I realize that some people frown on "the Disney version" of any classic tale. Not me, though. I love 'em all, probably because I saw many of them in the theater when I was a kid. This one must have come out when I was 11. I also have the book of the Disney version that my sister gave me for Christmas in 1952. It's right over there on the shelf. I must have read it six or seven times. Maybe more. It ain't Barrie, but to me at the time it was wonderful. The movie still is. The scene where Peter and the Darling children fly out of the house and over London thrilled me when I was a kid, and it still does. Captain Hook and Smee make me laugh just as hard now as they ever did. In fact, I think Hook is one of the great movie villains of the comic sort. And then there's the croc. Could this be where it all began? I don't know, but that croc is 100% wonderful. Tink's not bad, either.
This movie was such a big deal with me that I wrote a short story that was mightily influenced by it. It's one of my favorites, though it's one that very few people have read. It's "What a Croc!," and it's in a book called Urban Nightmares, edited by Jo Sherman and published by Baen in 1997.
3 comments:
I sure did love this one. Almost as much as Mary Martin playing him on TV. Even if you could see the wires it was magic. Didn't take much for kids in the fifties and sixties to be mesmerized.
I'm with you on the "Disney versions", Dr. C.
Yep, one of my favorites. I also loved it as a kid (in the movie house) and when Disneyland first opened, it made perfect sense togo on the Peter Pan ride, especially the part where you flew out over london. Great, great experience and I went on it many more times, that and Mr Toad's Wild Ride, my two favorites. I guess those rides are gone now, along with the innocence of those times.
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