by J. M. Barrie
Next, at another part of the lagoon we see Tiger Lily picturesquely poised by the shore with an arrow in her bow for Smee, who is coming along in a boat. From behind tree Starkey leaps on her, and Smee wades ashore to help him. Starkey is about to knife her when Smee proposes something more dreadful. It is shown us in a vision. We see Marooners’ Rock in the vision with Tiger Lily lying bound on it. The tide rises till the rock and she are submerged. Starkey likes this vision, and in the next picture they have put her bound on the rock. They are in the boat now beside the rock, and we have two pictures, one of Hook swimming out to them, and one of Peter stealing to the rock to rescue Tiger Lily. Peter, unseen by the pirates, cuts her bonds and she slips into the water. Hook arrives and gets into the boat. They proudly point to the rock, and then, to their dismay, see that Tiger Lily has vanished. Hook threatens, and they go on their knees to him. He is looking everywhere for the possible foe, and Peter cannot resist rising in the water and jeering at him. At last, Hook thinks, he has got Peter. He and Smee dive and Starkey guards the boat.
The fight in the water begins. Mermaids and fishes are seen rushing away in fear. John and Starkey fight in the boat and go over in each other’s embrace. The great fight is on the rock between Hook and Peter, which should be much as in the play. It ends with Peter rolling off the rock into the water, unfairly gashed by Hook, who triumphantly dives. Then we see Hook swimming to land and stealing off. Then, after Hook has disappeared, the crocodile is seen landing and pursuing him. Hook is ignorant on these occasions that the crocodile is following.
Next, the other boys gather round the drifting boat and get into it. They call and look everywhere for Peter and Wendy. The boat drifts away till it is lost sight of. Now no one is to be seen on the lagoon, which now looks cold and cruel.
Then we see the mermaids in their romantic cave. Wendy is their prisoner. They examine her curiously. They laugh derisively at her feet, so that she has to sit on her feet. They put their fingers in her eyes and swish her with their tails, which is evidently their way of hurting people. Then they sleep. She sits there staring with affrighted eyes. Peter comes and, stepping stealthily over the mermaids, rescues her and goes off. He is evidently wounded, and so is she. A mermaid wakes up and follows them, looking wicked.
Next Peter, drags Wendy on to Marooners’ Rock, and both lie there in a faint. The cruel mermaid comes swimming to the rock and is pulling Wendy inch by inch into the water when Peter sits up and saves her. This should be very dramatic. The mermaid disappears. We see the two children sitting there, a touching pair, to the music of the scene. Peter points to how the water is rising, but they are too exhausted to do anything.
We see that the rock is being submerged.
Then the kite comes again into view drifting in the air. First we see it over another part of the lagoon. Then nearer the rock. Peter has an idea; he grips the tail and pulls the kite toward him.
Peter nobly ties the tail round Wendy, indicating that it can’t carry two. They embrace. Then she is carried over the lagoon by the kite. Peter waves to her till she is lost to sight. He shudders as he realises his situation. We see him next alone. Then we see Wendy being carried over the island by the kite.
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
Peter is now standing, proudly erect. The rock is sinking. It is now moonlight. Then we see another part of the lagoon with the mother-bird still drifting on her nest.
Then Peter on the rock. He is now up to his knees in water, but still brave. Then the nest drifts toward him. He sees it. The bird quacks and flies away. Peter has an inspiration. He pulls the nest toward him and takes two big eggs out of it. At first he doesn’t know what to do with them. Then he lifts Starkey’s hat. On Marooners’ Rock is a post on which Starkey has left his hat. Peter puts the eggs into the hat and the hat in the water. The hat drifts away. He then gets into the nest and drifts in the same direction. He makes a sail of his shirt and now he goes in another direction. He is very solemn and intense, with gleaming eyes.
Several pictures of Peter in the nest. Next we see the hat alone on the lagoon. The bird flies back and sits on it.
Then we see the nest drawing near shore. Wendy wades out to meet it and they are triumphant. Peter is painfully cocky again. Last we see the hat stationary among reeds in the water. The mother bird gets off it and waddles ashore. She is presently followed by two baby birds.
