Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum | Book vs Movie

[@johnnehrich9601]

I grew up on the books. Literally the very first book I read was Ozma of Oz. I must have seen the movie when it was re-released in 1955, when I was five, and nightmares about the tornado for years. At the time there was no way to see a movie unless the studio re-released it which wasn't often. It was in the late '50's when CBS wanted to broadcast MGM's Gone With The Wind, but MGM wanted to hold on tight to it, so they offered the Wizard instead. CBS began broadcasting it once a year and this became a big event, even though at first most people had to watch it on black-n-white tvs. Disney's Return to Oz is so much more faithful to the books, even though they are basing their stories on a blend of the second and third book. For me, this movie is like the characters just stepped off the page, although if you aren't familiar with the original illustrations (see the book cover above), they are shocking. (Many Oz fans consider this movie a sort of love letter to the Baum creations, even though this movie is scarier - like the book - than the MGM one, and no singing.)

[@tayloredwards4968]

I love boat versions. They're both whimsical and wonderful. 🌈

[@majkus]

It is perhaps too easy for modern readers to miss the joke with the Lion's 'courage' from the Wizard: it was 'liquid courage', which is another way of saying it was alcoholic. One of the little jokes that Baum put in for the parents reading to their kids. The notion that the whole thing was a dream was first used in the 1925 Chadwick Pictures silent movie, which (notwithstanding a writer credit attributed to Baum's son) has even less to do with the book than the 1939 film. In both cases, though, the 'dream' idea probably owes much to the resolution of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" stories. The 1925 film is notable only for the early appearance of Oliver Hardy (as the Tin Man, approximately) before he teamed up with Stan Laurel.

[@johnnehrich9601]

At the same time as this movie, MGM released Gone With The Wind which had the main character who facilitated the story Scarlett O'Hara. And in the 1930's, little girl Shirley Temple was the main character who directed the events in a bunch of her movies. (Her Heidi is my favorite.)

[@dianebusby7047]

Last week I managed to get a full set of LFB Oz books from Amazon. Great stories!

[@ronaldmcyd]

Thanks!, I had only seen the movie until recently when I got my hands on the Marvel graphic novel. I started reading about the Kalidahs and the field mice and I was thinking I don't remember that from the movie, but when it got to the story about the flying Monkeys I was like wow, that's not how it was all!

[@tammie1078]

It's weird, that in the book, baum tells he leaves stuff out that will cause nightmares, but he put alot of scary stuff in there, like Tin Man twirling his ax in a threating manner, crows that peck eyes, creatures with no arms but pushable heads, I know every book needs a antagonist, but when the book says he left scary stuff out but then you read and it has scary stuff in it...I feel like he should have re worded what he warned more differently. That said it's still a great book and movie, and I love Return to Oz....Ozma and Jack Pumpkinhead are my favorite character for those.....I would love it if you did a movie and book comparison to those...I realize it's two books but it would still be cool to see.

[@doradelarosa4302]

Great comparison review! I love the movie but have never read the book. I’ll have to do that now.

[@johnnehrich9601]

Book is in the public domain and is on line for free. Try to find one with the original illustrations. (Book had an enormous number of drawings for a book of that type back then.) Although the drawings can be shocking as they look different than the movie. For instance, the lion was just a real lion.

[@johnnehrich9601]

Disney's Snow White was the first full-length animated movie, in 1937. Up until its successful release, Hollywood called it Disney's folly but it blew out expectations. Its success was what set MGM up to do Oz, and to blow their budget on special effects. But the studio didn't think audiences at the time would accept it as real, which is why they made it a dream. I love the way Return to Oz worked around the idea of real Kansas people being characters in Oz by making real Oz people represented by people in Kansas - if that makes any sense.

[@osanafiatjabez3629]

Can you also decipher some other of Crank Baim books that wasn't turned into movies.

[@tayloredwards4968]

You should do the wiz versus the book

[@RJPorter01]

I was taught a different way of looking at the Wizard of Oz. L Frank Baum wanted to teach the youth about finance and how the government was tricking them with their money. so he wrote a book to try to teach the youth about the great depression that was coming. The scarecrow is the farming industry, The tin man is the industrial industry for steel, The lion was a gentleman that was running to be president but was scared to take on the other opponents. The yellow brick Road are GOLD bricks that holds the wealth of our country. Ruby slippers are supposed to be silver. Silver was supposed to be the medium of exchange and that’s why the silver slippers step over at the gold bricks. There’s a lot more to it😂😂 each monster represents a government official that was in charge at the time😂😂

[@BookshelftoBigScreen]

That’s really interesting; I’ll have to look into that. Thanks for watching!

