Northwest Film Forum

Live music gives new life to this amazing 1924 classic version of Peter Pan, lovingly restored after having been "misplaced" for over 70 years.

Three years ago Northwest Film Forum commissioned renowned harpist Leslie McMichael to compose a new score for Herbert Brenon's black and white masterpiece, which stars Betty Bronson, Ernest Torrence, and Anna May Wong. After our premiere, McMichael took the score on the road and has performed it to the delight of audiences all over the country. Now she's recorded a CD of the score, which will be available at the performance on May 9.  Prepare to fly to another place and time, where magic is in the air and children never have to grow up.

"Bronson literally soars in the title role, beautifully capturing the character’s alternating strains of puckishness, petulance and occasional melancholy at the prospect of growing up"—Bright Lights Film Journal

"With three different kinds of harps, McMichael creates a soundscape that is both varied in texture and tone, alternating between the various sounds with cinematic panache. Her score shifts between a distinctly Irish rogue for Hook and his men, and Celtic soothsaying arpeggios for Peter, Wendy, and their families. The mermaids…are given the lush, grainy sound of an electric harp, their glistening tail fins perfectly matching the shimmering, unorthodox sound that in effect is more like a pedal steel than anything else…It’s hard to imagine what the more standard musical accompaniment would have been, now with the harp washing over all the sepia-toned images." —Ali Marcus, Rivet Magazine