In the house under the trees they lived very like baby bears.
First we see baby bears in a cave playing around their mother. She is motherly to them, but also punishes. She brings food and they gather round it greedily. They trot about after her. They curl up on the ground against her and sleep.
Then we see the boys behaving in exactly the same way with Wendy as mother. The feeding is also very like the bears. They also trot about after Wendy. They also curl up on floor against her and sleep.
When one of them wanted to turn in bed Wendy gave the signal, and they all turned simultaneously.
Wendy is giving Curly a good washing at a basin. He is dripping, etc. Michael as the baby is in a sort of bassinette, swung from roof. All the other boys are pulling down from the wall the big bed of the play. Peter is one of them. They are in night-gowns. Curly joins the others and all get into bed, lying like sardines, some heads at top of bed and some heads at foot.
After some horse-play they lie quiet. Then one holds up his hand. Wendy, who has sat down by fire to darn, gives the signal, and all turn simultaneously.
In the Neverland the Seasons succeed each other more rapidly than at home.
In illustration of this we see a new scene. It is a romantic little glade in which one fruit tree and a tiny stream of water are the chief objects. At one point the water is trickling down, and Peter comes with a home-made wooden bucket which he places beneath this trickle and sits waiting for bucket to fill slowly. The time is summer and the fruit tree is heavy with ripe fruit. Gradually the scene changes to winter. The fruit disappears, the leaves fall off and the tree is bare. The ground becomes white with snow. The stream is frozen, an icicle hangs where the water had been trickling into bucket. Peter breaks icicle. He is cold, pulls his clothes tighter round him. Then in same way the scene changes to a sunny day in spring. The tree becomes beautiful with blossom and leaves. The ground is a rich green. Peter is so warm that he has to undo his jacket. The trickle is running free again. The bucket is now full, and he departs with it quite unaware that anything out of the ordinary has happened. The whole point of this picture is that the changes should be gradual—not sudden jump from one season to another—i.e. the actual process should be seen.
Tink, of course, had an apartment of her own.
We see Tink’s exquisite tiny bedroom, with her brushing hair, etc. It opens off the big room and should be shown much more beautifully than is possible in the play.
At first the newcomers had to be pulled out of their trees like a cork, but Peter altered them, and soon they fitted.
We see John and Wendy being ignominiously pulled up by the hair of the head. They had stuck in their trees. Then John is being held down, while Peter flattens him out with a rolling-pin. He is flattened out too much. He is flattened out on the ground till he covers quite a large extent—as if a 100 barrels had rolled over him. Wendy is indignant. Then Peter and the boys roll him up like a stretch of carpet and Peter works on him till he is of a correct shape and bulk. He now runs up and down the tree gaily. Wendy is then subjected to alteration. Their object is to make her shorter, so she is laid down and Peter pushes her feet and Slightly her head with the result that she is telescoped. This scene takes place beside water. Wendy runs to see her reflection in the water. We see it also. She is now very short and stout. She is in distress. The boys don’t know what to do. She lies down again and Peter operates on her with the rolling-pin—successfully. Again she looks at her reflection in the water. Now she is delighted. She runs gaily up and down her tree. General happiness.
When
you wanted to know the time you waited beside the crocodile till the clock struck.
Peter is sitting beside the crocodile waiting. The clock strikes 4. We should hear it also. Peter skips away.
The next picture shows Wendy as a schoolmistress. It is the underground scene, and she has a cane in her hand. On a board she has chalked in a childish hand:
“Rite down all you can remember about your adoredable parents.”
All the boys, except First Twin, are in a row on their toadstools with slates, trying to write, but looking puzzled. Peter, indeed, has fallen asleep with a broken slate at his feet. First Twin is on a high stool in corner in disgrace with a fool’s cap on his head. Then we are shown three of their slates in a close-up. Tootles had made an O on his. On Nibs’s slate is written: “All I remembers about my mother is that she useder to say: ‘Oh, how I wish I had a chek book of my own.’ ” On Michael’s is written: “Are you not our mother, Wendy?” She is troubled by this. It is painful to her that they have forgotten so much.
