American culture has its share of tall tales—Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, John Henry, and so forth—but with the Wizard of Oz and its 13 sequels, as well as 26 additional official Oz books written after his death in 1919, failed journalist and businessman L. Frank Baum created American fairy tales that matched the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen for influence and durability. While virtually everyone has seen or knows of the definitive film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz (the 1939 MGM vehicle for Judy Garland), most would be surprised at the extent of Oz on film. This presentation is a summary survey of Oz on film, from the Oz film sequences in the 1908 multimedia Fairylogue and Radio-Plays to the 2014 computer-animated Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return.
About the presenterGary Earl Ross
Gary Earl Ross is a retired University at Buffalo professor and author of the books The Wheel of Desire, Shimmerville, and Blackbird Rising, and the plays Sleepwalker, Picture Perfect, The Best Woman, Murder Squared, The Scavenger’s Daughter, and Matter of Intent, winner of the Edgar Award from Mystery Writers of America. Other honors include the Emanuel Fried Outstanding New Play Award, a LIFT Fiction Fellowship, a Saltonstall Foundation Playwriting Fellowship, and public radio commentary awards from the New York Associated Press and the New York Broadcasters Association. Ross is a member of the Just Buffalo Literary Center, the Dramatists Guild of America, Mystery Writers of America, Ujima Theater Company (where he is resident playwright), and MAPACA, for which he has served as president, Almanack editor, and area chair for Film and for Comics-Cartoons-&-Video-Games.