Suspended Animation #412
You never know what you might find in obscure, forgotten magazines. Walt Disney often gave interviews to magazines and local newspapers and often shared things that he never said anywhere else.
The articles that were by-lined by Walt that appeared in magazines were often massaged by the Disney Studio publicity department but anything that went out with Walt’s name on it, especially articles that were by-lined by him, had to have the direct approval of Walt himself.
With 2023 the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Disney animated feature Peter Pan, here is an excerpt from Brief magazine (Vol. 1, No. 4) April 1953 entitled “Why I Made Peter Pan” by Walt Disney:
Walt Disney: “Next to Snow White, I cared most for Peter Pan. He did not come from our well-loved story book, but my introduction to him was even more exciting. We were living on a farm, and one morning as we walked to school, we found entrancing new posters on the barns and fences along the road. A road company was coming to the nearby town of Marceline and the play they were presenting was Peter Pan with Maude Adams.
“It took most of the contents of two toy saving banks to buy our tickets, but my brother Roy and I didn’t care. For two hours, we lived in Never Land with Peter and his friends. I took many memories away from the theater with me, but the most thrilling of all was the vision of Peter flying through the air.
“Shortly afterward, Peter Pan was chosen for our school play and I was allowed to play Peter. No actor ever identified himself with the part he was playing more than I – and I was more realistic than Maude Adams in at least one particular: I actually flew through the air! Roy was using a block and tackle to hoist me. It gave way, and I flew right into the faces of the surprised audience.
“When I began producing cartoons, Peter Pan was high on my list of subjects. In fact, after talking it over, Roy and I bought the rights with the idea of making the second full-length feature for our company.
“Actually, it was a long time before we began work on the story. In the first place, I was unwilling to start until I could do full justice to the well-loved story. Animation techniques were constantly improving, but they still fell short of what I felt was needed to tell the story of Peter Pan as I saw it.
“What Barrie wished to do – and what we had to do in bringing his play to the screen – was to recreate a children’s world, but a children’s world in which adults could find a place.
“The difficulties of recreating the world that Barrie made were great, but they were also exciting and stimulating. And we had one great advantage over the author. He was working in the limited scope of the theater. We were making Peter Pan as an animated cartoon with complete freedom to make anything happen, even things that could only happen in Never Land.
“Barrie’s own play notations and stage directions, scribbled during rehearsals were extremely helpful to us. His concepts of the characters and their reactions to magical events and strange circumstances gave us more insight into what he had in mind than the actual dialogue and scene description.
“We felt that we had considerable leeway with the characters. From the first stage performance, they were interpreted by living players. They’ve never really been physical types. We had, therefore, to create our own concept of how they looked and talked and gestured as we translated them into cartoon personalities.
Bobby Driscoll as Peter Pan
“But Peter is a boy, and we felt that a clear boy’s voice was needed. We cast Bobby Driscoll in the part and we think that his personality is in perfect keeping with the cartoon character.
“For the voice of Wendy, we chose Kathryn Beaumont who was the voice of Alice in Wonderland. I think you’ll like her even more as Wendy.
“We made no attempt and had no intent to hold the scope of the story to the theater-stage dimensions. We could define Never Land – which Barrie first called Never-Never-Never Land – very much as we pleased. The camp of the Indians, the pool of the mermaids, the trails of the Lost Boys, the lagoon of the pirates’ ship, the cave and Skull Island and all the mysterious landmarks of Barrie’s fanciful geography – all could be established with our own imaginations.
“There is no miracle the mind can conceive that the cartoon animation technique cannot create. We needed no stage wires to lift Peter and Wendy and their eager co-adventurers into flight across the roof-tops. We could detach Peter from his elusive shadow with the stroke of animator’s pencil. We could make the little sprite, Tinker Bell, glow like a firefly as she darted through space and have her speak with the sound of bells.
“In our Never Land lagoons, the sleek little mermaids can cavort as they never could on a theater stage. Our Indians have the freedom to whoop and dance and play their parts beyond all footlight limits.
“Our mechanics of fantasy are certainly different from the ones Barrie had at his command 50 years ago, but I think that in some ways, we have come closer to his original concept than anyone else has.
“I really believe that if Barrie were alive today, he would write his fantastic adventure in the Never Land directly for the screen. Despite his canny stagecraft, the theater never quite satisfied him. He kept on groping for the devising new effects behind the footlights as long as he was associated with the staging. He added and eliminated characters all the time. He never seemed to have enough props. With us, the sky’s the limit.
“We have been in actual animation for more than two years now and we have nearly a million separate drawings of scenes and characters by several hundred artists.
“It is the greatest pleasure to me, now, to be able to make Peter fly wherever he wants to go, for as long as he wants to stay there. You can rest assured that no wires will break and not ropes will snap. Peter will go zooming through the air with the greatest of ease over movie screens all over the country.
“I think you’ll like seeing him in your movie theaters. He’s able to do a lot of things, besides flying, that he could never do on the stage. But he’s the same Peter and it’s the same Never Land and the same tinker Bell and the same Darling family that we have always loved.”
