Written by: L. Frank Baum Screenplay by: Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allen Illustrated by: W.W. Denslow Woolf
Directed by: Victor Fleming L. Frank Baum
•Born: Chittenango, New York on May 15, 1856
•Benjamin Ward Baum was a successful businessman and oil speculator. They lived in a large estate east of Syracuse, called Rose Lawn.
•Frank and his brothers played in lush fields and nearby woods between being tutored by traveling teachers. Frank’s imagination flourished. A scarecrow he once saw, inspired, Scarecrow in his stories.
•Frank’s father bought him a printing press. He printed his own paper called: The Rose Lawn Home Journal.
•Frank begin writing plays and managed theatre companies his father owned. L. Frank Baum •Frank married Maud Gage in 1882.
•Frank and Maud moved to Aberdeen, South Dakota. He opened a store called Baum Bazaar, which was like Wawa.
•However in 1889, he lost the store due to the drought and a deepening depression that plagued the pastoral area.
•Frank started another newspaper called, The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer. He wrote a story numerous time about a tornado that picked up a house.
•The grayness and lack of financial opportunity led Frank and his family to move to Chicago.
•In the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum describes the town as gray 9 times. L. Frank Baum
•Frank was inspired by the technology and beauty of the Chicago World Fair. He saw bright electricity, the first Ferris wheel, and a moving camera prototype.
•In 1877, he published his first book, Mother Goose in Prose. It was followed by Father Goose, His Book.
•Frank was telling a story about characters named, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman when he discovered the name of the magic land they would travel to. He looked at the bottom of a filling cabinet draw, it said: O-Z.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz •Written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow.
•Published: 1990
•Baum and Denslow wanted the book in color. The publisher was concerned about the cost to print the color plates. Baum and Denslow paid for the additional cost to include color plates.
•Adding color helped make the book a huge successes.
•The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was considered America’s first original fairy tale.
•There were 13 written sequels.
L. Frank Baum, the Real Wizard
•The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published in 1900 but only after Frank and W.W. Denslow paid to have 24 color plates included in the book. It was an overnight success.
•Baum wrote and directed Broadway plays, but his success was writing 13 more Oz books. The final book was published in 1920, the year after his death.
•Before Baum’s death, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was performed on stage from 1903-1911, with almost 300 shows.
L. Frank Baum, the Real Wizard
•Baum’s child home was surrounded by flowers, just like the lavish and colorful plants describe in the book.
•Baum saw a scarecrow that later became one of his major characters.
•Baum wrote about a tornado that picked up a house in his newspaper. This story was featured many times.
•The gray dark Dakota years inspired the grayed description of Kansas.
•Baum’s mother-in-law was an advocate for women’s right, and inspired the strong-willed Dorothy.
•Baum loved science and technology. We he went to the Chicago World Fair, the beautiful sparkling city inspired his creation of Emerald City. The Wizard of OZ (1939)
•Screenplay by: Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allen Woolf
•Directed by: Victor Flemming
•Starring: Judy Garland (Dorothy). Frank Morgan (The Wizard), Ray Bolger (The Scarecrow), Bert Lahr (The Cowardly Lion), Jack Haley (The Tin Man), Billie Burke (Glinda), Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West), and Toto.
•Release Date: MGM Studios, August 25, 1939
•Re-released: TV, CBS, 1959-1991
The Wizard of OZ
•Though Victor Fleming was credited as director, The Wizard of OZ had 4 directors in total: Richard Thorpe (almost two weeks), George Cukor (two or three days), Victor Fleming (four months), and David O. Selznick (went to direct, Gone with the Wind).
•It took 14 writers to recreate Baum’s classic book.
•The box office success was modest, only earning about $3 million, and it took $3 million to produce and market the film. However, after being aired on national television, The Wizard of OZ total gross income is around $27,000,000.
•The Wizard of OZ lost an Academy Award to the hugely successful Civil War-era epic, Gone with the Wind.
The Wizard of OZ (Technicolor)
•In 1939, color film stock still had not been invented. However, The Wizard of OZ used the very expensive Technicolor company cameras which incorporated a 3-strip color process.
•Technicolor did not film in color. It used red, green, and blue filters that recorded the same scene through each different filter. When placed together, the film strip created vibrant colors.
•Prior to Technicolor, film makers would have to individually color film strips by hand. This was very expensive.
•For the colors to be more visible, the film needed intense lighting. MGM used 150 36-inch arc lamps. It cost the film over $220,000.
•The temperatures on the set sometimes reached over 100 degrees F. The lights also caused sometimes permanent eye damage. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Book) vs. The Wizard of Oz (Film) Dorothy’s Famous Slippers
•In Baum’s book, the slippers were silver. The silver shoes on the yellow brick road, and the emerald green city were to represent “The Gold Standard”, or to represent money, gold, and silver.
•However, changing them to red ruby slippers made them more eye- catching, and were forever remembered as one of the most beautiful parts of the film. Emerald City •In Baum’s book, Emerald City was inspired by Baum’s 1893 visit to the White City at the Chicago World’s Fair.
•Also in the book, characters had to wear glasses that made everything appear to be green. However, the city was not green. It was a trick Oz crafted so people would believe their city was different than other cities.
•“No more than in any other city,” replied Oz; “but when you wear green spectacles, why of course everything you see looks green to you” (Baum 137).
•To make Emerald City seem beautifully different than other cities, everything is color—even the horses are a different color.
•The cabby in the Emerald City says, “No—and never will again, I fancy. There’s only one of him, and he’s it. He’s the Horse of a Different Color, you’ve heard tell about” (Langley, Ryerson, Woolf 156). The Two Dorothy’s
Book: Dorothy was inspired and representational of the strong pioneer woman. She was often rescuing characters rather than be rescued.
Film: Dorothy is the damsel in distress, and often saved by other (Male) characters
Book: Dorothy is a young girl.
Film: Dorothy is a teenager. Judy Garland had to wear a corset to make her look younger.
Book/Film: Dorothy is an orphan. She follows the traditional hero myth of having to overcome being parentless. Color Plates and Technicolor
•Baum and Denslow paid for the additional cost to include 24 color plates. The mass production of colored Wonderful Wizard of Oz books made the story even more successful.
• Technicolor’s expensive and meticulous process of blending 3 different color filters on their camera lens made The Wizard of Oz revolutionary because of its dynamic colors. Though there had been color films before, The Wizard of Oz was first to massively produce and screen a “colored film” in theatres across the country.