The 100-Year-Old ‘Oz’ Movie You Haven’t Seen

The 100-Year-Old ‘Oz’ Movie You Haven’t Seen

A disastrous take on the classic book

Original poster artwork (Public domain)

A while back, I wrote about the attempts to bring the land of Oz to the screen during the silent era, including efforts by original creator L. Frank Baum. Prior to MGM’s 1939 classic, the last attempt at a silver screen Oz was in 1925, resulting in a compellingly terrible “comedy” film, Larry Semon’s The Wizard of Oz. While I had not intended to delve any deeper into this film, there is something about it that draws my attention, and with the film marking its 100th anniversary this year, why not? So let’s take a closer look at this lavish, but unsuccessful take on the classic tale.

Larry Semon began his film career in 1915, signing with Vitagraph Studios, one of the most prolific of the early studios. He started as a writer, producer and director, working largely with the comedian Hughie Mack, sometimes appearing in small roles himself. He began to appear in larger roles and became a prolific comedian.

He graduated from one-reel to two-reel films and was given more creative freedom, which led to highly expensive movies, thanks to Semon’s extravagant tastes. Although he was successful, Semon’s spending, both on his films and in his personal life, soon took a toll. By the mid-1920s, he was in trouble.

Semon attempted to regain past success by moving into feature productions, including a feature film based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Six years after Baum’s death in 1919, Oz was still a vital and successful franchise, kept alive by his literary successor, Ruth Plumly Thompson, so the film was sure to be a success.

Larry Semon circa 1922 (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

The adaptation is a bafflingly poor work that loses most of the charm and heart of the original story. But I find it strangely compelling in its failure — this isn’t exactly a “so bad it’s good” situation, more akin to a car crash that you can’t look away from. At least it’s nice to look at.

The film opens with a young girl asking her toymaker grandfather (played by Semon) to read The Wizard of Oz for her. He shows her toys he made of the main characters. This frame story adds very little to the overall story, except to make you remember how much better it is than this film. Grandpa begins to read, and the viewer is transported to Oz, a country in the midst of crisis.

Prime Minister Kruel (Josef Swickard) rules over the country with his aids Lady Vishuss (Virginia Pearson) and Ambassador Wikked (Otto Lederer), and many, including Prince Kynd (Bryant Washburn), are growing weary of them. The rightful heir to the throne of Oz is missing, and the Prince and his supporters are pressuring the leaders for the heir’s return. How to diffuse such tension in the throneroom? By summoning the Wizard, who produces a dancer in an elaborate headdress from a basket, which distracts the crowd.

Larry Semon as the Toymaker / Virginia Pearson as Lady Vishuss with Josef Swickard as Prime Minister Kruel (Public domain)

We then meet Dorothy (played by Larry Semon’s soon-to-be-wife Dorothy Dwan), a young girl living with her Aunt Em and her cruel Uncle Henry on a small farm in Kansas. She has become the romantic interest of two of the farmhands — Semon and Oliver Hardy (before his comedic fame soared with Laurel and Hardy), and Dorothy favours Hardy.

There is another farmhand who isn’t interested in Dorothy, an African American man by the name of Snowball (Curtis McHenry, appearing as G. Howe Black). McHenry was a stuntman who made several appearances in Semon’s films. A positive review for the film in Variety magazine admonished the “Black” billing, as it demeaned the actor.

The “love triangle” between the grown farmhands and a young girl not yet eighteen years old takes up a shocking amount of space in this film, with interminable long sequences of the pair wooing her. One particularly infamous sequence sees Semon sneak a lollipop into Dorothy’s dress. She doesn’t like the taste, so she throws it away. A duck snatches up the lollipop, and Larry attempts to smash it with a club to get the candy back — until the duck projectile vomits into Larry’s face. There is also a gag that sees Larry get attacked by animated bees.

Larry attempts pitching woo / Attacked by duck vomit (Public domain)

The overarching flaw in Semon’s The Wizard of Oz is perfectly encapsulated by these scenes. It can never decide what it wants to be or what really needs to be included. It takes nearly forty minutes for Dorothy and her friends to arrive in Oz, and that time is filled with endlessly weary jokes and gags that give slapstick a bad name. Some of the gags could work with better presentation. However, Semon could have easily avoided the “Oz” story, and focused on the slapstick. He was clearly a man with a lot of ideas, but the timing and energy here is often too off-putting for anything to have real impact.

After Uncle Henry (Frank Alexander) upsets Dorothy, she weeps to Aunt Em (Mary Carr). Her Aunt spills the secret that Dorothy is not actually their niece, and was left on their doorstep with a note to be opened on her 18th birthday. The note revealed that Dorothy is the heir to the throne of Oz, who was secreted away by Kruel as a baby. To stop her from returning, Kruel instructs Ambassador Wikked to fly to Kansas on a plane and retrieve the proof of her identity.

