THE WIZARD OF OZ (silent b/w 1925 version)

 

Publicity poster for The Wizard of Oz (silent b/w 1925 version) (© Larry Semon/Chadwick Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

I've watched a fair few Wizard of Oz-inspired fantasy movies down through the decades, but the very early one that I viewed on 27 October 2023 (in modern-day colorized format), namely the 1925 b/w silent film entitled The Wizard of Oz, directed by and also starring Larry Semon, is undoubtedly the weirdest that I've seen so far, and for a number of different reasons.

First and foremost: although it includes several of the original L. Frank Baum novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz's main characters (but neither Glinda the Good Witch nor The Wicked Witch of the West, amazingly enough), the story in which they appear bears scant resemblance to the novel's, having been changed almost out of recognition – and not for the better, either!

To begin with, the entire story is bookended between a couple of scenes featuring a grandfather (Larry Semon) telling the entire story one evening to his young, sleepy granddaughter. Once into the story itself, however, the first half presents a number scenes featuring slapstick mishaps on the Kansas farm where Dorothy (played by Dorothy Dwan) lives with her unpleasant Uncle Henry (Frank Alexander) and pleasant Aunt Em (Mary Carr).

 

Dorothy (Dorothy Dwan) down on the farm with two of its farmhands (Oliver Hardy, left, and Larry Semon, right), before the latter two arrive with Dorothy in Oz and disguise themselves as the Tin Man and the Scarecrow respectively (public domain)

These are interspersed with scenes in Oz where its evil prime minister, aptly named Kruel (Josef Swickard), and his sycophantic aides Ambassador Wikked (Otto Lederer) and Lady Vishuss (Virginia Pearson) have seized power in the mysterious absence of its rightful princess ruler, but now plan to track her down to prevent her from ever returning. Meanwhile, an ineffectual Oz nobleman named Prince Kynd (Bryant Washburn) – Kruel, Wikked & Vishuss vs Kynd, geddit?? – prances around doing little and achieving less, but remaining ever so noble and dashing and upright throughout.

The second half sees Dorothy and her friends dramatically arrive via tornado in Oz, where they do their darnedest to put things right, while the prince continues to be steadfastly noble, dashing, upright, and totally useless. Unexpectedly, the plot climaxes with a potentially tragic cliffhanger featuring the Scarecrow (Larry Semon again) – only for the scene to abruptly switch back then to the grandfather telling the story to the child, confirming that it was all just fiction, thereby bringing the movie to a gentle, happy end (except that Dorothy marries Prince Kynd – shame, you could have done so much better, Dorothy!).

Secondly: even some of the main characters from the novel that do appear in this movie behave very differently from their literary counterparts. Thus we encounter a traitorous, villainous Tin Man (played by a young Oliver Hardy), and a violently aggressive Uncle Henry. Also, the farmhands are not physically transformed into the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion in Oz – instead, they simply adopt those disguises once they arrive in Oz.

 

Dorothy in Oz, with one of the farmhands (played by  Larry Semon, on the left) disguised as the Scarecrow, and the other (played by Oliver Hardy, on the right) disguised as the Tin Man (public domain)

In addition, even the Wizard of Oz himself (Charles Murray) is at Kruel's beck and call, rather than being in control himself, as he was in the novel (though the fact that his magic is more of the carnival illusion variety than any type of serious sorcery does accord with the novel, for once!).

Dorothy, meanwhile, is 18 years old in this movie, on the cusp of adulthood, not pre-adolescent as in the novel. Moreover, once she arrives in Oz she is revealed to be none other than its long-lost Princess Dorothea! It turns out that she'd been abducted as an infant by Oz's power-hungry prime minster Kruel, who'd secretly taken her to Kansas and abandoned her on the doorstep of Uncle Henry and Aunt Em's farmstead, so that he could rule Oz in her stead, which he has done ever since. See, I told you it was different!

