As big of a deal as both Wicked and Toto might potentially be, however, the third project announced this week has the potential to be the biggest, as New Line Cinema is now developing a new adaptation of L. And then, this week, the animated adaptation of the spin-off book Toto: The Dog-Gone Amazing Story of the Wizard of Oz made its next step toward production via a new deal between Warner Bros.
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Just last week, the Wicked movie (based on the stage musical prequel) received a breath of fresh air in the form of Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. With this week’s news, however, there are now three major productions in development based on or inspired by those books. Frank Baum are well known, one could argue that the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz left such a strong legacy that it kept the number of later Oz movies to a relative minimum, including The Wiz(Rotten at 42%), Return to Oz(Rotten at 53%), and 2013’s Oz the Great and Powerful (Rotten at 57%). DON SLOAN New York, Dec.This WEEK’S TOP STORY A WIZARD OF OZ REMAKE IS IN THE WORKSĪlthough the Oz books by author L. The beauty of his artistry is buried in the sadness of our times. Had Baum lived exactly one century later, his "Wizard of Oz," with just about all of the same characters in place, would be as timely. To complete the picture, "Oz" was not a tab on a filing cabinet, but the abbreviation for ounce, by which gold was measured. In the end, the Wizard is shown up as an antipopulist scoundrel and is thus exposed by the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion. We all remember that the Wizard acted and spoke in a manner that made him appear just as the people wanted him to, Baum's cynical view of all politicians.
Who else could the Wizard be but the President sitting in the White House in Washington, or the Emerald City.
Dorothy was wearing silver slippers that symbolized Bryan's (and Baum's) quest for the silver standard, and her trip took her down the Yellow Brick Road, which was the gold standard. The Wicked Witch of the East was, of course, the evil banker who exploited the little people, or his Munchkins. The rest of the characters and locales also served Baum's populist thinking. The Tin Man was the unemployed industrial worker who was rusting with idleness, and his Scarecrow was the farmer who didn't have the leadership and sense to take up his own political fight. The Cowardly Lion was Bryan himself, and indicated that Baum thought his candidate was little more than a loudmouth speechmaker with little substance. His Kansas locale was a way of placing the fantasy trip in the midst of the farm belt, and little Dorothy's three traveling mates all held political significance.
Silver, Bryan insisted, would have provided the oppressed farmers with easier financing.īaum was a Bryan supporter, with reservations. It was in 1896 that Bryan made his famous "Cross of Gold" speech at the Democratic National Convention, in which he used the metaphor of the crucifixion of the farmers of America on a cross of gold by the Eastern industrial establishment by insisting on maintaining the gold standard, rather than a silver-backed currency.
The movement was then headed by William Jennings Bryan during his two unsuccessful Presidential attempts in 18 against William McKinley. The closest it came was to have his mother-in-law a women's suffrage activist, of sorts.Īrticles going back to one by Henry Littlefield in American Quarterly in 1964 have exposed the politics of "The Wizard of Oz" and Baum as a political activist in his own right, a champion of what was called populism at the turn of the century. I watched in hope that it would make note of Baum's political thinking. But it is as much a fantasy as what it purports Baum's description of that little Kansas farm girl and her trip to the magical kingdom to be. Frank Baum's "Wizard of Oz," is perhaps artistically sound. The television network production of "The Dreamer of Oz" (review, Dec.