Presenters
Abstract
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.