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Directed by J. Farrell MacDonald
Written by L. Frank Baum
Starring Macmillan, Fred Woodward, Arthur Smollet
Unrated • 1914 • 60 minutes
I like silent films, especially old silent fantasy and sci-fi films. There something about watching the creativity of pre-CGI special effects. This is one reason I like His Majesty, The Scarecrow of Oz. Lord knows it’s not because of a coherent plot.
Produced and written by L. Frank Baum, it’s loosely based on The Wizard of Oz, but not much. The movie opens with King Krewl (why yes, he is the bad guy, however did you guess?) informing his niece, Princess Gloria that she must marry one Googly-Goo, a courtier. However Gloria spurns him, not merely because he’s named Googly-Goo, but because she’s in love with Pon, the gardener’s boy.
Although, let’s be honest, a moniker like “Googly-Goo” isn’t helping the man’s love life any.
Meanwhile, we cut to some men building a scarecrow in a cornfield. The men leave, and a group of women, dressed like standard Hollywood Indians, mysteriously appear out of the corn and dance about the scarecrow, bringing him to life. They then disappear, leaving him stuck up on the pole.
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We're off to see the... uhhh... donkey. | |
Meanwhile, Dorothy, a young Kansas farm girl, has been “rudely captured” by the wicked witch Mombi. I love the fact that they use the phrase “rudely captured”, as though kidnapping someone was a matter of bad etiquette.
Krewl brings Gloria to Mombi, requesting that the witch freeze Gloria’s heart. Mombi summons her band of witches, one of whom is dressed like a sixty year old version of Batgirl. The witches throw a few items into a pot, then turn into young women and dance about the pot. Mombi holds her hand in front of Gloria, and, through a series of dissolves, causes the princess’s heart to freeze. Gloria then dies due a complete failure of her cardio-pulmonary system. Okay, I made that up, actually she become incapable of love.
Dorothy and Pon grab Gloria and make a run for it. As they try to save their asses, an ass saves them. A donkey appears, pretty much out of nowhere, and fights off the witches, including kicking Batgirl’s wrinkly old butt.
The donkey, as are most animals in this movie, is played by Fred Woodward. While clearly a man in a donkey suit, Woodward does an incredible job of it. He has extensions on his arms for the front legs, and his back must have been killing him at the end of the day.
They happen upon the field where the Scarecrow is hanging. They let him down. He falls in love with Gloria, who can’t love him. Then they wander some more and meet Button Bright, who in the books is a boy, but here is played by a girl. And here let me just stop and say, there are a lot of good looking women in Oz.
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Definitely not in Kansas. | |
So then they come upon the Tin Man, who already knows the Scarecrow. Mombi finds them, and turns Pon into a Kangaroo. The Tin Man cuts off Mombi’s head, in one of those special effects I allude to earlier. Basically, it involves filming her with a black bag over her head, in front of a black background. Losing her head only slows Mombi down, as she stops to look for it.
The Tin Man is outraged by what has happened to Gloria, and proposes that they attack King Krewl and depose him. Y’know, I’m no tactical genius, but King Krewl has a castle and an army. Somehow attacking him with a guy made of tin, a scarecrow, two girls, a princess in a trance and a kangaroo doesn’t seem like an effective battle strategy.
Along the way to attack the castle, they run into the Cowardly Lion, whom both the Tin Man and the Scarecrow know, but Dorothy doesn’t. Then, they met up with the Wizard of Oz, who’s driving an old wagon. He helps them escape and traps Mombi in a can of preserved “sandwitches”.
Our heroes attack the castle, which is protected by conquistadors. The scarecrow gets shot several times with arrow, which do absolutely nothing to him. Good thing the conquistadors didn’t think to light them. He pretty much conquers the castle single handedly, and is made king. The wizard promises to release Mombi, if she melts Gloria’s heart. He then turns Pon back human, and Googly-Goo is arrested for the crime of being named Googly-Goo.
One of the biggest flaws of this movie is that it has enough plot for a mini-series, is all packed into sixty minutes. Characters appear with no introduction, and then leave the movie without fanfare. If you’re not an Oz scholar (which I’m not), you find yourself wondering who the hell many of these people are. Still, it has a sense of whimsy to it, and there are worse ways to kill an hour.
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Text © 2007 by Mayzshon.
All other material © 2007 - 2008 by El Topo Entertainment