{"id":56983,"date":"2024-11-29T09:00:14","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=56983"},"modified":"2026-04-30T07:04:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T11:04:25","slug":"after-the-rainbow-the-wizard-of-oz-in-film-since-1939","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=56983","title":{"rendered":"After the Rainbow: The Wizard of Oz in Film Since 1939"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Author’s Note: This is an updating of an article which originally ran on MovieFanFare in September of 2009.<\/em><\/p>\n

In last week’s first half<\/a> of this two-part retrospective, I told you about the various silent and early animated film versions of L. Frank Baum\u2019s classic fantasy story, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” that were made before Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer decided to turn the book into a big-budget musical. Well, after nearly 16 months of pre-production and shooting, M-G-M\u2019s The Wizard of Oz<\/em><\/a>\u2013with a cast that included Judy Garland<\/a>, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Margaret Hamilton, and Frank Morgan in the title role\u2013opened nationwide on August 25, 1939, and was a instant critical and financial success\u2026right? Wrong.<\/p>\n

Reviews were generally, but by no means exclusively, favorable. And while it was popular at the box office, the predominance of children\u2019s tickets\u2013combined with a loss of foreign revenue due to the start of World War II\u2013meant that Wizard<\/em> actually finished its initial theatrical run about $700,000 in the ruby-slipper red. It wasn\u2019t until a 1949 re-release that the film showed a profit, and its status as one of America\u2019s most beloved movies was ultimately due to its nearly-annual TV broadcasts, which began in 1956 on CBS. With these factors in mind, it\u2019s not surprising that M-G-M\u2019s very tentative plans for a sequel in the early 1940s were shelved. That hasn\u2019t deterred other filmmakers and TV producers, though, from paying a visit to the Emerald City over the past nine decades.<\/p>\n

\"RAINBOW<\/p>\n

The first visitor was Mr. Family Entertainment himself, Walt Disney. After missing out on the movie rights to the first Oz book in the mid- \u201930s, Disney purchased the rights to several subsequent Baum volumes in 1954 and put the studio to work on “The Rainbow Road to Oz,” a two-part episode of his Disneyland<\/em> TV series that would star the Mouseketeers. “Rainbow” was even considered for release as a live-action musical\u2013the company\u2019s first\u2013which would tie into an Oz-themed ride at Walt\u2019s then-new California theme park, but the entire project was abandoned in 1958. Scenes of the Mouseketeers in costume (including Annette Funicello as Princess Ozma, Doreen Tracey as Scraps the Patchwork Girl, and Bobby Burgess as the Scarecrow) and a musical number with Tracey and Burgess were shown on Disneyland\u2019s<\/em> fourth-season debut episode in 1957, a sort of extended trailer for the film that would never be.<\/p>\n

Another TV favorite with a link to Oz\u2019s past was\u00a0Shirley Temple<\/a>, whom M-G-M considered borrowing from 20th Century-Fox to play Dorothy before casting Garland.\u00a0\u00a0An adult Temple was the hostess and sometimes star of her own live-action anthology series, Shirley Temple\u2019s Storybook<\/em>, from 1958-61, and the show\u2019s 1960 premiere episode adapted the second Oz book, “The Marvelous Land of Oz.” Shirley played young hero Tip, supported by Ben Blue as the Scarecrow, Sterling Holloway as Jack Pumpkinhead, a pre-Bewitched<\/em> Agnes Moorehead as Mombi the Wicked Witch of the North, and Jonathan Winters as the non-Baum villain Lord Nikidik, in a colorful and relatively faithful (down to one character\u2019s sex change at the climax!) retelling.<\/p>\n

The following year saw the small-screen debut of\u00a0Rankin\/Bass\u2019s Tales of the Wizard of Oz<\/em>, a series of poorly animated shorts starring Dorothy and her pals (renamed Socrates the Scarecrow, Rusty the Tin Man, and Dandy the Cowardly Lion). In 1964 the studio made a feature-length film, Return to Oz<\/em>, that basically retold the story of the 1939 movie and had the misfortune of airing the\u00a0night The Beatles made their first Ed Sullivan Show<\/em> appearance.\u00a0The less said about\u00a0this<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Return to Oz<\/em> the better. Also worth noting in passing was a 1967-68 ABC series, Off to See the Wizard<\/em>, which featured the Oz crew in animated form (courtesy of Chuck Jones) introducing live-action family films like Lili<\/em> and Flipper<\/em>\u00a0cut down into two one-hour segments.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, B-movie writer\/director\/producer Barry Mahon, whose roadhouse oeuvre ranged from children\u2019s matinee fare to softcore nudie flicks, didn\u2019t let a lack of funds keep him from shooting his own version of “Land,” retitled The Wonderful Land of Oz<\/em>, in 1969. Marked by a no-name cast and high school-level sets and make-up, this little-seen curiosity did at least, like Temple\u2019s TV\u00a0episode, stick to the basic plot of the book.<\/p>\n