Thirdly: I'd previously read descriptions of this movie as being an early Laurel & Hardy feature film, but it definitely is not, as Laurel isn't in it. Having now watched it, however, I can certainly understand the confusion – because director Larry Semon, who also plays both the grandfather and the farmhand that disguises himself to become the Scarecrow when in Oz, is the absolute spitting image of Stan Laurel! See for yourself in the pictures included here. Moreover, even his mannerisms are those that we associate with Laurel.

 

In this publicity poster there is no mistaking the physical similarity between Semon & Hardy and Laurel & Hardy (public domain)

So, because he and Hardy act together here in many scenes, it really does look for all the world like the famous Laurel & Hardy double-act that we all know so well. Yet in reality this is of course a total illusion, one that can actually be quite unsettling at times, especially knowing that when this movie was made, L&H had never even appeared together on screen, let alone made a full-length movie with one another.

However, Semon did work with both of them separately, which makes me wonder if Laurel developed some of what later became his own characteristic mannerisms from those of Semon while working with him.

Fourthly: over the years, this movie has been re-released with several different accompanying music scores, so I can only hope that the others are better than the version I suffered through, bearing in mind that it was not even remotely in keeping with what I was watching. Sometimes, for instance, when the scene on screen was slapstick or comic, the music playing was sombre, even funereal at times, whereas when the scene being shown was sad or dramatic, the music playing was often jaunty or frivolous.

 

Larry Semon receiving full recognition as the lead star of this movie in another publicity poster for it (public domain)

Sadly, and in spite of it receiving great praise from film critics, this movie proved a flop at the box office, so much so that it bankrupted Semon (engaged by then to Dorothy Dwan who had starred as Dorothy in it). Moreover, it was widely speculated that the great stress resulting from this financial disaster for him actively contributed to Semon's premature death just three years later, in 1928, at the age of only 39.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that this early movie version of The Wizard of Oz is worth a watch for its curiosity value – but if you want to view a far more faithful cinematic rendition of Baum's original novel, you need to journey Over the Rainbow to the classic 1939 MGM movie musical of the same title starring Judy Garland.

If you'd like to watch this vintage movie in its entirety and in its original b/w format but tinted), please click here to do so for free on Youtube; or click here to view it in its entirety and again for free on YouTube but in a modern-day colorized format, which I did.

 

Larry Semon, photographed by Albert Witzel in c.1922 (public domain)

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

L. Frank Baum, surrounded by his immortal novel's famous characters, as portrayed by highly-acclaimed Swedish artist Richard Svensson (© Richard Svensson)

 

OZ: A ROCK 'N' ROLL ROAD MOVIE (aka 20TH CENTURY OZ)

 

Publicity poster for Oz: A Rock 'N' Roll Rock Movie (aka 20^th Century Oz) (© Chris Löfvén/Australian Film Commission/B.E.F. Film Distributors in association with Count Features Inc/Greater Union – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

First published in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (often shortened to The Wizard of Oz in later reprints) by L. Frank Baum is one of the most popular children's fantasy novels of all time. Not surprisingly, therefore, it has inspired a large number – and a very wide range – of movie adaptations. As a great fan of the novel and its many sequels penned by Baum and others, I own a fair few of these movies.

They include: the legendary eponymous 1939 version (starring Judy Garland as Dorothy); Journey Back to Oz (released in 1971, a colourful animated adaptation of Baum's second Oz novel and notable for Garland's daughter Liza Minnelli voicing Dorothy); The Wiz (1978, starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, based upon the Broadway stage musical of the same title); Disney's Return to Oz (1985, featuring one of the darkest, creepiest opening scenes that I've ever seen in an ostensibly child-friendly movie); Lion of Oz (2000, a prequel to Baum's original first Oz novel, and based upon one penned by his great-grandson Roger S. Baum); After the Wizard (2012, an unofficial modern-day sequel of sorts to the original classic story); Oz the Great and Powerful (2013, providing an origin story for the Wizard, played by James Franco); Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2014, an American/Indian 3-D animated musical version of an Oz novel once again penned by Roger S. Baum); and Guardians of Oz (2015, a Mexican/Indian computer-animated movie featuring new characters); plus the 2007 TV mini-series Tin Man and the 2011 TV mini-series The Witches of Oz (this latter being re-released a year later in edited form as a movie, entitled Dorothy and the Witches of Oz).

