THE WIZARD OF OZ-1925-Though unfortunately forgotten today in the 1920’s actor/writer/director Larry Semon was a major film rival to Charlie Chaplin. He made over a hundred two reelers beginning in around 1915.
At the height of his career he made this feature length film based on the L. Frank Baum classic. He even got Baum’s oldest son to co-write the screenplay!
But besides the title and the use of it’s 4 most famous characters this has nothing to do with the book!
An old toymaker (Semon) tells a weird story to his young granddaughter about how the kind Prince Kynd was disposed by the evil prime minister Kruel in the land of Oz. Dorothy (Dorothy Dwan, the director‘s wife who looks around 30!) lives on a farm with her Aunt Em (Mary Carr) and very cruel uncle Henry until she learns on her 18th birthday that she is actually the princess of Oz! She, Henry and two farm hands (Semon and Oliver Hardy) get swept away to Oz and a black farm hand named Snowflake later joins them. This of course leads to plenty of racist humor. The actor who plays Snowflake, Spencer Bell is even billed as “G. Howe Brown”! For a while they dress as the famous characters. Hardy is the tin man, Bell, the cowardly lion and Semon, the scarecrow (he looks a lot like Ray Bolger!). There’s a lot of slapstick and it’s all quite bizarre.
It was a box office failure at the time (and wrecked Semon’s career) and now is really just a curiosity piece. Hardy was two years away from teaming with Stan Laurel for their first film (he of course had a small role in a 1921 Stan Laurel short LUCKY DOG).
Thanks for reading!
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