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Oz Before the Rainbow: L. Frank Baum's the Wonderful Wizard of Oz on Stage and Screen to 1939
 
 
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Oz Before the Rainbow: L. Frank Baum's the Wonderful Wizard of Oz on Stage and Screen to 1939 [Hardcover]

Mark Evan Swartz (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Swartz artfully achieves his purpose of showing "that the infiltration of the Wizard of Oz story into our cultural bloodstream was not an overnight process" by tracking the influences and popularity of the many stage and screen productions of the story that preceded the 1939 Judy Garland film. And a big body of work those productions are. There were many Oz musicals staged between 1902 and 1918, and a raft of silent Oz films produced between 1908 and 1925. Swartz briefly profiles Oz creator L. Frank Baum but focuses his spirited account on the variety of those stage and film adaptations. He vividly describes specific performances, compares and contrasts them with others, and shows how each influenced the ones that followed, up to the 1939 movie and beyond to contemporary stage adaptations. Swartz's scholarship is evident in his many citations of primary source material, which, together with the book's profuse illustration in both black-and-white and color, makes the book irresistible to dedicated Oz buffs. Sally Estes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Thorough and fascinating... A significant achievement and addition to Oz scholarship. It provides interesting and new directions for other researchers to follow, and adds to the cultural, mythical, and historical richness that the Oz tradition encompasses for so many people... Scholars and researchers -- and perhaps those readers who are more than casual fans of the books and/or the 1939 film -- will find themselves returning to this book repeatedly. It is a worthy addition to an Oz lover's library." -- Diana Dominguez, Cercles: Revue pluridisciplinaire du monde anglophone

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Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
MENTION OZ, THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD, the Munchkins, the Scarecrow, or any other major images or characters from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900, and chances are that most Americans will immediately recognize them. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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4.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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2.0 out of 5 stars yes, but no, April 2 2003
This review is from: Oz Before the Rainbow: L. Frank Baum's the Wonderful Wizard of Oz on Stage and Screen to 1939 (Paperback)
Everything you've ever wanted to know about Baum's Oz career, written, alas, by a perfectly dreadful stylist who can't synthesize information, can't shape a thought, and, basically, can't write.

The photos are nifty, though.

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5.0 out of 5 stars What a Surprise!, Nov 18 2002
This review is from: Oz Before the Rainbow: L. Frank Baum's the Wonderful Wizard of Oz on Stage and Screen to 1939 (Hardcover)
Prior to reading this wonderful book, I was somewhat of a newbie to the works of L. Frank Baum. I was familiar with the Wizard of Oz movie, but had never bothered to read the book from whence it came. Reading Mark Evan Swartz's "Oz Before the Rainbow" opened my eyes to Baum's additional works as well as the 1903 stage extravaganza based on "The Wizard of Oz".

Before the 1939 Judy Garland film, the 1903 stage adaptation was THE definitive version of Baum's first book. David Montgomery and Fred Stone were the definitive Tin Man and Scarecrow. In fact, the play made the team of Montgomery and Stone household names for several years after the play's successful run. While the storyline of the musical did differ from Baum's original work, you'll be surprised to find out how much of it translated over to the '39 movie.

Several adjustments were made to the story in order to get it to the stage, rendering the story vaguely recognizible, but way off from Baum's originial work. While wary of the many differences, Baum and songwriting partner Paul Tietjens composed several tunes for the show -- none of which carried over to the film versions. But through extensive research, Swartz provides the words to many of these forgotton melodies -- a real find for any Oz fan.

There are also many other interesting revelations concerning the 1903 play as well as the other film versions that followed. For instance, did you know Oliver Hardy (of Laurel & Hardy fame) played a part in one of the early versions of Oz?

This is a great book for any fan of the Oz books or movies. It's all beautifully arranged between text, documents and pictures. It'll make a wonderful addition to your Oz colletion and make you want to discover more about Oz prior to 1939. Highly recommended reading!

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4.0 out of 5 stars Impressively Researched and Finely Focused, Sep 23 2001
By 
Ricky Hunter (New York City, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Oz Before the Rainbow: L. Frank Baum's the Wonderful Wizard of Oz on Stage and Screen to 1939 (Hardcover)
Oz Before the Rainbow (L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz on Stage and Screen to 1939) is an amazingly well researched and thorough piece of work by archivist Mark Evan Swartz. This piercing view is directed at the 1902-3 stage version and the three subsequent incorporations of the story into the silent movies, often rather loosely incorporated in odd and often surprising ways for those familiar only with the book. All of these versions of Baum's first book have fallen out of public consciousness, pushed aside, as it were, by the memorable 1939 film verion (the version that remained the truest to the spirit and not just some of the ideas of the book). Concepts from the previous incarnations do leak into the 1939 movie and it is fascinating to watch this evolution. This is a tremondous piece of research that is a must for fans of Oz.
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