The Wizard of Oz

by John Holbo on February 18, 2010

Lots of folks seemed to think that Japanese paper theater manga book sounded pretty interesting, and many had good suggestions for related material; so here’s something vaguely similar – proto-pop culture-bleg-wise. The new The Wizard of Oz blu-ray set is on sale cheap [amazon]. Apparently they’ve toiled to improve the visual quality and the thing includes extras I want: namely, the early silent films. These are public domain, so you can watch them courtesy of the Internet Archive: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910); The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914); The Magic Cloak of Oz (1914); and His Majesty, The Scarecrow of Oz (1914). May I recommend, in particular, the fight scene between Hank the Mule and the Witches! (For anyone looking to extract baffling visual material to incorporate into your clever hipster music video project – here you go!) But the Internet Archive quality is poor, bless their charitable hearts. I’m hoping they’ve done a bit better with these new discs.

Fun facts! The Scarecrow of Oz – the 1915 book – is based on the film, not the other way around. Although I have to say: the relation is kinda loose.

The 1939 film we know and love was not, in fact, the first version to present Kansas in b&w, Oz in color. That honor goes to a 1933 cartoon included with the new set, which was originally released all b&w due to a lawsuit about the color process. You can watch it on YouTube but, again, quality not great. (Music by Carl Stallings!)

Also, The Wiz (1978) was not the first crazy blacksploitation installment of the franchise. That honor goes to the far crazier, Larry Semon-directed/starring, young Stan Laurel-containing 1925 version (again, YouTube provides, at least a bit). It has Spencer Bell as “Snowball”, the black farmhand who is send skipping to Oz on lightning bolts. (He is billed as G. Howe Black.) So far as I can tell, this version is not included in the new set, but one Amazon reviewer seems to think it is. I guess I’ll find out for myself.

One take-away lesson is that, oddly, the whole franchise had been flogged and beaten within an inch of its life by 1939, when what we tend to think of as the ‘original’ film came out. Oz was, therefore, the original too-many-sequels action franchise.

My interest is: I like this stuff. Plus I teach philosophy and film, with a science fiction focus. More generally, the history of visually spectacular film: fantasy, disaster. (We read classic stuff like Sontag’s “The Imagination of Disaster”.) It’s significant that Melies – of course we watch his little trip to the moon – started out as a stage magician. For him, the special effects came first. (I do like the way Lady GaGa borrowed the look of his Selenians in “Bad Romance”. Did you notice?)

But you know what: when I said I like this stuff, I sort of lied. I’m interested in it. But I’m also, honestly, sort of baffled and frequently annoyed by it. The quality seems so often unnecessarily poor in early silent movies. Obviously there are technical limitations, but so much else seems to be not going right. When what’s carrying your film is a guy who is surprisingly good in a mule suit, one suspects insufficient overall planning. More specifically, there is a weird neglect of basic story-telling values, as if all the thing was ever meant to be was incomprehensible fodder for someone’s music video project. The Scarecrow does look a little like Heath Ledger’s Joker. Again, Oz is sort of ahead of the curve, in that we often wonder why it doesn’t occur to Hollywood that special effects alone aren’t going to be enough. This is by no means a new problem.

The Scarecrow of Oz is a delightful book, a complete mess of a film, and the same man made both – and based the delight on the mess. I want to start reading up on/viewing more ‘fantastic’ films, from Melies on. And the tangled and stained Oz franchise seems a pretty important point along the way. What good stuff do you recommend reading/watching about all this? What early/silent films do you think fit or don’t fit with what I’ve just said? (Obviously I don’t think all silent films are incompetent in this way. Many are wonderful and brilliant. Yes, I think so, too. But many seem less competent than you would expect, given the evident talent of those involved in making them.)

{ 36 comments }

1

Ginger Yellow 02.18.10 at 6:28 pm

I presumably don’t need to tell you, but the narrative language of film was still being developed in 1914, so it’s not too surprising that many films, especially genre films. Intolerance, which is often considered to have established many of the conventions of film grammar, didn’t come until 1916. Feature films with space for a narrative to develop were still a novelty. There’s also the issue that studios (or their precursors) were churning out films at a prodigious rate pre-sound, so quality control wasn’t a huge priority.

What early/silent films do you think fit or don’t fit with what I’ve just said?

Well, Intolerance would be an interesting one to look at.

