights with her thus. He knocks Hook’s sword from his hand. Hook is at his mercy, but Peter chivalrously presents the sword to him. Wendy is no longer on Peter’s shoulder. Now Peter seems to be lost. He loses his sword. Suddenly he runs up a rope hanging from above (as First Twin does in the acted play). Then as suddenly he lets himself fall plop on Hook who is flattened out.
“ ’Tis some fiend fighting me. Pan, who and what art thou?”
“I’m youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg.”
The fight is resumed. Peter drives Hook back, up the ladder on to the poop, where the plank is. Here they wrestle together, and Peter seems to be getting the worst of it. Suddenly by a piece of ju-jitsu work he flings Hook over him and Hook comes down with a smash. Hook is now hopeless. Peter indicates sternly to him that he must walk the plank.
“Jas. Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell.”
Hook shrinks back, and won’t obey the order. He shows his teeth. Peter gives an order to a boy who rushes down to cabin and brings Peter the cat-o’-nine-tails. Peter indicates that it will be his painful duty to use the cat if Hook does not at once walk the plank. Thus threatened Hook pulls himself together, and in his last moment is as brave a figure as any Sydney Carton on the scaffold.
Doubtless the “something” that is said to be part of an Eton education and that can be got nowhere else comes to his help in this unpleasant moment. He has a vision which we see, of the “Wall game,” the most characteristic game of Eton College, and then he sets forth with dignity upon his impressive but brief walk along the plank. Just before the plank goes down the crocodile rears his head in the water below, the great mouth opens wide, and Hook dives straight into it, swallowed in one memorable mouthful. The crocodile waggles its head to get the legs down. They, too, disappear.