Jim Korkis is an internationally respected animation historian who in recent years has devoted his attention to the many worlds of Disney. He was a columnist for a variety of animation magazines. With his former writing partner, John Cawley, he authored several animation related books including The Encyclopedia of Cartoon Superstars, How to Create Animation, Cartoon Confidential and Get Animated’s Animation Art Buyer’s Guide. He taught animation classes at the Disney Institute in Florida as well as instructing classes on acting and animation history for Disney Feature Animation: Florida.
Another indispensable column, Jim, and that story of Walt “flying” as Peter is priceless. I hope that you’re recovering well!
BRIEF magazine? Sounds like a law journal.
According to the Downtown Marceline historical society, the production of Peter Pan that Walt Disney saw in 1907 was put on by a company of students from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, an all-girls’ school. If that’s true, then it’s doubtful that Maude Adams, who first played the role on Broadway, would have been in that show — although Adams would later chair the drama department at Stephens from 1937 to 1943.
Be that as it may, the performance took place at Marceline’s Cater Opera House, built in 1902 by Dr. W. A. Cater next door to his drug store on Kansas Avenue. This was also where Walt Disney saw his first motion pictures. Dr. Cater and his son Roy, also a medical doctor, both served as mayor of Marceline. The Cater Opera House was the model for the opera house on Disneyland’s Main Street; it burned to the ground in 1957.
The advertisement shown here is for a performance at Staub’s Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee. Charles Frohman, the theatrical producer who discovered Maude Adams and promoted her career, died on the RMS Lusitania when it was sunk in 1915.
Welcome back, Jim! I hope you are doing well physically and in every other way.
Thanks for this posting! I am always up for more details on Peter Pan which is one of my all-time favorites of the classic Disney films. It is priceless to read Walt’s own words regarding this property. And of course it was parlayed into the most popular attraction of all at Disneyland. Never less than an hour’s wait to enjoy the wonders of Never-Never Land!
Very few people know that THIS musical preluded the famed NBC / Mary Martin one by 1-2 years!!!!
I wish PETER PAN was a slightly better movie. I loved it as a child; the characters, the songs are so wonderful. I sometimes regret that Disney didn’t lavish the kind of elaborate design and painstaking animation on this that BAMBI received.
But it’s still… REALLY good, and Disney’s honest enthusiasm for the Barrie story and movie in this article is infectious. I think I’ll look at the film again tonight!
Glad to have you back in the saddle. Thanks for another great article. All the best for a continued speedy recovery!
As a 7yr. old whose parents died 6 months before the 1958 re-release of PP, I went to Neverland with Peter & the kids soooo many times before it stopped showing. This movie has a VERY SPECIAL place in my heart!!!!
Thanks for this fine post/article .
I too saw it as a 7 year old at that same ’58 rerelease . . and was mesmerized!!
Ah…Freddy Moore girls…
Just recently revisited this one. While it’s definitely kin to “Alice in Wonderland”, it plays as cozier and somehow has a Christmassy vibe. As a boomer kid I was conditioned to think of Disney animated features as yuletide events, so there’s that. But it’s easy to imagine Santa dropping into that storybook British nursery, or the Lost Boys’ hideaway for that matter (the Lost Boys are dressed in sleepwear like Ralphie in “A Christmas Story”, but with slightly cooler animals).
Hope you’re doing better, Jim!
A bittersweet button to the story: In 1966, Walt visited the set of “Blackbeard’s Ghost,” greeting stars Peter Ustinov, Dean Jones, and Suzanne Pleshette, but undoubtedly also to greet Betty Bronson, who had a small role as one of the Daughters of the Buccaneers. Bronson played Peter Pan in the silent movie version. Walt undoubtedly saw that film along with the 1953 Peter Pan team. Since he personally contacted Pola Negri for “The Moon-Spinners” and Jane Darwell for “Mary Poppins,” it’s likely that Bronson’s role was cast the same way. He never lived to see the wonderful “Blackbeard’s Ghost.” The original novel by Ben Stahl is in his office.
Wishing you a swift and robust recovery, Jim!
Welcome back, Jim!
“I was more realistic than Maude Adams in at least one particular”
I thought he was going somewhere else with that…
And now I want a proper re-release of the japanese Peter Pan show from 1989. The one that’s part of World Masterpiece Theater, and the one with a lot of original ideas. It was released on DVD there long ago, but that was it.
I’m glad your columns continue, Mr. Korkis!
Disney’s “Peter Pan” always makes me think of Shamus Culhane’s story of suffering agonizing bursitis while working on “Pinocchio.” Walt suggested he work it out in the studio gym; that didn’t work. Then Walt sent him to his own doctor (imagine a boss doing that today); that didn’t work. Culhane finally powered his way through the movie, and afterwards Walt praised his efforts and offered him to lead the animation of Nana in “Peter Pan” (which he wouldn’t get to for another ten years, but he didn’t know that yet). Culhane said he was going to work for Fleischer in Miami, which so upset Walt that he took Culhane’s name off the “Pinocchio” credits.