2

Zamfir 02.18.10 at 6:31 pm

The mule isn’t really a mule! It’s a guy in a mule suit! If you look closely, you can see it!

3

Treilhard 02.18.10 at 6:50 pm

I was under the impression that Baum was much more interested in being recognized for his contributions to theater and film as opposed to children’s literature, and that he was personally involved with a lot of the set designs and costuming of the Oz productions, many of which [I think the stage musical The Tik-Tok Man of Oz in particular] weren’t terribly well received. Also, the book the The Tik-Tok Man, which is a very odd Oz book, was based on the musical, which in turn was based on a very muddled version of the book Ozma of Oz. “Tangled and stained” is apt.

4

Treilhard 02.18.10 at 7:45 pm

What good stuff do you recommend reading/watching about all this?

I’m not sure what “all this” means [if you come across a book or paper about the development of special effects in pre-1920 cinema and the Oz franchise, please let me know!], but a fun resource is the Vintage Review collection*. You can get a pretty good feel for what theater-goers expected from a film, and while unfortunately none of the Baum films are in the archive, there is this bizarre review of the 1925 Wizard of Oz:

I have never seen a child’s story done well on the screen, in spite of the general belief that it is especially adapted for the full play of fancy. Of course, I prefer the clowns to the fat-kneed, blond, curly-haired tots who occasionally sicken me in juvenile pictures, but there must be something in between… Let handsprings and comedy falls, men with funny faces, and performing animals have all the room in the world they are entitled to, but don’t let them lead some of our best stories astray.

Also, if you haven’t seen Cabiria (1914) or The Extraordinary Voyages of Saturnin Farendoul (1913), try to track them down. There is a a hot air balloon battle in the latter that is spectacular.

* http://www.silentsaregolden.com/reviews.html

5

Keith 02.18.10 at 8:07 pm

Has anyone ever seen Le avventure straordinarissime di Saturnino Farandola ? An Italian silent film serial from 1913, based stories by Robida, a contemporary of Verne. I’ve only ever read about it or seen posters.

6

mollymooly 02.18.10 at 8:59 pm

The very first sequel to the Wonderful Wizard of Oz was the Marvelous Land of Oz. Sequels were even more in their infancy than cinema, and Baum left out both Dorothy and the Wizard. And the book was based on the musical. Book #6 in the series, Baum just included all the (crap) ideas his fans had sent in and then tried to kill off the series in the postscript. Of course he failed.

Having read books 1,2,3, and 19 by the time I first watched the 1939 movie, I found it old-fashioned, stagey, corny, a travesty of the fine text, and what’s with all those crappy songs?

7

NomadUK 02.18.10 at 9:32 pm

Having read books 1,2,3, and 19 by the time I first watched the 1939 movie, I found it old-fashioned, stagey, corny, a travesty of the fine text, and what’s with all those crappy songs?

I’m glad that I’m not the only one who finds the 1939 film, which is the only knowledge most people have of Oz, infinitely inferior to the first few books in the series, and the first two in particular, which were brilliant. In fact, I really don’t care for the musical at all, which opinion appears to be nearly sacrilegious.

Actually, the 1985 film, Return to Oz, was, I thought, much better than the musical, and a lot closer in spirit to the early books. The later books became increasingly saccharine, I think, though they had their moments.

There’s an ongoing review of the entire series going on at Tor.com if anyone is interested.

8

Russell Arben Fox 02.18.10 at 9:50 pm

I volunteer to be the bourgeois stooge and defend the 1939 film in the face of mollymooly and NomadUK’s criticisms. My earliest exposure to Oz were through some wonderful, primitive radio dramatizations that my mother had copies of, and which I listened to repeatedly in the early to mid 70s. Then there were the books of course, though I never read beyond the third volume. And finally, the big Hollywood musical, which firmly trounces all the versions which came before. Call it saccharine if you wish, fine; it remains a triumph. The movie wrung out of Baum’s rather convoluted mythology a narrative framework that found room for wonder, fear, pathos, and sly wit, a coming-of-age story and an adventure story put seemlessly together, as well as some of the most efficient characterizations ever to be found in a Hollywood musical.

I don’t deny the strange, moderately creepy appeal of Baum’s original; it’s about as fully realized an expression of the 19th-century fantastic as we have available to us. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a weird book, especially when compared to MGM brilliance. I’ve attempted to read it to our girls, and only one of them expressed any love for it (though it’s worth noting her love for it is huge; I probably read all the way through to her three times by the time she was nine). All of them love the film, though.