\"\"The next theatrical Oz-travaganza was 1972\u2019s Journey Back to Oz<\/em> (the dialogue and songs were recorded a decade earlier, but funding held up the animation), which followed Dorothy and Toto on a\u2026wait for it\u2026journey back to Oz. Reunited with the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion, plus Jack Pumpkinhead and the living Sawhorse, they must stop Mombi the witch from taking over the Emerald City with an army of green elephants. Relatively well-made by the Filmation company (best known for Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids<\/em>), Journey<\/em> boasted a voice ensemble that included Milton Berle, Paul Lynde, Ethel Merman, and Danny Thomas, but the most intriguing actors were 1939\u2019s Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton, as Aunt Em; Judy Garland\u2019s old M-G-M partner Mickey Rooney as the Scarecrow; and Liza Minnelli<\/a> filling her mother\u2019s magic slippers as Dorothy.<\/p>\n

While moviegoers settled for cartoon Ozs (Ozes? Ozzesses?), Broadway audiences saw a new and lively re-imagining of Baum\u2019s tale with 1975\u2019s debut of The<\/em><\/a> Wiz<\/em>, which put an African-American spin on the proceedings and featured a score than included \u201cEase on Down the Road\u201d and \u201cIf You Believe.\u201d The show\u2019s popularity led Motown mogul Berry Gordy to launch plans for a film version that would merge Oz with New York City and be shot on location. He also wanted teenager Stephanie Mills to reprise her stage role as Dorothy, but a then-33-year-old Diana Ross<\/a> aggressively campaigned for and (thanks to a production deal with Universal) landed the part, rewritten to make Dorothy a self-doubting twentysomething teacher. Joining Ross were Motown buddy Michael Jackson<\/a> (in his film debut) as the Scarecrow; comedian and game show fave Nipsey Russell as the Tin Man; Broadway alum Ted Ross as the Cowardly Lion; Lena Horne and Mabel King as good and wicked witches, respectively; and Richard Pryor in the title role.<\/p>\n

\"\"Directed by Sidney Lumet and released in 1978, the motion picture treatment of The Wiz<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>was a visually dazzling but uneven box-office disappointment that suffers from a miscast Ross, oddly staged dance sequences, and a script filled with \u201970s self-help affirmations (Ross and screenwriter Joel Schumacher were devotees of EST founder Werner Erhard). There\u2019s something particularly wistful now, though, about seeing the young, pre-nose job Jackson give a fine performance or watching the plaza of the World Trade Center become the Emerald City.<\/p>\n

\"RETURN<\/p>\n

Two decades after Walt\u2019s death, the Disney studio finally made that long-awaited feature film with their first big-screen Oz adventure, 1985\u2019s Return to Oz<\/em>. Based on two of Baum\u2019s books and co-scripted and helmed by Oscar-winning soundman\/editor Walter Murch, this Return<\/em> found Dorothy (Fairuza Balk<\/a>) unable to convince anyone her Oz-dyssey was real. About to undergo electro-shock therapy (!), a storm dumps her and a talking hen named Billina into a ruined Oz. Dorothy encounters new friends Jack Pumpkinhead and the clockwork man Tik-Tok and new enemies like the subterranean Nome King (Nicol Williamson), who has conquered the kingdom, and Princess Mombi (Jean Marsh), who changes more than her expression thanks to 30 interchangeable heads. It\u2019s up to Balk to free the Emerald City and its residents from Williamson\u2019s captivity.<\/p>\n

Audiences and critics who went to Return<\/em> expecting light Disney-flavored fare or a musical follow-up to the M-G-M film were put off by the movie\u2019s dark tone\u2013a tone echoed in many of Baum\u2019s works\u2013and the lack of songs. What they overlooked was an imaginative thrill ride filled with wonderful visual effects (including an early use of Claymation for the Nome King) and the closest cinematic depiction of Oz to its literary counterpart since Baum himself co-produced a series of silent films back in the 1910s.<\/p>\n

