Wizard of Oz and the Silent Films of L. Frank Baum

With the upcoming premier of the original 1939 MGM film, The Wizard of Oz; now in 3-D, I thought I would visit a number of topics related to L. Frank Baum, his books about Oz and his efforts to make them more appealing to the masses... and maybe make a buck or two in the process.

L. Frank Baum, of course, is the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and 13 other books (sequels) about the Land of Oz, as well as other children's books which weren't quite as well loved as his Oz stories.

The Oz Wiki describes L. Frank Baum's movie venture thus:

"In 1914, having moved to Hollywood years earlier, Baum started his own film production company, The Oz Film Manufacturing Company, which came as an outgrowth of the Uplifters. He served as its president, and principal producer and screenwriter. The rest of the board consisted of Louis F. Gottschalk, Harry Marston Haldeman, and Clarence R. Rundel. The films were directed by J. Farrell MacDonald, with casts that included Violet MacMillan, Vivian Reed, Mildred Harris, Juanita Hansen, Pierre Couderc, Mai Welles, Louise Emmons, J. Charles Haydon, and early appearances by Harold Lloyd and Hal Roach. Richard Rosson appeared in one of the films, whose younger brother Harold Rosson photographed The Wizard of Oz (1939). After little success probing the unrealized children's film market, Baum came clean about who wrote The Last Egyptian and made a film of it (portions of which are included in Decasia), but the Oz name had, for the time being, become box office poison and even a name change to Dramatic Feature Films and transfer of ownership to Frank Joslyn Baum did not help. Unlike with The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, Baum invested none of his own money in the venture, but the stress probably took its toll on its health."

Here's an example of how Oz was portrayed in the silent film era.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is a 1910 silent fantasy film and the earliest surviving film version of L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel, made by the Selig Polyscope Company without Baum's direct input. It was created to fulfill a contractual obligation associated with Baum's personal bankruptcy caused by The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, from which it was once thought to have been derived. It was partly based on the 1902 stage musical, though much of the film deals with the Wicked Witch of the West, who does not appear in the musical

We'll take a look at the musical in our next installment about L. Frank Baum and The Wizard of Oz.

James C. Wallace II
Royal Liaison of Oz