Cheap Peter Pan (Special Edition) (DVD) (Bobby Driscoll, Kathryn Beaumont, Hans Conried) (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske) Price

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This brings me to my question: as a kid, I had both a 33 1/3 record with songs from Disney movies and a tall book based on the movie. On the record, there was a song, "Do You Believe in Fairies? (Then Clap Your Hands)" which was played when Tinkerbell almost died. In the book, Peter gets Wendy and all the children to clap their hands to bring Tinkerbell back to life. I know I'm not dreaming this up - I still have both the record and the book.

Both my sister (who's ten years older than I) and myself seem to remember that this was originally in the movie. Can anyone shed some light on this for us?

Delightful Disney film
"Peter Pan" still retains its charm, wit and heart expressed in its animation, which has been cleaned up quite a bit, while faithfully following Barbie's book. It's probably the film that spawned the adventurous 1991 "Hook," but this animated feature is far better than "Hook."

"Peter Pan" is when two English parents leave for a party, leaving behind the nursemaid dog Nana and their three children, Wendy, Michael, and John behind. Not long after their parents have left, Peter Pan and his tiny accomplice Tinker Bell crash in, looking for Peter's shadow, spawning the entertaining, funny, and charming results, leading to a fluffernutter happy ending.

What this is one of Disney's latter classics that remains one of my favorite Disney classics, among the handsomely made "Sleeping Beauty" that wins you over with its captivating animation and the lush classical music, while "Bambi" wins you over with heart and good nature. But "Peter Pan" wins you over with heart, humor and just the right amount of magic.

The special edition VHS and DVD come with a free movie ticket to see the sequel "Return to Neverland" and it comes fully restored to its original brilliance, which makes it all the more enjoyable to see and hear this delightful Disney feature. Perfect for anyone looking for 77 minutes to spare.

Poor adaptation of Barrie's play misses the point.
"The Disney version" of "Peter Pan" clearly demonstrates what is so wrong with "The Disney version" of too many classic stories. It turns Barrie's play into a simple adventure tale, in which the dramatic and (dare I say it?) psycho-sexual elements at the center of Barrie's fantasy are discarded wholesale.

There are defensible reasons for this, I suppose. Drama requires talking, but characters who stand around gabbing bring an animated film to a dead stop. I also suspect that Disney simply didn't understand the story in the first place. It wasn't until the Ashman/Menken era that Disney films finally developed any dramatic focus.

It's unfortunate, because "Peter Pan" starts off well enough. The late Sammy Fain's "Second Star from the Right," played over the title cards, has one of the most-ravishing melodies in the history of American popular music. (Look for the albums "Bibbidi Bobbidi Bach" and "Heigh-Ho! Mozart" for superb "classical" arrangements of Disney tunes.) The "You Can Fly" sequence is inspired (and can you name any other pop song with an accelerando passage?). But everything quickly bogs down thereafter, with Captain Hook's machinations providing the only fun.

There just aren't enough good things in the Disney "Peter Pan" to make up for its failure to treat the source material in an honest and serious fashion.