As would be expected, all of these Oz treatments contain a profusion of magic – after all, where would any movie inspired by Baum's classic novels be without magic? Fittingly enough, and as I discovered just a few days ago, the answer to that question is none other than Australia, which is commonly colloquially dubbed Oz for short – because on 31 October 2021 I watched a nowadays obscure yet thoroughly fascinating Aussie movie hitherto unknown to me whose basic premise was that of the original Wizard of Oz, yet whose storyline displayed a singular and very conspicuous absence of magic. And the title of this Oz from Oz movie? In fact, it has two – Oz: A Rock 'N' Roll Road Movie (frequently abbreviated to Oz), and also, under which it was released in the USA, 20^th Century Oz. At only 90 minutes long, this latter version is shorter than the original 103-min Australian release (which is what I watched), yet it was much more successful at the box office.

Directed, written, and co-produced by Chris Löfvén, and released in 1976 by B.E.F. Film Distributors in association with Count Features Inc/Greater Union, Oz is fundamentally a rock musical (Australia's first, with its music written by Ross Wilson) and also a road movie, with both Dorothy's real world and her alternate reality/fantasy world set entirely in what was then contemporary Australia. Moreover, it provided early roles for a number of performers who went on to achieve notable success in the Australian movie world and beyond, most especially Bruce Spence (appearing in various films within the Mad Max, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Narnia, and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises).

SPOILER ALERT: I don't normally present the entire plot of a movie when reviewing it, but I'm doing so here in order to highlight the many clever twists and parallels between Oz and more conventional, traditional interpretations of Baum's original 1900 novel. So if you don't want to discover how it plays out, read no further.

 

Joy Dunstan as Dorothy and Robin Ramsay as Glynn, in Oz: A Rock 'N' Roll Rock Movie (aka 20^th Century Oz) (© Chris Löfvén/Australian Film Commission/B.E.F. Film Distributors in association with Count Features Inc/Greater Union – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

The movie begins one evening with teenage groupie Dorothy (played by Joy Dunstan) visiting in her home town a concert by a decidedly underwhelming four-man rock band called Wally and the Falcons, yet whose lead singer Wally (Graham Matters) in particular has profound delusions of grandeur as far as his own less than tuneful talent is concerned. After the concert is over, Dorothy hitches a ride with the band in their tour bus, having become attracted to the handsome if hubristic Wally, but the bus's driver becomes distracted, causing it to crash and Dorothy to be knocked unconscious.

When Dorothy regains consciousness and opens her eyes, she is surprised to find that it is broad daylight and even more so to discover that she has somehow been transported into a wholly unfamiliar rural Aussie landscape in the middle of nowhere. After wandering aimlessly for a while, she reaches a largely deserted, boarded-up ghost town, but standing somewhat incongruously at the centre of it is a block of smart new shops. One of these, a boutique named The Good Fairy, has a very eyecatching pair of sparkling ruby shoes on display in the window, so Dorothy ventures inside for a closer look at them. Sashaying forth from the back room is the proprietor of The Good Fairy – an elegantly-dressed, immaculately-coiffed, overtly camp man of indeterminate age (Robin Ramsay), who introduces himself as Glynn and appears kindly disposed towards her – truly a friend of Dorothy, one might say...

As you'll have no doubt guessed by now, The Good Fairy boutique's proprietor Glynn is this movie's counterpart to the classic Baum story's Glinda the Good Witch. Moreover, Glynn reveals to Dorothy that she inadvertently killed a local hoodlum upon arriving here when the tour bus crashed into him, and he rewards her on behalf of the entire grateful community by gifting her the ruby shoes. Who should then show up but the deceased hoodlum's equally unpleasant but still very much alive truckie brother (played by Ned Kelly, who was also the road manager for Aussie heavy rock band AC/DC at that time), threatening revenge, but Glynn soon turns him out of his boutique. The two hoodlum brothers clearly represent the original story's Wicked Witches of the East and West respectively.

