Happy Birthday, J. M. Barrie

[filkertom]

On this date in 1860.

So, what's your favorite version of Peter Pan? Book, play, movie, whatever. I know a lot of people have problems with it -- I've got a few myself -- but, dammit, I love Spielberg's Hook. And the 1960 TV broadcast starring Mary Martin (I saw it on its first rebroadcast in 1963 and again in 1966) will always have a warm place in my heart. (I dimly remember the Mia Farrow version with Danny Kaye as Hook; same with the Sandy Duncan version. And I could never get over the fact that I thought Cathy Rigby was hot. :-/ )

Comments

[jedilora.livejournal.com]

Oh man. I'm all about the Mary Martin version. I have an old VHS copy of the rebroadcast from 1990 that's gone fuzzy near the end from how many times I've rewound and watched Captain Hook's Waltz.

AND I have the soundtrack on CD, which makes me go yay.

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

I would give that version the nod, except that EVERY SINGLE FREAKING TIME we watched it while I was growing up, my mom would say "didja know that Peter Pan is J.R. Ewing's mom?"...and she wonders why I'm so strange...

I just saw the 2003 version last week and have to say I really enjoyed that version (I'd never seen Tink portrayed so vindictively before) a lot more than I thought I would, but I still put Hook at the top of my list (mainly 'cause I just LOVE Bob Hoskins' Smee in that flick).

[kiarrh.livejournal.com]

My first book-with-audio-tape set as a child was of Disney's animated Peter Pan, and to this day, I'll occasionally break out singing "We're Following The Leader" from it.

And I passionately love Hook. Dustin Hoffman gave such a classy spin to a villain that Disney largely rendered as a buffoon.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Word on that. Apparently Hoffman had to fight to get that much screen time, but it was worth it, 'cause that's what made it feel epic.

[signy1.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I'm defending Disney, (and I promise never to do it again,) but some of the buffoonery was in the original stage play. What Barrie wanted to do was have Hook be a double role for the mother-- tapping, I suppose into what Freud would later categorize as the double image of the mother, the one as nurturing and the other as destroying.

Only reason he didn't was because the actor playing Mr. Darling raised serious hell about the size of his part. So he got the Hook role instead, and he played it for comedy. I agree, Hook is a much better villain when you can take him seriously.

[batyatoon]

...Hook was originally supposed to be a double role for the mother?

Wow. That just ... that makes all kinds of disturbing sense.

[signy1.livejournal.com]

Yeah-- Barrie had mother-issues coming out of his EARS. There are some terrific biographies of him-- my favorite is called something along the lines of 'J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys'-- that really lead one to believe that Barrie could have used some counseling.

And the facts that the earliest versions of the Peter Pan mythos hinted very strongly that Peter was a psychopomp, and that Neverland was a sort of afterlife for dead children, don't really make him sound much stabler. I love Peter Pan, I really do. Every time you peel a layer off it, there's more to see and think about.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Not Peter Pan, but I'd put in a shout for the Johnny Depp film "Finding Neverland."

Somewhere, I have a first edition of Barrie's novel The Little Minister.

[allisona.livejournal.com]

I liked the live-action movie that came out in December 2003. It seemed truer to the book than any other version I've seen. Beyond that, I remember how surprised I was by how the dark the book was first time I read it, after growing up on all the musical and Disney versions.

[batyatoon]

Oh yes. One of the best things about that movie was that it kept the darkness from the book in a way I don't think any other adaptation has ever done.

I knew it was going to be good when I saw a promotional shot of the mermaids. "Yes! The mermaids are creepy! Someone finally gets that the mermaids are supposed to be creepy!"

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

I loved HOOK too. But hey, I loved Altman's POPEYE too. Perhaps I'm easily amused? :D

[ericcoleman]

I loved Popeye ... the songs are silly, but the rest is so true to the old Thimble Theatre strips

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

The Barrie book version. Its last line sends chills down my spine. "..so long as children are innocent and gay and heartless."

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Me too. Hook is great, but it's the choice of words that really makes the story - a much, much darker story than showed up in most of the movie versions.

[archanglrobriel.livejournal.com]

I love Hook as well. There are moments of truth in that movie which have helped me extricate myself from all sorts of negative life situations - specifically the whole concept of Peter Pan's forgetting who he is and having to be reminded as to his true magical nature because he's been so deadened by attempting to achieve "normalcy" and "success".
Whenever I'm in danger of forgetting who I am, I watch "Hook" again.

