“The Wizard of Oz and Wicked”

This chapter brings new insights to Wicked, the most successful attempt to rework Baum’s story since the 1939 movie. Wicked is the biggest musical hit of the early twenty-first century, but its phenomenal success would never have been possible without its close ties to The Wizard of Oz. Based on Gregory Maguire’s novel by the same name that turns L. Frank Baum’s story on its head, the musical Wicked makes the Wicked Witch of the West a misunderstood young woman doing battle with a wizard who is an interloper from another world that has taken over Oz and made the Talking Animals scapegoats for all of the land’s ills. Despite their new interpretation of the familiar tale, the show’s creators wanted to include as many resonances as possible from the famed MGM film, a crusade that took them into difficult legal waters that resulted in unwelcome changes to the show courtesy of lawyers at Universal Pictures, the show’s principal producer. This chapter is a consideration of how Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, the writers of Wicked, appropriated narrative and musical aspects of Baum’s original book and the 1939 film, where they ran into problems in doing so, and how some of those problems were solved.

“The Merry Old Land of Oz”?

Few movie musicals have experienced the long-term success of The Wizard of Oz. This chapter investigates its complex reception history to assess why this film has stood the test of time, despite the lukewarm response to it in 1939. In particular, five themes are central to this discussion: the adaptation of Baum’s familiar text; the handling of the fantasy setting; the philosophy presented within the story; the innovative filmic devices; and the star casting. An array of archival documents from 1939 to the present day is used to address each of these points from both the writers’ perspective and a critical viewpoint. In addition, the legacy of this iconic movie is explored to reveal the significance of The Wizard of Oz in American culture today.

“Arlen and Harburg and More, Oh My!”

The extant sources for the songs in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz— draft lyrics, studio piano-vocal manuscripts, early screenplays, production records, etc.—afford fascinating insight into their creation. Drawing from such largely untapped archival materials, this chapter reveals that each song within the completed film—as an individual, fixed “work”—was created via cumulative authorship along a figurative assembly line. To demonstrate this phenomenon, the evolution of the songs is traced through their successive developmental stages over the course of the film’s three production phases: Pre-Production (genesis of the songs by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, arrangement by MGM staff, orchestration by yet different studio personnel, prerecording with orchestra); Production (shoot-to-playback); Post-Production (underscoring by MGM music director Herbert Stothart and staff, continued development of the songs by Stothart and staff, previews and musical editing, final cut released).

“Starring Montgomery and Stone!”

This chapter addresses the early stage adaptations of several of Baum’s books. The first musical comedy in 1902–1903 generated huge excitement, and inspired Baum to continue with his second novel in 1904. The following two decades were full of interchange between novels, stage productions, and films, with each iteration fueling interest in the world of Oz and its fantastic characters. The chapter examines several of these productions, including basic information about their contributions, but the focus is on the relationship between the stars chosen for the roles and the talents (dancing, singing, comedy, drama) they brought to the version they starred in. For example, Montgomery and Stone, a comedy duo popular in vaudeville and on Broadway, were the stars of the first show. Thus, it was the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow who were the focus. Other performers, such as Charles Ruggles and Charlotte Greenwood, were the main attractions to their specific productions, too. In the end, the most successful Oz productions found clever ways to allow star players to shine and showcase their talents while maintaining some element of the narrative. It is this formula that would, in part, lead directly to the powerful impact of the 1939 film musical.

“Beyond the Rainbow”

To paraphrase one of the most famous lines in movie history, we are not in Kansas—or in Oz—anymore. Nevertheless, the songs of The Wizard of Oz have continued to resonate well beyond the 1939 MGM film, extending deep into the political, cultural, and social contexts of the early twenty-first century. This chapter explores something of the afterlives of the songs, with a special focus on the most popular one, “Over the Rainbow,” which has achieved iconic status over the past eighty years. And if there is any overarching legacy of the songs, it is perhaps the idea that however much we dream or hope, we should not give up our home, our roots.

“Sounds Must Stir the Fantasy”

Chapter 4 discusses the musical underscore in The Wizard of Oz. Contemporary discourse on the musical soundtrack has emphasized its role in underscoring—literally and figuratively—the film’s extraordinary content, often stressing its “special” and “effect”-like qualities. Studio publicists plugged the score’s idiosyncratic length and complexity, and Herbert Stothart also drew connections between music and elaborate illusions: “music and sound must be highly imaginative, unreal while super-realistic. Here sounds must stir the fantasy. . . . The difficulty is to blend music and the special sound effects.” Elsewhere Stothart averred that the striking hues of Technicolor warranted special musical treatment. From studio records, contemporary newspaper accounts, the conductor’s score, and the film itself, musical gestures are identified in the underscore that work as and in tandem with special effects.

“The Road to Oz”

This chapter discusses the adaptation of the script for the MGM film, focusing on the conversion of the original novel to a full-length feature film and addressing the issues faced by changing medium. It looks at alterations made to the story, including the deletion of episodes in the book for the film, and changes in (and deletions of) characters from novel to film. The chapter explores the use of music to enhance the fantasy aspect of the film and the musical conventions used such as introductory songs for Dorothy’s three companions. Although the film is a new interpretation, it retains the sense of a magical world that made the Baum books so popular.

Introduction—Rainbow Reflections

More than a century after its first publication, L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has proved to be one of America’s most enduring literary masterpieces. Although it is framed as a children’s novel, the book is widely acknowledged to have transcended such a modest status. It has been called “America’s greatest and best-loved fairy tale,”...

“We’re Not in Kansas Any More”

Chapter 8 explores three contrasting attempts to adapt the film for the theater. First, following the release of the MGM film, in 1942 the St. Louis Municipal Opera hoped to capitalize on the success of the movie by commissioning a stage production that incorporated the familiar songs. Second, in the mid-1980s, the Royal Shakespeare Company returned to the MGM film as the basis for a new stage adaptation. Though their version promoted the supposed authenticity of this approach, expanding the movie into a full theater piece nevertheless caused tensions between practice and nostalgia. Third, a generation later, Andrew Lloyd Webber reteamed with his best-known collaborator, Tim Rice, to write some new songs to interpolate into a new stage version. Here, the text was revised with a new audience and new era in mind: though the movie was celebrating its sixtieth anniversary, the new adaptation brought contemporary values, and therefore a shift of emphasis, to the beloved text. Each of the three adaptations had its pros and cons, though none could match the success of the original movie. This chapter therefore also serves to explore the problems of adapting screen musicals for the stage, as can also be seen from two other disappointing stage adaptations of MGM movies, Meet Me in St. Louis and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

“Dancing through Oz”

This chapter examines the contribution of the often overlooked dance sequences in The Wizard of Oz. It explores the social and cultural significance of the choreographed musical numbers and how they contribute to the film and to its immense popularity over the last seventy-five years. Close analysis is given to the jitterbug scene, which was cut from the original film. The choreography and “The Jitterbug” song are examined in detail, providing an excellent comparison point from which to explore other dance numbers, such as the Yellow Brick Road reprisal skipping sequence and the scarecrow’s dance. Within this discussion, key cultural and social themes are also addressed, specifically issues of race and social-dance and performance-dance practices. Finally, the question of why dance numbers were eliminated from the final cut is raised.