Peter Pan

My lovely generous friend P ("P" may very well stand for "pack rat") recently purged her daughter's video collection of children's movies.  Her daughter, by the way, is of driving age.

She sent Mia two huge boxes of children's movies, including many Disney classics and other children's staples like James And The Giant Peach and the original Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder and the 1960 Jerome Robbins version of Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin as Peter Pan and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook.

Jerome Robbins launched Peter Pan on Broadway in the mid-50s in the first version where Peter Pan actually flew.  The show received fantastic reviews and many awards and ran for years. (The 50s version of Cats?)

In 1960, NBC produced a live version of the play, billed as a "tele-play" and this is the tape P sent me.  This was the last time Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard played their respective roles. 

This tape is hilarious.  It's sooooo dated.  You can  completely see the wires used to make Mary Martin fly.  Mary Martin is not androgynous enough to come off as Peter Pan, not to mention that she is middle-aged at that point.  Cyril Ritchard is campy and has on more eyeliner than Liz Taylor.  Those red pants, oy!

The most hilarious part, which incredibly was not edited from the live version, is a scene in which Mary Martin is dancing and doing some gymnastic type moves.  You can totally see her muffin top parts in stark relief.  Martin remarked that perhaps she should have worn some panties under those dancers tights.

I won't even go into all the underlying sexist and racist undertones. 

Comments

[loretta]

Hey, but you gotta love that soundtrack!

I won't grow up!

[Martin]

OMFG... I was blown off the couch when that scene came on! I had to stop the tape and run it back to make sure I saw what I thought I saw! It was so blatent and don't get me wrong, seeing Mary Martin at age 46 dressed as a little boy I didn't run it back for the usual male reasons. Yikes! There it was for public consumtion on TV in 1960. No wonder she won so many awards, she won them for getting away with that!

Martin