The Wizard of Oz

Plot synopsis:
The film begins in Kansas, which is depicted in a sepia tone. Dorothy Gale lives with her dog Toto on the farm of her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Dorothy's dog gets in trouble with a mean neighbor, Miss Almira Gulch, when Toto bites her. However, Dorothy's family and the farmhands are all too busy to pay her any attention. Miss Gulch arrives with permission from the sheriff to have Toto put down. She takes him away, but he escapes and returns to Dorothy, who then decides to run away from home, fearing that Miss Gulch will return.
They meet Professor Marvel, a phony but kindly fortune teller, who realizes Dorothy has run away and uses his crystal ball to dupe her into believing that Aunt Em is ill so that she must return home. She races home just as a powerful tornado strikes. Unable to get into her family's storm cellar, she seeks safety in her bedroom. A wind-blown window sash hits her in the head, knocking her out. Dorothy then awakens to find the house has apparently been picked up and sent spinning up into the air by the twister. She looks outside the window and sees an elderly lady (not Aunt Em as some thought) in a chair, several farm animals, two men rowing a boat, and Miss Gulch (still pedaling her bicycle), who transforms into a cackling Wicked Witch of the East flying on a broomstick.
The farmhouse crashes in Munchkinland in the Land of Oz, and just as Dorothy opens the door of her house the film changes to Technicolor. Glinda the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins welcome her as their heroine, singing "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" - the house has landed on and killed the Wicked Witch of the East, leaving only her feet poking out from under the house. In the middle of the celebration, the Wicked Witch of the West arrives in a ball of smoke and fire to claim her sister's ruby slippers, but Glinda transports the shoes onto Dorothy's feet before the witch can get them. The Wicked Witch of the West swears revenge on Dorothy for her sister's death. Glinda tells Dorothy to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City, where the Wizard of Oz might be able to help her get back home.
On her way, Dorothy meets and befriends the Scarecrow, who wants a brain, and is invited by Dorothy to join her on her journey. Eventually Dorothy and Scarecrow come to an apple tree orchard where Dorothy picks an apple off a tree and the trees come to life and scold her for it. But Scarecrow taunts and provokes the trees, causing them to become angry and throw apples at him. As Dorothy picks up the thrown apples, she and Scarecrow find and befriend the Tin Woodman, who desires a heart. After they invite the Tin Man to come along, the Witch appears and makes threats to the three of them. Then deep in the woods, they meet the Cowardly Lion, who is in need of courage and he too is invited to come along as well. After the Witch attempts to stop them several times, they finally reach the Emerald City. Inside, after being initially rejected, they are permitted to see the Wizard (who appears as a large disembodied head surrounded by fire). He agrees to grant their wishes when they bring him the Witch of the West's broomstick (which implies they must kill her to get it).
On their journey to the Witch's castle, the group passes through the Haunted Forest, while the Witch views their progress through a crystal ball. She sends her winged monkeys to attack the group; they capture Dorothy and Toto. At the castle, the Witch receives a magical shock when she tries to get the slippers off Dorothy, then remembers that Dorothy must be dead first. Toto escapes and leads her friends to the castle. After ambushing three Winkie guards, they march inside wearing the stolen guards' uniforms and free her, but the Witch discovers them and traps them. However, the Scarecrow uses the Tin Man's axe to cut a rope nearby and send a gigantic chandelier, swinging overhead, down onto the Witch's soldiers, knocking them to the floor and the quartet attempt to escape. The Witch and her guards chase them through the castle, across battlements and finally surround them. When the Witch sets fire to the Scarecrow, Dorothy puts out the flames with a bucket of water which splashes on the Witch and it causes her to melt away. The guards rejoice that she is dead and give Dorothy the charred broomstick in gratitude.
Back at the Emerald City, the Wizard delays granting their requests. Then Toto pulls back a curtain and exposes the "Wizard" as a normal middle-aged man who has been projecting the fearsome image; he denies Dorothy's accusation that he is a bad man, but admits to being a humbug. He then gives the Scarecrow a diploma, the Lion a medal, and the Tin Man a ticking heart-shaped watch, making them realize that they had what they wanted all along, they just did not know it yet. He then prepares to launch his hot air balloon to take Dorothy home, but Toto chases a cat, Dorothy follows, and the balloon leaves without them. Suddenly, Glinda returns and tells her that she can still return home by using the Ruby Slippers. Dorothy then shares a tearful farewell with her friends. Following Glinda's instructions, Dorothy taps her heels together three times and repeats, "There's no place like home". Dorothy wakes up in bed at her home in Kansas, surrounded by her family, the farmhands, Professor Marvel and Toto. Though her family and friends dismiss her adventure as a dream, Dorothy insists that it was all real, and that there is no place like home.