[ztrooper.livejournal.com]

Is there any way to obtain the Danny Kaye performance?

[daundelyon.livejournal.com]

The "Peter Pan and the Pirates" cartoon was pretty good. I will also second the above praise for "Finding Neverland". However, my favorite has to be the stage production that my sister was in during high school. ~_^

[eleri.livejournal.com]

I was in it once, as Tiger Lilly. Loads of fun, and the source of some of my greatest No Shit There I Was theatre stories.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

Wait, I'm not the only person who liked "Hook"?

Recently saw Rigby on stage in what's supposed to be her final tour with the show. They made a few tweaks to the story, not all I liked. Only cool thing was the guy who played Smee was on Disney Channel's "Adventures in Wonderland" (remember that show?) as the White Rabbit, which was the character style he was using for Smee, this and being one of the few onstage with talent meant he stole every scene he was in.

As for all the woman-on-wire versions, I liked Sandy Duncan's, but I'm just fine with the Disney animated version.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Remember that show? I've been trying to find a good MP3 of the theme. And I've got a bad little crush on Elizabeth Harnois, who played Alice.

From the first time I saw Mary Martin's Peter Pan

[capplor.livejournal.com]

I knew that Peter wouldn't really stay a child forever. He was trembling on the verge of adulthood in THAT story, and quite afraid of becomming "Daddy" to Wendy's "Mommy".

So I was waiting 20 years or so for Hook, and was not disappointed.

[jss]

I'm rather fond of the production I was in (an adaptation called Peter Panitz, about a boy who didn't want to grow up and have his Bar Mitzvah, all in Hebrew). I was the only male to play one of the Neverland kids (all the other boys played the pirates, and the girls played the kids). I might even have a page or two of the script left, not that I'd be able to read it anymore.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Peter Panitz

That's freakin' adorable. On the other end of the scale, the U-M Galen's Society's annual Smoker musical did Peter Pannus a few years back.

[jss]

It was adorable. I still remember part of the translation:

I won't grow up,
I don't wanna go to shul,
Don't wanna wear a tallis
Or tefillin on my head

(It rhymed in the original Hebrew.)

[batyatoon]

... Danny Kaye as Hook?? I MUST SEE THIS.



I liked Hook a lot too, but as I said above, my favorite adaptation is probably the 2003 Peter Pan. I loved its faithfulness to the original; I loved its deviations from the original where it deviated. I loved everything about Hook down to the detail on how his hook is attached, I loved that they let the mermaids be properly creepy and Tink be properly bitchy, I loved Neverland's bright colors and broad strokes, and I loved Peter. Cocky little bastard.

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

Favorite adaptations: (in order)

Finding Neverland
Hook
Peter and the Starcatchers (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/078684907X/sr=1-1/qid=1147191000/ref=sr_1_1/102-8791028-1912918?%5Fencoding=UTF8)
The Lost Boys (as in vampires as an allegory for Peter Pan *grin*)
Disney's Peter Pan
Peter Pan starring Jason Isaacs as Captain Hook
Stage Play with Mary Martin (seen when I was still young enough to think the Disney version was all that and never since)

[kshandra]

I know a lot of people have problems with it -- I've got a few myself -- but, dammit, I love Spielberg's Hook.

BANGARANG! ;-)

I still remember the trailer fondly.... (This dates back to my days working at the theatre, so I saw it lots.)

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

My favorite version was a live performance of the original play (not the musical) that starred an old friend of mine, Mario Lescot, as Hook.

He did such a marvelous performance I honestly forgot it was him for a while!

[druidsfire.livejournal.com]

Also a big fan of Hook. Delightfully camp, and Robin Williams actually looked really good once he got into the tights and stuff. It's also the last movie I saw with my best friend from high school before our lives went separate ways (he's a lawyer now, go figure ;). It's on my annual Christmas-season viewing list since the real world has it set 'round Christmastime, and that's when I originally saw it myself.

Not perfect, but interesting.

[animator55.livejournal.com]

Hook is wonderful but I will always love the Mary Martin version... I have an offical DVD of it :)

[ladysoapmaker.livejournal.com]

I really like Hook. I rememebr sitting in the theatre with my family (parents, aunt and uncle and siblings) and being the only ones laughing when Smee goes "He's so deep, he's unfathomable".

I can't seem to get my kids to watch any other versions of the Peter Pan story.

[neverbug-tama.livejournal.com]

I grew up with Cathy Rigby first, so I'll always have a special place in my heart for that version, but I also really enjoy Hook. One of my friends reminds me so much of Smee!