REVIEWED BY WALTER ALBERT


PETER PAN. Paramount Pictures, 1924. George Ali, Esther Ralston, Cyril Chadwick, Mary Brian, Jack Murphy, Philippe deLacy, Virginia Browne Faire, Betty Bronson, Anna May Wong, Ernest Torrence (Captain Hook). Based on the play by J. M. Barrie. Director: Herbert Brenon. Shown at Cinevent 31, Columbus OH, May 1999.

   The high point of the convention for any silent film fan was the screening of Herbert Brenon’s Peter Pan, accompanied by a score written by Phil Carli and performed by the Flower City Society Orchestra at the piano and conducting.

   I have a dimly transferred dupe of the film that did not prepare me for the overwhelming experience of viewing a pristine print in an intimate theater on the Ohio State University campus.

   Betty Bronson was the Peter Pan of Barrie’s dreams (unless he preferred a male actor), and her closeups achieved a beauty and poignancy that I cannot begin to describe. The cast was impeccable, with Ernest Torrence a commanding Captain Hook, Mary Briana remarkable Wendy, and Virginia Brown Faire a duplicitous Tinker Bell for whom, nonetheless, the entire audience clapped to restore her to life.

   The most indelible performance, however, was that of George Ali, as Nana the dog, a performance someone said he had played hundreds of times on the London stage. Even people who aren’t overly fond of dogs would surely have been touched by his miming.

   There were several films I enjoyed [at this convention], although nothing reached the level of Peter Pan.