My Review of The Wizard Of Oz (1925)

 

Written by Larry Semon And L. Frank Baum, Jr.

Directed by Larry Semon

Title Card: "Know ye all, that Dorothea is the rightful ruler of The Kingdom of Oz and on her 18th Birthday she shall ascend to the throne... .. to Rule until the Great Master calls."

Prior to a month ago, I had no idea such a movie existed. I mean, I did know that there were versions of The Wizard Of Oz that predated the 1939 movie. Why am I now reviewing this one? Because it's a 100 years old, that's why.

Earlier versions of this were of course in black and white as well as sepia and other colours, etc. It's also silent but there's music in the background and many, many captions to help forward the plot along.

The movie started with a toymaker reading the story to his granddaughter. In the Land of Oz, there were the following ruler - Prime Minister Kruel (Josef Swickard), and he's aided by Ambassador Wikked (Otto Lederer), Lady Vishuss (Virginia Pearson) and the Wizard (Charles Murray). Then there's Prince Kynd (Bryant Washburn), representing the discontented citizens of Oz and demanding the return of a missing baby.

Then there's the events of Kansas. Dorothy Gale (Dorothy Dwan) lived with her Aunt Em (Mary Carr) and her Uncle Henry (Frank Alexander). Em's nice but Henry isn't and it's not long before Dorothy ended up in Oz and befriended the likes of the Scarecrow (Oliver N. Hardy) and Cowardly Lion (Curtis McHenry).

Throw in a love triangle between Dorothy, the Scarecrow and Prince Kynd, Kruel trying to force Dorothy into marriage and a reveal about Dorothy's real origins and this definitely isn't the type of adaptation that I expected. If anything it barely resembled anything that came close to the source material itself.

- You can watch the movie for free on its official Wikipedia page and YouTube among other places.  I'm impressed you can do that with certain movies.

- The Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman and Cowardly Lion are actually disguises from the farmhands in this movie.

- Standout music: The movie was originally orchestrated by Louis La Rondelle, conducted by Harry F. Silverman, featuring Julius K. Johnson

- Chronology: Mostly set in Oz and Kansas as per usual.

While I didn't love this adaptation of The Wizard Of Oz, it's certainly worth a watch. It's a very removed from the source material version that you can get. I'm unlikely going to ever watch this again though.

Rating: 6 out of 10