Wendy was one of those mothers who like their offspring to have a good romp before bed-time.
First of all the boys, including Peter, in their ordinary clothes, flying about over the tree-tops, engaged in a game of football. They have a home-made football and are arranged in sides and manage to keep ball in air. They have also absurd goal-posts, which they have tied to trees, standing out higher than the trees. It is a moonlight evening.
They had many a night of joyous revelry.
We see them in their night-gowns, underground, and they are engaged in the pillow dance just as it is done in the play, except that Peter is chief dancer in place of First Twin. Wendy is sitting on a stool darning their stockings and occasionally smiling at them in a motherly way. The dance ends with a pillow fight.
Tink and her friends were sometimes a nuisance; they got into everything.
Peter is seen in underground room putting on his long boots. Evidently something is in one of them that ought not to be there. He holds it upside down and Tink drops out. Peter is so used to this kind of thing that he expresses no surprise. He just continues to put on his boots.
Then in the same room Wendy is cutting Slightly’s hair like a barber. There is a pot on fire—it moves agitatedly. She lifts pot off fire and takes off lid. Tink jumps out of pot wet and indignant.
Then the same room with the bed prepared for night. Peter is sharpening a weapon. One of the pillows on bed rocks about in an odd way. Wendy is there and points this out to Peter. He seizes pillow, opens it at top and holds pillow upside down. A hundred fairies drop from pillow on to floor. Peter sweeps them away with a broom. Then they are seen above ground flying away out of the tree-trunks.
Peter loved Wendy as a son, but she wanted him to love her as something else. He could not think what it was.
She is saying this lovingly to him in the underground house, but when he is puzzled she stamps her foot, then sits forlornly.
“What can it be, Tink?”
He is asking this above ground of Tink, who replies in her bell language: “You silly ass!”
“What can it be, Tiger Lily?”
He is asking the same question of Tiger Lily. She prostrates herself before him in adoration, etc., but he can’t understand. She goes away sadly. He remains hopelessly puzzled. Then he skips away indifferently.
For many moons Hook cogitated over his revenge.
We see him sitting in the crow’s-nest of the ship, a perilous but romantic situation. There is a map of the island in his hands, and in a close-up we see quaint details with writing that mark places, such as “Underground Home.” Little flags are stuck over map as in a war-map and he is busy using these. The moon is seen first as a quarter moon, then half and so on to full moon, then it reverses the process to indicate passing of time. He also spies on the island through a telescope.
Then we see Peter in silhouette standing motionless on a promontory watching the pirate ship in the distance. He looks very cocky.
What maddened Hook beyond endurance was Peter’s cockiness. In the night-time it disturbed him like an insect.
We see Hook’s cabin with no one in it at first. This cabin is largely furnished like a boy’s room at Eton. It has a wicker chair and a desk with a row of books as in an Eton room. On the walls besides weapons are the colours he won at school, the ribbons, etc., arranged in the eccentric Etonian way, and the old school lists, caps, and also two pictures, which when shown in close-ups are seen to be (1) Eton College, (2) a photograph of an Eton football eleven; the central figure is Hook, as he was when a boy, but distinguishable, with a football in his hands and the prize cup between his knees. He and the other boys must wear correct colours. The cat-o’-nine-tails also hangs up prominently.
Hook comes in and begins to undress. There has probably never before been much attention given to how a buccaneer retires to bed. We endeavour to supply this want. He winds up his watch, and hangs it up, etc. Presently we see him in a nightgown. He gets into bed and finds the sheets cold. He lies in bed smoking and reading the Eton Chronicle (of which a real copy must be used). He lays down the cigar-holder and blows out his candle. Then we see him having a nightmare about Peter, brandishing his hook and scratching as if tortured by an insect. Peter is seen in a vision mocking him.
Months passed, and at last Hook unripped his plot.
We have now a series of pictures.
