The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910)
1910 · Silent film · 13 min · dir. Otis Turner
- Fantasy
- silent film
Synopsis
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, also known as The Wizard of Oz, is a 1910 American silent fantasy film and the earliest surviving film version of L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The film was made by the Selig Polyscope Company without Baum's direct input. It was created to fulfill a contractual obligation associated with Baum's personal bankruptcy caused by the failure of his theatrical production The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays. It was partly based on the 1902 stage musical…
Synopsis from Wikipedia
Details
- Director
- Otis Turner
- Writer
- L. Frank Baum
- Studio
- Selig Polyscope Company
- Released
- 1910-03-24
- Running time
- 13 minutes
Cast & crew
- Otis Turner Director
Eugenie Besserer
Lillian Leighton
Winifred Greenwood
Hobart Bosworth
Robert Z. Leonard
Bebe Daniels
Reviews on the Internet Archive
★★★★★ · Thank you! · judeblack, bbc · 2015-05-14
Thank you for posting this movie. It truly is a Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Scarecrow steals every scene he's in, which should have been more difficult with the great cast of characters. Charming and enjoyable both times.
★★★★★ · Cute · indianacarnie · 2014-10-03
Could have done without the dig at unions at the end but overall a cute and very watchable little film. Loved the rudimentary "special effects", the scene with the tornado......... lol. Well worth the 13 minutes it takes to watch. Print decent without much unevenness as in some other films of this age.
★★★★ · Primitive but Charming · Classic_TV_and_Radio_Fan · 2008-08-27
Ok, so nobody will mistake this for being a "silent classic", and it seems unlikely that anyone would call it the best version of the story, but this is still a fairly entertaining and charming silent short, produced in 1910. The special effects are good for the time, although just 10 years later they would be vastly out of date. Still, it's worth seeing, and at 13 or so minutes, it moves along quite quickly.
★★★★ · cute classic :) · babe917 · 2010-01-12
ive seen a few other silent OZ movies but not this 1! i liked it alot, it was a cute short! oh btw the scene with the faces on the trees were eerie lol ! but cool don't get me wrong :)
★★★★ · What a Treat! · Jeanne James · 2024-05-11
4 things struck me about this movie; That I was watching a film from 114 years ago! Crazy; The people in the animal costumes were really committed and I enjoyed that; The sign that the seamtresses put up about Union work, stop work at 2, that was laugh out loud and reminded you of how unions everywhere were working hard to get a fair deal for labour. And lastly, sadly the black people in 'nappies' as slaves. Slavery in every sense was a big thing in mos societies at that time; poignant. All in all though, it was a great treat to see something so classic.
★★★★ · What??? · bobdylansdead · 2011-01-26
Is it just me or is this the most terrifying interpretations of L. Frank Baum's book ever? The faces on the trees were certainly eerie, but I think the scariest part was how the animal characters were only halfway anthropomorphised and the costumes they were wearing were also pretty creepy. I realize this was done in 1910, and actually, I thoroughly enjoyed this version of the story.