9

Ahistoricality 02.18.10 at 10:51 pm

I’m glad that I’m not the only one who finds the 1939 film, which is the only knowledge most people have of Oz, infinitely inferior to the first few books in the series, and the first two in particular, which were brilliant

I’m with R.A. Fox here. While I agree that the books are, in their own way, brilliant, and that the movie is different in some ways, I think the movie has to be viewed as a separate creative act, and it is a fantastic piece of storytelling and a technical triumph.

I feel much the same way about the tension between the Roald Dahl book and (first) movie version of “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory”: Dahl hated the movie for the liberties it took (he wrote the screenplay, but the director and actors altered a great deal) but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s quite faithful to the spirit and effect of the book.

There are choices that need to be made in translating from one medium to another; I thought people realized that by now.

10

jholbo 02.19.10 at 1:18 am

“Actually, the 1985 film, Return to Oz, was, I thought, much better than the musical, and a lot closer in spirit to the early books.”

I impressed Belle’s family, at the stage when they were trying to assess whether I was good boyfriend material, by spontaneously expressing this opinion of the 1985 film

11

Hattie 02.19.10 at 1:50 am

I loved the OZ books as a girl. The movie was not as good as my imagination and killed my interest. Judy Garland wasn’t a little girl. The Wicked Witch terrified my little sister, who had to be carried out of the theater screaming.
Baum was a true American character. He said we should kill all the Indians, because they were so degenerate after years of mistreatment that it would be merciful to put them out of their misery.

12

jholbo 02.19.10 at 1:55 am

Thanks for the “Farendoul” suggestion. Now I just have to figure out where I can see it.

And thanks for sticking up for the 1939 version, Russell. It really is great!

13

jholbo 02.19.10 at 2:03 am

Hey, google video has the Farendola film:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4190298383766415950#

14

Robert 02.19.10 at 2:54 am

What do you think about the idea that, I guess, the first book is an allegory about bimetallism? The slippers are silver and the road is the gold standard, etc.

15

roac 02.19.10 at 3:31 am

The best Oz book for my money is the one with the princess with the interchangeable heads; I can’t remember the title.

16

novakant 02.19.10 at 3:59 am

Obviously there are technical limitations, but so much else seems to be not going right. (…) there is a weird neglect of basic story-telling values.

No offence, but since you said you’re teaching film, one would expect a bit more understanding and imagination on your part regarding the development of narrative tools in a young art form. It’s not as if all these guys just somehow failed to implement the lessons of Aristotle’s poetics or whathaveyou just because they were shallow or foolish. The learning curve they faced as a group is similar to that faced by many very young filmmakers, i.e. children and young teenagers, who just start out making their own little films – the difference being that the the former had no predecessors they could copy.

17

kid bitzer 02.19.10 at 4:03 am

can we get some love for harold arlen and yip harburg here?

you visual-culture people–you act as though it matters what things *look* like.

18

freight train 02.19.10 at 4:31 am

And don’t forget that Yip Harburg hated the ending of the ’39 movie – he thought it was schlocky to tack on the “no place like home” stuff, when Oz clearly beat the hell out of Dorothy’s life in Kansas.

19

jholbo 02.19.10 at 4:31 am

“No offence, but since you said you’re teaching film, one would expect a bit more understanding and imagination on your part regarding the development of narrative tools in a young art form.”

None taken! the thing that puzzles other people about me is that I am happy to admit that I do not really understand things – particularly things it is my job to teach. What kind of a jerk does that, after all?

I hope I have an imagination, but I don’t always trust that what I imagine is true. In this case, obviously they were still learning, but I have a hard time telling what they thought they were trying to do. Children and young teenagers who start out making their own little firms are trying to make films like the ones they like. These guys weren’t doing that. It seems that they were torn between trying to figure out how to tell stories in this new medium and trying to figure out whether maybe they shouldn’t even bother to tell stories in this new medium. I just don’t know very much about silent cinema, but I am interested in learning.

20

kid bitzer 02.19.10 at 4:59 am

well of course you’re never going to understand silent cinema, if you ignore the soundtrack!

21

jholbo 02.19.10 at 5:23 am

I just turn the sound down and put the Keyboard Cat audio on endless loop. Maybe that’s my problem.