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
The Cowardly Lion skipped this version, but he didn't miss much. Among the special features included with the recent 3-disc DVD release of MGM's 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz is this obscure 9-minute cartoon, produced in Canada and directed by Ted Eshbaugh, whose best- known work is that old time TV perennial The Sunshine Makers. Needless to say, with such a brief running time we can't expect much more than a highlights version of the famous story, but even viewers who approach this short with modest expectations are likely to be disappointed: like so many color cartoons of the '30s this one is a pseudo-Silly Symphony that falls far short of the Disney standard.At first the cartoon looks fairly promising. A petite Dorothy who resembles a Kewpie doll lounges on the porch of her Kansas farm, sighing with boredom, for only a moment or two before the twister arrives and carries her away -- and her little dog, too. Interestingly, after the "storybook" opening credits the animators chose to utilize black & white for the Kansas sequence and then switch to color as Dorothy plummets to the ground in Oz, thus prefiguring the 1939 feature film. Dorothy lands on the Scarecrow (forget about the Munchkins, there isn't time), and they quickly discover the Tin Woodsman frozen in position and free him from his paralysis. The trio then proceed to the Emerald City.Here's where we start to notice the cartoon's flaws. For starters, there's no dialog. Aside from Dorothy's yelp of fright during the twister she never makes a sound, and neither do her companions. They team up and head for the Wizard's palace on some sort of unspoken signal, apparently because that's what they've been programmed to do, but their eerie silence doesn't encourage much viewer sympathy. The filmmakers obviously assumed we were already familiar with the story, but if that's the case then where's the Cowardly Lion? He makes no appearance in this cartoon and his absence is distracting: we keep waiting for him to arrive. And although the filmmakers mysteriously chose to delete a major character, they nevertheless found the time to include two brief, gratuitous musical sequences: a courtship interlude involving woodland animals and then a parade of welcome when Dorothy and her sadly reduced entourage arrive at the palace. The only sign of a witch, incidentally, is a quick shot of a witch-like character seen in silhouette, welcoming Dorothy and her friends to Oz with a big grin! Perhaps the strangest aspect of this version is the characterization of the Wizard of Oz himself: he is presented as a scrawny little man with evil eyes and a sinister chuckle. When Dorothy and her friends come before him he proceeds to intimidate them with what appears to be Black Magic: he summons up some Raggedy Ann-like dancing dolls (for yet another pointless musical interlude), and then causes a few monstrous animals to hatch from eggs. At this juncture we meet a hen who resembles Billina, a character from L. Frank Baum's later series of Oz books. The last portion of the cartoon involves this hen and an egg she has laid which grows to enormous size; meanwhile, Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man are reduced to forgotten onlookers. The film ends on a resoundingly anti-climactic note.The animation technique on display here is not at all bad for the period; I was reminded of the cartoons produced in the mid-'30s by Ub Iwerks, the former Disney animator who broke away from Uncle Walt and went into independent production. Like Iwerks' products this one has decent color and good technical effects, but also like Iwerks' products this one is deficient in story, pacing, dialog (as there isn't any) and, most of all, characterization. Only readers of the Oz books and fans of the later film will care at all about the creatures who populate this curious cartoon, and yet they're the viewers most likely to conclude that it's a misfire.. Perhaps an inspiration for the 1939 film..... This 1933 version of "The Wizard of Oz" is quite short but it's surprising to see it today because its filmed in lovely color--colors that were quite dramatic for 1933--especially the blues. This appears to be true Technicolor--not the Two-Color Technicolor used in the 1920s and 30s and I was surprised it was in use that early (since it wasn't used in live action films until 1934 and 1935).The film begins in a black & white Kansas and soon a tornado brings Dorothy and her home to Oz--and the film switches to color! I was surprised at this, as this technique was the same one used in the famous 1939 film and appears to have inspired them. As for the story, it's so abbreviated and told without dialog and has little to do with the original novels. So, it's very, very hard to compare this to any other Oz story and you have to accept it for what it is. It's a bit too cutesy for me, but technically speaking it's a marvelous little film. It is certainly not brilliant when seen today, but for 1933 it's awfully good.. Early Versions. Wizard of Oz, The (1933) *** (out of 4) Pretty good Technicolor cartoon based on the book. The animation is rather nice and the scarecrow and tin man are pretty funny here as well. This was the first version to show Kansas in B&W and then Oz in color.Magic Cloak of Oz, The (1914) *** (out of 4) The fairies of Oz create a magic cloak, which will give one wish to the person who wears it. Once again the production design is very good here with wonderful and magical sets. The story is quite touching and I'm sure kids would love this version just as much as adults. The highlight of the film is the scene where a horse (played by a human in an outfit) is scratching his butt up against a tree and tries to teach a monkey how to do it.Wizard of Oz, The (1910) *** (out of 4) Nice if strange version of the classic tale. The production values here are actually pretty nice and it's a rather strange trip seeing humans in outfits playing the various animals including the lion.. Not much magic in here. This is the 1933 Technicolor animated version of the famous "Wizard of Oz". This one only runs for 7 minutes and this is already the first problem. The story is simply too complex to fit it into such a short work. The consequence is that if you are not familiar with either the literary work or the Judy Garland movie, you will have absolutely no idea what is going on story-wise. The evil witch is almost non-existent. Instead, this one includes lengthy sequence of dancing dolls. The animation is okay for 1933, but this is really the only positive thing I can say about this Ted Eshbaugh film. I do not recommend the watch. Thumbs down.