Christine De Poortere recommended I read J.M. Barrie and The Lost Boys: The Love Story that Gave Birth to Peter Pan by Andrew Birkin, which has also been made into a three-part docudrama produced by the BBC as The Lost Boys. I read and watched both versions. Published in 1979, British playwright, Andrew Birkin, researched a wide range of material by and about Barrie: notebooks, recorded interviews with those close to Barrie, memoirs, and various publications of the time. Birkin highlights the relationship between Barrie and the Llewellyn-Davies boys.

I wondered how involved Barrie was with the film version of Peter Pan, and Christine suggested I write to Birkin and ask. He responded with the following letter:

August 12, 2014

Dear Mindy,

Many thanks for your letter, which Christine De Poortere passed on to me.

By far the best account of Barrie’s involvement with the 1924 silent movie of PP is to be found in Roger Lancelyn Green’s 1955 book, “Fifty Years of Peter Pan”, which is readily available from Abebooks.com.

In brief, Barrie wrote 5 drafts of his own silent version of PP for Paramount Pictures, who - in their infinite wisdom! - dumped it and simply photographed the stage play with few obvious cinematic embellishments. Green reproduces as an appendix to his book the whole of Barrie’s 5th draft, which is remarkable in many ways, not least in how few title cards Barrie used. Most authors cling to as much original dialogue as possible, but not JMB. One of the most intriguing title cards does not appear in the novel or play at all:

“Who was Peter Pan? No one really knows. Perhaps he was just somebody’s boy who was never born.” This is a real cry from Barrie’s own heart, and echoes his dream child Timothy in “The Little White Bird”.

Barrie’s own view of the Bronson movie can be gleaned from a letter he wrote to Cynthia Asquith (14 November 1924):

“I saw the P.Pan piece of film today with all the cuts I had made in it carried out, and I thought decidedly more favourably of it, but so far it is only repeating what is done on the stage, and the only reason for a film should be that it does the things the stage can’t do.”

I hope this helps, and good luck with your project.

All the best

Andrew