Seeing how alarmed she is, Glynn then informs Dorothy comfortingly if vaguely that the ruby shoes will keep her safe, and when Dorothy sees a poster inside the boutique of an androgynous glam rock star named The Wizard (who despite all of his Bowie-like make-up looks very like Wally) and learns from Glynn that he will be performing tonight in the city at one final concert before retiring, she decides to travel there and see him – but has no idea of the route. However, Glynn assures her that as long as she follows the highway, it will take her to the city (echoing Glinda's advise to Dorothy in the original novel to follow the Yellow-Brick Road in order to reach the Emerald City where she'll find the Wizard of Oz), so Dorothy sets off straight away.

 

Bruce Spence as Blondie the affable surfie, in Oz: A Rock 'N' Roll Rock Movie (aka 20^th Century Oz) (© Chris Löfvén/Australian Film Commission/B.E.F. Film Distributors in association with Count Features Inc/Greater Union – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

After a while she encounters a tall, slim, blonde-haired surfie (Aussie-speak for a surfer, and played by Bruce Spence), whose car has suffered a puncture. However, he has no idea how to use his car's jack to hoist it up in order that he can change the tyre. So Dorothy does it for him, and in gratitude he promises to drive her to the city. Referred to by Dorothy and all of the other characters in this movie simply as Blondie, he proves a very affable and loyal friend to Dorothy, albeit decidedly unencumbered by intelligence. Coupled with his spindly frame, does this sound familiar within the standard Oz plot? Yes indeed, because Blondie is Oz's very own Scarecrow simulacrum – lanky, friendly, and very faithful, but in sore need of some brains.

Eventually, the gauge in Blondie's car shows that there is little fuel left in the tank, so they stop at a fuel and vehicle repairs garage, to fill up with petrol, and Greaseball, a car mechanic (played by the aptly-named Michael Carman) working there, takes a particular shine to Dorothy. So when he discovers from Blondie that she is not his girlfriend but is nonetheless unable to persuade Blondie to let him take her the rest of the way to the city, with heartless and ruthless guile Greaseball surreptitiously sabotages the unsuspecting, unassuming surfer's car, so that Dorothy has no option but to accept his offer to drive her instead.

At first, I missed the clues as to which character from the original novel Greaseball represented in this modern-day movie version, but then the proverbial penny dropped with a loud clang inside my mind. Here was a guy who albeit metaphorically was totally heartless, and as a mechanic was literally surrounded by tin and other metals in the form of the cars that he repaired each day – in short, Greaseball was the Tin Man, needing in emotional terms a heart!

Meanwhile, a biker (Gary Waddell) – or bikie, as Aussies call them – rides in, also seeking petrol. He calls himself Killer and puts on a very aggressive, arrogant display to everyone there, until Dorothy becomes so annoyed by his obnoxious behaviour and constant swearing (a telling reminder that this is no children's movie) that she slaps his face – only to be startled when he instantly breaks down and cries. Killer's tough-guy image is nothing but a front, a façade – in reality, as he shamefacedly confesses to Dorothy, he is so cowardly that he has even been expelled from his motorbike gang, The Lions Motorcycle Club, for not being rough and tough enough. All the clues are there to work out which classic Wizard of Oz character Killer represents – his fake aggression masking his real cowardice, and his status as a (former) member of The Lions readily identify him as Oz's answer to the Cowardly Lion.

 

Gary Waddell as Killer, the tough-talking but not so brave-acting Aussie bikie, in Oz: A Rock 'N' Roll Rock Movie (aka 20^th Century Oz) (© Chris Löfvén/Australian Film Commission/B.E.F. Film Distributors in association with Count Features Inc/Greater Union – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Leaving Blondie behind, tinkering futilely with his car's scuppered engine and assisted in his aimless endeavours by Killer, Greaseball and Dorothy drive off, but ironically it's not long before Greaseball's own car breaks down, so he in turn is abandoned by Dorothy, who begins walking down the highway once more, wondering if she will ever reach the city and see the Wizard. Happily, however, help is at hand in the shape of Killer, who catches up with her on his motorbike and takes her with him as his pillion passenger as he heads cityward. At much the same time, who should turn up to rescue Greaseball but Blondie, whose car had been repaired by Killer back at the garage. So Blondie and Greaseball now drive on in search of Dorothy, but unbeknownst to them, Dorothy is also being steadfastly pursued in his truck by the vengeful Wicked Truckie of the West.