There have also been\u00a0several films with subtle and not-so-subtle references to The Wizard of Oz<\/em>, from Sean Connery\u2019s 1974 sci-tale tale\u00a0Zardoz<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to 1981\u2019s\u00a0Time Bandits<\/em><\/a> by Terry Gilliam. And let\u2019s not forget Chevy Chase, Carrie Fisher, and a hotel full of carousing \u201cMunchkins\u201d during the filming of the ’39 Wizard <\/em>in the 1981 comedy Under the Rainbow<\/em><\/a>. No, on second thought, let\u2019s.<\/p>\n

On the small screen, a radical revamping of Oz was featured in the 2007 SyFy channel mini-series Tin Man<\/em>, in which a storm sends Kansas waitress DG (Zooey Deschanel<\/a>) into a dystopic parallel world known as the Outer Zone (OZ, for short) that only she can save. Four years later, SyFy offered another mini-series, The Witches of Oz<\/em>, that starred Paulie Rojas as a grown Dorothy, who must stop a revived Wicked Witch of the West from invading New York City, and Christopher Lloyd as the Wizard. It was released as a feature-length film, Dorothy and the Witches of Oz<\/em>, in 2012. During this time there were also TV and direct-to-video features that added The Muppets and Tom and Jerry<\/a> to the familiar story of Dorothy and company.<\/p>\n

\"\"Thanks in part to the popularity of the Harry Potter film series\u2013not to mention the fact that all 14 Baum books were now public domain\u2013Disney decided to try their hand again with director Sam Raimi’s 2013 dark fantasy Oz the Great and Powerful, <\/em>depicting the history of the kingdom before Dorothy’s arrival. When an errant balloon flight takes him from 1905 Kansas to the Emerald City, con man and circus magician Oscar Zoroaster “O.Z.” Diggs (James Franco<\/a>) is told by sibling witches Theodora (Mila Kunis<\/a>) and Evanora (Rachel Weisz<\/a>) that he is the prophesied Wizard who will free the land from the rule of a certain “wicked witch.” With help from a living china doll and a flying monkey named Finley, Diggs is sent to eliminate her but discovers his “foe” is really the good-hearted Glinda (Michelle Williams<\/a>), and the true evil witch is one of the sisters.<\/p>\n

Oz the Great and Powerful<\/em> offers a twisted take on Baum’s fantasyland and–much like Wicked<\/em>–a sympathetic portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West’s origins. While family audiences and some critics were put off by its somber tone (one reviewer compared its basic plot to Raimi’s Army of Darkness<\/em>), it was a box office success, with a net profit estimated at over $36 million. Fun Fact: Disney had to make sure their green Wicked Witch makeup was a distinct enough shade from the 1939 film’s to avoid a copyright infringement case.<\/p>\n

Two years later came Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return<\/em>, an animated adventure with a voice cast that included Glee\u2019s<\/em> Lea Michele as Dorothy and Dan Aykroyd, Jim Belushi and Kelsey Grammer as the Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion and Tin Woodman, respectively. Here it’s the Jester (voiced by Martin Short), the Wicked Witch of the West’s brother (!), that the quartet must stop. The song-filled feature was a major misfire, making back less than $22 million of its $70 million budget, and plans for follow-up films and a TV series were scrapped. Its legacy lived on in a 2019 civil lawsuit claiming that the brothers behind Legends<\/em> took investors to the tune of $50 million more than was needed (shades of The Producers<\/em>)!<\/p>\n

\"\"This, of course, brings us to last week’s hotly-anticipated release of Wicked<\/em> (Wicked: Part I<\/em> if you want to be technical about it. Thanks for making us wait a year for the second part, Universal). Based on the Tony-winning musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman (not to mention Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West”), the film stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Gallinda, magically inclined college roommates who become friends despite their divergent personalities. Michelle Yeoh<\/a> is headmistress Madame Morrible, who senses Elphaba’s abilities and tutors her, and Jeff Goldblum<\/a> is the Wizard, whose beneficent image hides a sinister secret he and Morrible share. When Elphaba tries to stop the duo’s plans, she is proclaimed a Wicked Witch and must convince Gallinda of her true intentions. And yes, the soundtrack includes “No One Mourns the Wicked,” “Popular,” and “Defying Gravity.”<\/p>\n

With a\u00a0$112.5 million domestic opening weekend, Wicked<\/em> will undoubtedly prove to be one of the season’s biggest hits…even if certain theater chains won’t let audiences sing along. Its success (and, one imagines, the success of Wicked: Part Two<\/em> next November) should keep the ongoing interest in all things Ozian burning for new generations of fans and inspire future filmmakers to bring the timeless stories to life. And from a financial standpoint, why not? After all, there\u2019s no place like public domain source material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author’s Note: This is an updating of an article which originally ran on MovieFanFare in September of 2009. 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