Wizard Of Oz: The Lost Original L. Frank Baum Versions (1925)

A Great Old Classic

This movie is like those old silent movies perhaps you have seen bits and pieces of while watching documentaries of famous movie actors and actresses of the early 1900's. Black and white of course, and very busy and somewhat harsh on the eyeballs. I think since "moving pictures" were such a novel idea back then, that the actors were told to wave their arms A LOT, and run-around frantically while frequently falling down. There is a lot of commotion constantly going on.

It's very interesting in that you can see where the idea originated for the later movie, "The Wizard of Oz", of which we are familiar with. The old version (this movie) does not have very much in common, story-wise with the later movie, but still it's fun to watch and see how far we have come in the cinematic arts. The prototypes for the scarecrow, lion, and tin man are there though one of the main and most busy character, "patchwork girl" is not. My 7 year old loved this movie, but I swear I sometimes think she's my grandmother reincarnated who grew up watching these types of movies. She loves watching all the old movies and cartoons while I get tired of them rather quickly. (Although my daughter is adopted, she has a lot of the same mannerisms my grandmother did!) So, don't buy this movie thinking your kid is going to like it because they won't - but it's great for historical background of silent movies, and it's the precursor to the "Wizard of Oz" with Judy Garland.

Although this is a silent movie, I finally had to mute it because of the constant organ music - it kept playing these harsh chords over and over and over and over with little change in musical content. It was maddening to listen to it over a long period of time. It didn't change no matter what was going on in the story - frantic scene after frantic scene it was the same honking organ music. But music is not needed and it's easy to watch without any sound at all. The story was not exactly fluid, but you could sort of keep up with it by not missing the few opportunities to read a little bit of dialogue and find out what was happening. Sometimes things would change very suddenly without any previous story build-up so you just have to accept it and go along with the flow. The area where the movie was filmed was scraggy, weedy and dry with no though given to making the landscape more visually pleasant. Some costumes were no more than boxes (the "Woozy"!) but other costumes were much more elaborate. I like that they just filmed where they were with the environment just like it was. The props were high-school quality at best, but I liked it anyway.

I think this movie would be a great study for someone earning a college degree in film. It has a lot to offer in many areas, especially when seeing how the special effects were done. And this movie did have some very interesting special effects! Honestly, I love the innocence of it all - it was a pleasure to have this glimpse of the past and I'm very glad I bought it, but I probably won't watch it again for a while.
December 1, 2008

TRUE classics.

For any person who is a true fan of The Wizard of Oz or any of L. Frank Baum's works, you will be delighted in these DVDs; however, keep in mind, these DVDs are from films of the early 20th century AND ARE SILENT.

The company that compiled these lost films set them to their own music (which takes away from the films). I watched them with my television muted to fully appreciate them.

Little did I know that Baum had his own film company.

I would NOT recommend these films to children as they are silent and would quite possibly go unappreciated. September 19, 2008

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