First we see the pirates, picturesque but horrible, climbing out of their ship into their two rowing-boats. They are armed to the teeth. We have a grim vision of the side of the wicked ship, old and dirty.
Next we see the redskins sitting in a circle round a fire in the open. A pipe is passed from one to another. Their wigwams are seen near by.
Then the two boats being pulled across the lagoon—Hook standing erect in one of them—Smee in the other.
Then all the children, except Peter, in the underground home. They are in their ordinary clothes, and are having a merry evening at leap-frog, etc. Wendy is sitting by the fire smiling at them and sewing as usual. Stockings and other garments hang drying on a string by the fire. Then we see the pirates landing and stealing off into the forest.
Peter was away from home that night, attending a fairy wedding.
Peter is seen at the fairy wedding. This should be an elaborate and beautiful picture of some length, one of the prettiest in the film. Peter is sitting against a tree playing his pipes, and fairies emerge from under big leaves into a fairy circle and go through a fairy wedding; an idea of what this should be like can be got from my book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. The music (which will have to be new) of this fairy scene should come from bells.
Then we see the crocodile asleep in a lonely glade beside a stream.
So preternaturally quick of hearing are all savage things that, when Smee trod on a dry twig, the sound woke the whole island into life.
We see the pirates proceeding cautiously through the wood. In a close-up we see Smee tread on a twig. Evidently the others all hear it. In a sudden stoppage of the music we should hear it also. They gape at him startled, then fling themselves among the long grass to hide. Smee is conscience-stricken. Then a series of pictures which, to have the best effect, should be short and sharp, changing quickly. They indicate the effect in different parts of the island of hearing the twig snap.
First it is heard by the children in their leap-frog games. They suddenly stop in the middle of the play, and gather, scared, round Wendy. Then the redskins hear it, leap up, seize their weapons and are at once terrible scalp-hunters on the war-path. Then the fairy wedding is interrupted by Peter hearing it, and starting to his feet. The fairies suddenly disappear. Some of them are on his knee, shoulders, etc. He brushes them off like bread-crumbs. He goes off excitedly and stealthily, with Tink.
Then the crocodile starts from his sleep on hearing it, and pounds off through the forest, dogged of purpose, on his never-ending quest.
These pictures should all be short to rep
resent the effect of Smee’s blunder, and before each one we should have repeated briefly for a second or two only the picture of Smee treading on the twig.
Tiger Lily and her braves guard the home of The Great White Father.
We see her and her redskins above the children’s home, guarding it, and lying in their blankets, etc. Then Peter comes toward them through the forest, and they prostrate themselves before him. He accepts their homage as the natural thing. No one could be more cocky. He is like a king to his subjects. He descends his tree.
Then we see a pirate on top of a tree, signaling what he observes to the pirates below. They move forward furtively.
Peter found Wendy telling a story to the boys.
The children are seen, clustered in bed in their night-gowns, listening eagerly to Wendy who sits near them with Michael between her knees. Peter is sitting on a toadstool at the other end of the underground room, whittling a stick and evidently disliking the story, putting his hands over his ears, etc. Up above, as in the play, we at times see the redskins. We now have a series of visions (reproduced from the nursery scenes) illustrating Wendy’s story, which is really the tale of how Wendy, John, and Michael were spirited away to the Never, Never Land. First we see the three in their nursery being put to bed by Nana. Then the mother saying good-night to them and going off with the father to the party. Then Peter enters at window. Then he teaches them how to fly. Then they fly out at window, the parents and Nana coming just too late to catch them. These, being reproductions, are brief.
Between these varied pictures we see two of Wendy telling them the story, and the children misbehaving and whacking each other as they do in the play. Peter’s uneasiness increases.
“But their adoredable mother always kept the window open for them, and when at last they flew back to her, pen cannot describe the happy scene.”
Wendy is saying this as in the play, and we have a vision of Mr and Mrs Darling welcoming the return of the children with joy. (It should not be the picture afterwards seen at end of play.) Peter starts up with a cry, which draws all attention to him.