Amassador Wikked arrives in Kansas (Public domain)

The ambassador arrives at the farm on Dorothy’s birthday and demands the family give him the note. Wikked and his henchmen are pure Victorian melodrama villains, lurking around the farm and swishing their capes dramatically. It would be humorous if the film were a parody of romantic dramas such as *The Prisoner of Zenda*, but the villainous intrigue is presented too straight to land any laughs.

A slapstick fight ensues, Semon gains the letter, and Dorothy ends up dangling from a tower, but suddenly a tornado arises (achieved via impressive miniature sets and special effects) that whisks Dorothy, Uncle Henry, and the farmhands to the Land of Oz.

Auntie Em disappears from the film at this point, so I assume she died in the carnage of the Kansas farm.

(Public domain)

We finally arrive in Oz, where Larry and Oliver disguise themselves as a Scarecrow and a Tin Man after they are blamed for the kidnapping of the princess. Oliver quickly turns on the others and accuses them of the crime, landing himself a cushy position in the court. Kruel plans on marrying Dorothy to secure his power. The Wizard thwarts his plan by disguising Snowball as a lion to frighten away the dungeon guards and allowing Larry to escape. He warns Dorothy and is soon pursued by Oliver.

Prince Kynd fights Kruel, and the minister is finally ousted. Prince Kynd and Dorothy get together, much to Larry’s dismay. But he doesn’t have much time to be upset — Oliver continues chasing him. Larry escapes via a ladder hanging from a plane flown by Snowball, only to have the ladder snap. We then return to the Dorothy, who has fallen asleep. Her grandfather reads the end of the book, revealing that Dorothy and Prince Kynd lived happily ever after (no mention of Larry).

Book-to-screen adaptations are never one-to-one translations — different mediums have different storytelling requirements, and sometimes changes are necessary so that the story flows well. The 1939 musical is very different from the book, but there aren’t any book purists condemning the changes, and the emotions of the original work shone through. So what happened here?

I first saw this film as a bonus feature on a special edition of the 1939 film that I was gifted for Christmas, and it was one of the earliest movies from the first decades of cinema I ever watched (after *The Phantom of the Opera and [Nosferatu](https://fanfare.pub/land-of-phantoms-nosferatu-at-100-e29e34a22f4)*). I loved its visual sensibilities — the immense sets and the gorgeous artwork of the title cards, but over the years, I started to realise that the visuals were the only positive aspects of this ridiculous adaptation. The film was intended to be Larry Semon’s magnum opus, a showcase of his skills as a director and performer, but while there are some humorous moments, it falls flat.

Larry and Snowball in disguise / Larry warns Dorothy (Public domain)

Larry Semon’s The Wizard of Oz received mixed to positive reviews at the time, but it proved a financial disaster that almost ruined the production studio, Chadwick Pictures. Semon continued to work on smaller projects, but filed for bankruptcy in 1928. He died in October of that year at the age of 39. His obituary in *Variety mentions *that the stress of the film’s failure may have contributed to his early death:

This screen disaster caused Mr. Semon no end of worry and repeated efforts to recoup only added to his discomfiture. Last March he filed a voluntary petition in bankruptcy, listing debts at nearly $500,000. Ceaseless worry undermined his health making him an easy victim of pneumonia.

Even if I ignore the fact that Semon’s The Wizard of Oz just isn’t funny (Semon is no Chaplin or Keaton), I find a complete lack of magic and joy in the film. Unlike the source material, there is absolutely no magic here. There are no fantastic beasts, wicked witches, magical shoes, or anything that resembles fantasy. Oz is less a fairy tale land than a vaguely European nation as seen in Ruritanian romances. It is so odd to me that the story was stripped of everything that made it work.

What I find interesting is that there are some oblique references to other Oz media in the film. Kruel has a similar name and is similarly characterised as “Krewl” in the 1915 film *His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz. Also, the note left with Dorothy is signed by Pastoria, the king of Oz before the Wizard’s arrival. Pastoria was only briefly mentioned in Baum’s novels, but his successor, Thompson, reveals in [The Lost King of Oz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_King_of_Oz)* that Pastoria was under an enchantment spell cast by the witch Mombi. He no longer remembered his true identity and was instead a humble tailor — with ears that often flew off his head.

Incidentally, The Lost King of Oz was also released in 1925, making it the nineteenth of the forty official Oz books to celebrate its centenary.

(Public domain)

Credit where credit is due, I can certainly praise the film’s visuals. It is genuinely well-made and includes some truly beautiful sets and costumes. Even the title cards are lovely, with custom artwork on almost every single one. The film is available — many physical copies of the 1939 film exist — and is a beautiful restoration with an excellent musical score. It was an expensive film to produce, which makes the off-putting script even more depressing.

What Larry Semon’s The Wizard of Oz lacks in humour, however, is made up for in bizarre and memorable imagery, albeit memorable for the wrong reasons. This is certainly not a hidden gem, but as part of the history of the Land of Oz on film, it is an interesting chapter.

I find the film a cautionary tale of creative hubris and a great example of a botched adaptation. I find it strangely enjoyable in its awfulness — I’ll probably watch it at least a few more times in my lifetime.

Have you seen this bizarre take on The Wizard of Oz? What do you think of it?