Ever so much more than twenty

Some Mary Martin Peter Pan facts Jordan and I discovered on the IMDB...

You'd never guess the age of some of the actors. Wendy--the young one--was 22. Grown-up Wendy was only 29. Tiger Lily was 30. Liza, the maid, was only 12 years old. And, of course, Mary Martin was 47 years old when this was filmed.

$200 is the going rate on Amazon to own this on DVD. $200! Apparently it was released a few years ago and has been discontinued. We did find another copy for much cheaper (like the price of a normal DVD) and ordered it. I'm hoping it arrives and is what we are expecting. I want Suzi and Ivey to be able to watch it and our VHS tape is on its last leg.

There have been Peter Pan movies since this one which really should have replaced it. In 2003 a brilliant new Peter Pan came out. Peter was really a little boy, Tinkerbell wasn't just a flashlight, and you couldn't see the cables during the flying scenes. The special effects were top-notch. I loved it, but somehow, I still wanted to watch the old one from my childhood. Suzi has seen the new one as well and didn't pay attention to it. It didn't capture her imagination like the old one. And strangely, the rating on the IMDB is exactly the same for both movies: 7.1 out of 10.


So tonight Jordan blew the dust off the VCR, hooked it up, and we watched the old Peter Pan for the first time with Suzi. It was probably my all-time favorite as a child. I was three or four when I first watched it, and my grandparents were visiting and watched with us. I distinctly remember, during the "I'm Flying" scene, my grandfather commenting that Mary Martin was going to fall and "bust her ass."

Nevertheless, I tried to fly countless times. I dreamed about it. I stood on the third stair up from our den and jumped hopefully, always landing awkwardly on the carpet below. The fourth stair was as high as I'd go. No matter how "lovely" my thoughts, it never worked.

And tonight, Suzi's little face lit up as she watched the children in the movie. "They flying!" Sliding off the couch, she said "I fly!" After taking a couple of unsuccessful leaps, she enlisted Daddy's help. He threw her over his shoulder and she flew giggling around the living room for a couple of minutes. She'll find out the truth in a few years--that people can't fly. But for now, like Wendy, I'm the one who is too grown up and that's my little girl asleep in the bed.