[@johnnehrich9601]

I don't buy this at all. While it certainly can be seen that why, Baum wrote dozens of children's stories, including a dozen sequel to the first. Not once does he ever try to make it any of the others a way to tell a story about current events. These books were intended for children - Dorothy in the book is between 8-10 (even though 16yo Judy Garland played her as a 14yo). He got dozens and dozens of letters from children and as far as I know, never anyone praising him for his take on contemporary finances. He also adapted several of these into plays and even early silent movies, and again, never used them as vehicles for economic measures. I do agree the yellow bricks were a take-off of gold bricks, but that was because in poverty-stricken Europe, the common saying was that America was so rich, the street were paved in gold. And the three characters appear to represent vegetable, mineral, and animal.

[@RJPorter01]

@@johnnehrich9601 it’s not about what you think! Do your own research. I’m not just trying to make up a story🤷‍♂️ look up the book ( the wed of debt by Ellen Hodgson Brown ) you welcome 🤣

[@majkus]

This is unsupported by any actual facts, as even the originator of the theory, Henry Littlefield, has agreed. It is remarkable that, when the book was published and every single reader (parents reading to their children, book reviewers, and so on) were far more deeply versed in the economic and political issues of the time than any person living today, that not a single review, editorial, editorial cartoon, or obituary for Baum in 1919 made a single mention of this 'true meaning' of the story. It was not until the 1964 publication of Littlefield's 'Populist Parable' article that anyone 'knew' about this-and Littlefield did not suppose that the book was written with such a parable in mind, only that it could be read that way, as a way of teaching bored history students about bimetalism and populism. If a writer intends an allegory, and nobody recognizes it until forty years after his death, it's a pretty poor thing, like a child hiding a shiny coin behind a loose brick in a wall. If the road of yellow bricks were gold, why did not the clever allegorist even once describe them as 'golden'? Or make them plainly gold bricks (like the Silver Shoes), for that matter? If the Tin Woodman is industry (or factory workers-these analyses never get that clear*), why did Baum not make him of iron (as the Russian translation/retelling by Volkov did) or even steel, instead of a metal that does not actually rust? If you read the other Oz and related books, you can see that Baum was never at all subtle when it came to the portrayal of real-world matters like women's suffrage or the Standard Oil 'octopus'. While it is folly to try to imagine what some dead person would have thought of something, I imagine that Baum would have been surprised and amused, and would have said, "Oh? Why, that was clever of me, wasn't it!" and winked at the reporter interviewing him. *one reason that you can 'read' the Tin Woodman as either industry or oppressed factory workers, which would be quite the opposite, is that it doesn't matter. These analyses have a lot of nouns-x 'represents' y-but very few verbs that show anything these nouns _do_ that portrays something about their real-world counterparts.

[@johnnehrich9601]

@@majkus Awesome reply. Thanks.

[@johnnehrich9601]

The depiction in the book of the hordes of field mice dragging the lion out of the poppy field was not practical for a movie. However, Baum made the book into a stage play, and then several early silent movies, and he came up with the idea of the snow.

[@phillipclark8846]

There's an anime that is pretty accurate to the book and is 4 seasons long, if remember correctly, each season is a book.

[@BookshelftoBigScreen]

I will see if I can find it

[@forrestdupre87]

Why don’t you do a Book vs Disney series?

[@forrestdupre87]

I think The Muppets version has the best depiction of Oz by looking more realistic.

[@BookshelftoBigScreen]

Do you mean a specific Disney movie adaptation?

[@forrestdupre87]

@@BookshelftoBigScreen I mean you do a series where you compare all the movies Walt Disney made to the original stories that inspired them like Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, The Sword in The Stone, and The Jungle Book?

[@rachel_espinoza]

The book has a lot of terrifying stuff lol

[@mythologyfan3696]

Hi!

[@BookshelftoBigScreen]

👋🏼

[@forrestdupre87]

The Muppet version is more accurate

[@BookshelftoBigScreen]

I haven't seen it; I'll have to check it out.

[@forrestdupre87]

You should do Pinocchio

[@BookshelftoBigScreen]

I’ll add it to the list 👍🏼

[@forrestdupre87]

Let me know what you think of Muppets Wizard of Oz?

[@forrestdupre87]

Why don’t you do a Book vs Disney series?

[@elfi643]

I genuinely despise the movie.