Tuesday Tunes: Bangarang

I spend a lot of time on the Internet Movie Database website. I enjoy reading about behind-the scenes trivia on some of my favorite films (and sometimes just what's playing on cable at the moment.) It's user-generated information, so it isn't always the most reliable, but it's still fun.

What was the part in the middle?

Can I really believe, for example,  that Kevin Kline was originally going to play the grown-up Peter Pan (Banning) in Stephen Speilberg's 1991 "return to Neverland" film Hook, but had to back out because of lengthy re-shoots on Soapdish? It's possible. It would have been a very different movie, I think, without Robin Williams. It would have been even more different if David Bowie had not turned down the role of Captain Hook (as he is rumored to have done) before it was given to Dustin Hoffman.

Feelin' tragic like Marlon Brando?

One trivia item on IMDb.com that I found quite interesting is that John Williams (composer of scores for Superman, Star Wars, and E.T.) and Leslie Bricusse (composer and/or lyricist on Scrooge, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and the Broadway musical Jekyll & Hyde) had originally been working on Hook as a musical - a stage musical, if the item is to be trusted. As many as ten songs were written before the idea was scrapped, however, much of the music is evident in John Williams's score and at least one song made it into the film - lyrics and all: "When You're Alone."

{insert inappropriate thimble joke here}

That's Amber Scott as Peter's daughter Maggie. Hook is really the only thing she has done so far, and she is apparently out of the entertainment business. This was the most recent picture of her that I could find.
(I know.)
Another song in the movie that is credited to both John Williams and Leslie Bricusse can be heard very early on in the film when Maggie is playing Wendy in a school production of Peter Pan, and is sung by that play's Lost Boys: "We Don't Wanna Grow Up." It is purely conjecture on my part that this was one of the ten original songs in the supposed earlier scrapped musical. The IMDb item suggested only that "When You're Alone" was from this alleged musical, however, this song does seem to fit the rumor. (The song starts about 40 seconds in on this video.)

Second truck stop on the right
and straight on 'til morning.

Since I tend to like to do things in threes, I wanted to share another "Peter Pan" tune with you. This song is one of three that originated as part of a 1975 futuristic sci-fi stage version of Peter Pan called Neverland. The musical never went beyond the workshop stage but composer Jim Steinman re-worked the three songs with rocker Meat Loaf for his 1977 Bat Out of Hell album. The songs were "Bat Out of Hell", "The Formation of the Pack" (which became "All Revved Up With No Place to Go") and "Heaven Can Wait."

"All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust." - J.M. Barrie