Eventually Killer and Dorothy reach the coast, where they rest for a while, with Dorothy, lulled by the hypnotic sound of the lapping tide, falling into a deep sleep (Oz's Aussie take on the original novel's slumber-inducing poppy fields). Blondie and Greaseball then arrive, but Dorothy sleeps on, unaware of their presence. Greaseball soon frightens Killer away and sabotages his motorbike, but while he and Blondie are talking, Glynn pulls up in a snazzy Mustang, spots Dorothy lying asleep on the sand, promptly wakes her up, and then drives her all the way to the city.

Once there, it doesn't take Dorothy long to locate where the Wizard's concert is about to be held and to coerce the venue's doorman to let her in without a ticket. She also encounters her loyal trio of friends there, who have just arrived, but the doorman refuses to let them in as well, so they wait outside for her until the concert ends. Dorothy is totally captivated by the dazzling spectacle of the Wizard's dynamic on-stage performance, and when she finally re-emerges, she tells her friends that she wants to track down the Wizard's hotel so that she can inveigle herself into his room. But before she is able to do so, Truckie sends a gang of thugs (representing the novel's flying monkeys), who beat up her friends and kidnap Dorothy herself, handing her to Truckie waiting in his vehicle. He rides off with her to an empty house, where he locks himself with her inside a room, and in no uncertain terms tells her what he wants from her, ordering her to strip…

Happily, having recovered from their beating, Dorothy's friends set off in hot pursuit, and spot Truckie's vehicle outside the house. Stepping cautiously inside, they hear Truckie threatening Dorothy, and when she screams they burst into the room, distracting Truckie and allowing Dorothy to place a well-aimed kick in his tucker box. And just for good measure, Killer surprises himself as well as all of the others by courageously felling Truckie with a single punch, after which they get back into Blondie's car and set off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz (whoops, sorry, wrong movie!). But where can he be?  To their surprise, it is Blondie who very cleverly comes up with the correct answer. As the biggest star in the city, the Wizard must surely be staying in its biggest hotel, so that's where they drive to. And while en route, Greaseball shows a hitherto-absent degree of genuine, warm-hearted concern for Dorothy and her well-being. Needless to say, this key scene mirrors the version in the original novel where the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man discover that they actually already possess the qualities that they were hoping to obtain from the Wizard of Oz.

 

From left: Gary Waddell as Killer, Michael Carman as Greaseball, Joy Dunstan as Dorothy, and Bruce Spence as Blondie, in Oz: A Rock 'N' Roll Rock Movie (aka 20^th Century Oz) (© Chris Löfvén/Australian Film Commission/B.E.F. Film Distributors in association with Count Features Inc/Greater Union – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Finding the hotel and the Wizard's luxurious suite where he is throwing a lavish post-concert party for the decadent glitterati, Dorothy and her friends reluctantly join in, hoping to encounter him among the bohemian throng. Finally Dorothy locates his private inner sanctum, which she swiftly enters, stepping into the shower room and at long last into the arms of the showering Wizard, willingly disrobing to join and submit to him. However, her happiness is short-lived, because she swiftly discovers to her shock and sadness that he is a shallow untalented sham, a whiny humbug hiding behind special visual effects and amplified recorded sound, and interested only in himself and fame. To make matters even worse, Glynn abruptly turns up, reveals that he is the Wizard's agent, and informs him that a leading showbusiness reporter is clamouring to interview him for a major feature.

