The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz (1910)

Good day dears!
This week we’ll travel back to Oz and waaay back in time too, with the first adaptation of the well-known book.

For lack of time, I’ll skip the technical details, sorry.
You can find everything you need to know HERE.

Plot:
I guess we all know how the story goes, more or less.
Dorothy is carried away by a cyclone and lands in the realm of Oz, where she meets strange new friends: Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion.
They all have a wish they want to be fulfilled by the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, so they start a quest in search of the Emerald City to pay a visit to this powerful guy.

Polenta’s comment:
First, I lied to you.
This is not the first adaptation of the novel, this is actually based on the 1902 stage musical, and that’s basically why in this 13-minutes-long film they dance pointlessly all the time. It’s a silent film, guys! What are you dancing for?!

Second, this film is hilarious.
I know, the way they did movies at that time was different from now, they were pioneering, blah blah blah. Still, This thing is really funny. It’s a really badly acted school play with people dressed as animals, not only the lion, but also Toto and a donkey.
So cute.
Dorothy -played by Bebe Daniels– at some point starts dancing too, in a random way that reminded me of Paulette Goddard in Modern Times, when she jigs about in the street and, heaven knows why, gets hired as a soubrette.

Dorothy, the Lion, the good Glinda and some pretty scary trees.

I’d really like, someday, to pick all the Wizard of Oz versions I managed to find and compare them, just for fun.
As soon as I’ll have the courage to watch the latest one with James Franco, the one that looks a lot like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.
In the 1910 version there’s no Elphaba, but Momba the Witch, presumably sister of Mombi, the witch we meet in Return to Oz.
Also, Dorothy finds out that the Scarecrow can talk BEFORE arriving in Oz.

These old adaptations are so naive they’re overwhelmingly cute.
Usually it can be noticed how, considered that time’s technology, they’re also ingenious and brilliant. Well, in this particular case I’m not sure I can say the same.

From left to right: the donkey, a very majestic scarecrow, Dorothy who looks seasick, another unidentified animal, maybe a cow.

HERE you can find the whole film. As often happens, they used completely random classical music that doesn’t match the story at all.
How did it work, at those times? Anyone could play live anything they wanted during the film? I should do a little research on that.

See you next time! =D

Return to Oz (1985)

Good day boys, girls, etc.
This week we’ll talk about a film that many of you have probably known well since their childhood, but that’s completely new to me: Return to Oz.

The film poster

Technical details:
Director: Walter Murch
Writer: Walter Murch, Gill Dennis, L. Frank Baum (story)
Production: Walt Disney Pictures and a lot of other companies I don’t know
Cast: Fairuza Balk, Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh, Piper Laurie, etc.
113 mins, colour

(Return to Oz on IMDb)

IMDb rating: 6.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 55%
Polenta’s rating: 3 boxes of crayons and a ton of clay

Plot:
Since Dorothy has come back from Oz, she can’t sleep and goes on talking about things that sound to her aunt and uncle as pure gibberish, so they send her to the psychiatric hospital for an electroshock treatment (nice, uh?).
Luckily, a mysterious girl helps her to escape and Dorothy finds herself -and Billina, one of the farm’s hens- back to Oz.
There, she’ll have to face the terrible claymation-made Nome King to make the destroyed Oz rise and shine again.

Dorothy scolds poor Billina for the drop in the eggs production.

Polenta’s comment:
I’m pretty much a fan of these 80s’ fantasy films with puppets and plenty of badly used green screen. Come on, those of us in their twenties (or more like thirties, maybe) have grown up with those movies, how couldn’t we love them!
And I have to say, watching this particular one not as a child but as an adult, I’ve found it entertaining, interesting and also pretty well done comparing to others.

Some parts are really creepy.
At the beginning, when the poor girl is about to be electroshocked, I was actually pretty nervous. And do I have to mention the princess who changes her heads more often than she changes her clothes?
By the way, her dress was astounding. It reminded me of the wonderful costumes by Eiko Ishioka.

I want that gown so bad, guys.

It’s a real mind trip, this film, I assure you.
I should read the books it was adapted from because, apparently, they decided to stick to the original story instead of doing a real proper sequel to the 1939 movie.
I wonder how the wheelers are described in the books. When they appeared at first I was pleasantly shocked. I mean, you see something like this:

A nice close-up of a wheeler.

…and you think ‘Wow, cool monster! So kitsch and scary!’ but then they turn up to be regular guys with masks on their heads, a Warriors-style street gang with Boy George’s make-up, and that’s a bit disappointing.

‘Dooorothyyy, come out to play-i-ay.’

I loved the rutty Yellow Bricks Road and the post-apocalyptic Emerald City, they were so dark! And the Deadly Desert, too.
Creepy, but in a silly way, was the poor frankenstein-moose, whose new body is made with sofas and palm leaves.
Sadly, Dorothy’s old friends appear for a short time around the end, but the new ones are equally cute and crazy, and the supercool Billina is a valid Toto substitute.

From left to right: Jack Pumpkinhead, the Scarecrow, Dorothy, the formerly dead Moose (with Billina on its head) and Tik-Tok, which is sooo British.

There are lots of fun facts about this film, so I suggest you have a peek at the Trivia section on its IMDb page.
I’m just going to quote the first one: ‘A gymnast, Michael Sundin, stood upside-down (with legs bent) and backwards inside Tik-Tok’s body to move the legs.’
What?! I actually asked myself, while watching the film, how did they manage to make a big copper ball walk, but I would’ve never imagined they put a poor guy upside-down in it!

Did you watch this movie as a child? Did you watch it as an adult?
What do you think about it?
If you want to share your opinion, feel free to leave a reply!
Thanks for reading, see you next week!

[Click here for the incredibly old-fashioned trailer]