22

mollymooly 02.19.10 at 7:22 am

@roac “the one with the princess with the interchangeable heads”:
“Ozma of Oz”, Langwidere.

23

novakant 02.19.10 at 8:58 am

I have a hard time telling what they thought they were trying to do.

Bordwell/Staiger/Thompson’s The Classical Hollywood Cinema – Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960 is very good at providing context for early film production. As the title says, the focus is on the development of the classical narrative model, but by way of contrast one can learns quite a bit about this early period as well especially the roots of film in vaudeville and how that influenced its aesthetics.

And I don’t know all that much about early cinema either ;).

24

ogmb 02.19.10 at 12:20 pm

Market forces at work…

“Please note that the price of Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater has increased from $6.33 to $23.10 since you placed it in your Shopping Cart. Items in your cart will always reflect the most recent price displayed on their product detail pages.”

25

John Edmond 02.19.10 at 12:39 pm

Tom Gunning’s article “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde” is also worth reading. While the article mainly addresses pre-1907 film norms, it does deal with what filmmakers and audiences wanted from early cinema (including why amateurism may be appealing).

It feels weird recommending “Cinema of Attractions” since these days its pretty much prescribed reading for film students – not because anybody cares about early cinema (fib), but because Gunning’s (and André Gaudreault’s) concept of the Cinema of Attractions has become one of the founding metaphors of blockbuster theory and discussion. Grab the Cinema of Attractions: Reloaded for the full context http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=toc&isbn=9789053569443 Plus it includes Donald Crafton’s lovely “Pie and Chase: Gag, Spectacle and Narrative in Slapstick Comedy.”

26

NomadUK 02.19.10 at 12:50 pm

There are choices that need to be made in translating from one medium to another; I thought people realized that by now.

And sometimes those choices are crap. I thought people realised that by now, too.

27

John Holbo 02.19.10 at 12:57 pm

““Please note that the price of Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater has increased from $6.33 to $23.10 since you placed it in your Shopping Cart. Items in your cart will always reflect the most recent price displayed on their product detail pages.”

Damn. Sorry about that.

28

ogmb 02.19.10 at 1:53 pm

By no means, thanks for the heads-up in your previous post (which of course came with the correct warning: “I advise you to order your own copy before they come to their senses”). I actually like to keep my Amazon shopping cart filled up with stuff just to watch their all-too-frequent price changes…

29

mollymooly 02.19.10 at 9:20 pm

“I actually like to keep my Amazon shopping cart filled up with stuff just to watch their all-too-frequent price changes…”

Is anybody making money purely off the arbitrage and/or seigneurage effects at work and/or in play here?

30

John Holbo 02.20.10 at 1:33 am

Well, I make spare change, because I have an Amazon Associates account. So when I see something on sale I tend to tell people and then I make a few cents. That’s not really arbitrage, however.

31

novakant 02.20.10 at 3:08 am

Thanks John E, that sounds very interesting and – never having studied film in an academic context – I have been unaware of it.

32

John Holbo 02.20.10 at 3:22 am

Yes, John E, thanks for that one. I do intend to check it out.

33

ogmb 02.20.10 at 10:12 am

Is anybody making money purely off the arbitrage and/or seigneurage effects at work and/or in play here?

There’s quite a few arbitrage opp’ties between the various Amazon stores, especially for textbooks that are required at U.S. universities, which are often cheaper from the UK store even with overseas shipping…

34

NomadUK 02.20.10 at 12:32 pm

which are often cheaper from the UK store even with overseas shipping…

Well, it’s nice to know that something is cheaper in the UK…

35

novakant 02.22.10 at 10:58 am

It seems it’s not the UK as such that is expensive, but Central London and the Southwest.

I recently signed up for a new gym and since they didn’t have prices on their website, did some research on message boards: turns out that I (Central London) am paying 150% of what they charge people in most other London boroughs and 200% of what people pay in “the North”.

36

Harold 02.23.10 at 3:11 am

Not to change subject but about “paper theater” in general — and speaking of Amazon, don’t know if this:

Karline McClaine, India’s Immortal Comic Books: Gods, Kings, and Other Heroes (Contemporary Indian Studies) (Indiana University Press, 2009) was mentioned.

http://www.amazon.com/Indias-Immortal-Comic-Books-Contemporary/dp/0253220521/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266893953&sr=8-1-spell

Saw it today in the Japanese bookstore where I purchased my Japanese Paper Theater book. Graphic novels are big in Japan.

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