Then, in what at least for me was a totally unexpected, shock departure from what until now had been a markedly close parallel in basic plot between the original novel and this movie (lack of magic notwithstanding), Glynn turns to Dorothy and informs her coldly, curtly, and callously (far removed indeed from Glinda's kindly behaviour to Dorothy throughout the novel) that whereas there are thousands of her out there, there is only one Wizard. Glynn then departs with him to meet the press, leaving a still-dripping, towel-wrapped Dorothy behind in the Wizard's room, all alone, thoroughly dejected, disillusioned, and all too clearly unwanted by him.

Happily, Dorothy's three friends find the Wizard's sanctum, enter the shower room, and comfort her. But when they step outside to give her some privacy while she dresses, in a sudden fit of rage Dorothy picks up her ruby shoes and hurls them at a large mirror on the wall, shattering it, so she closes her eyes – and when she opens them again, it is evening and she is lying on the ground next to the tour bus of the rock band, whose members are all anxiously bending over her, but delighted when they realize that she is unharmed and conscious.

Looking up at them, Dorothy realizes how very closely they all resemble the characters she'd encountered in her fantasy world – the bass player as Blondie, the drummer as Greaseball, the guitarist as Killer, and, above all, Wally the lead singer as the Wizard. But would he prove to be more genuine to her than the Wizard had been? They all get back on board the bus and drive away – so I guess we'll never know!

 

Graham Matters as the Wizard, in Oz: A Rock 'N' Roll Rock Movie (aka 20^th Century Oz) (© Chris Löfvén/Australian Film Commission/B.E.F. Film Distributors in association with Count Features Inc/Greater Union – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

The sheer quirkiness of Oz is very engaging, and it's certainly fun to watch its variously comedic and sly interpretations and interpolations of so many of the beloved characters and components of Baum's original within a contemporary Australian scenario. Having said that, some worked better for me than others.

Spence's 'dumb blonde' surfer take upon the original Scarecrow character works very well, as does Waddell's faux-feisty biker as this movie's Cowardly Lion counterpart (though his language was at times unnecessarily coarse). Conversely, Greaseball's less literal, much more metaphorical Tin Man representation is not so successful for me, although obviously I recognise that a genuine heart-lacking tin-encased human could not exist in an unenchanted modern-day setting. And Dunstan's supposedly 16-year-old (but visibly older), sexually-aware Dorothy contrasts uneasily for me with the much younger, wide-eyed and innocent, traditional Dorothy as portrayed not only in the Oz novels but also in the vast majority of big-screen presentations; then again, within the much more mature context of this particular movie treatment, the latter version of Dorothy would be wholly unsuitable.

As for its unexpected transmutation of enchanted Glinda into effeminate Glynn: we have to remember that Oz was made almost 50 years ago, during the pre-PC mid-1970s, when camp characters were regularly albeit regrettably utilized largely as light relief or figures of fun in movies and TV shows. However, as noted earlier, I remain perplexed by why Glynn suddenly turns upon Dorothy in such a verbally vicious manner at Oz's climax, an action entirely and inexplicably at odds not only with the original novel's story but also with his own previously kind behaviour towards her in this film, and serving no real purpose anyway. After all, the Wizard had already betrayed his own vacuously vapid, self-obsessed nature to Dorothy before Glenn had arrived in his shower room and found them together there, so Glynn's support for him and nastiness toward Dorothy seem wholly uncalled for – unless of course I should be taking into account here that by being Good Fairy Glynn rather than Good Witch Glinda, his allegiance is more likely to be for the Wizard than for Dorothy? Who knows?

What I do know is that Oz is a very engrossing, thoroughly entertaining movie – very 1970s, extremely Australian, and wholly original in its execution, with for the most part a collection of likeable characters who epitomize the value of friends and friendship in precisely the way that their original equivalents did in Baum's book. And above all else, Oz is an excellent example of how magical in every sense a movie inspired by a magical book but lacking any actual magic itself can nonetheless be. But don't take my word for it - click here to view an official trailer for this Aussie Oz feature film and make up your own mind.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Publicity poster for 20^th Century Oz – the shorter American version of Oz: A Rock 'N' Roll Rock Movie (© Chris Löfvén/Australian Film Commission/B.E.F. Film Distributors in association with Count Features Inc /Greater Union – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)