The Wizard of Oz (1925)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Sadly Over-hyped

Just perfect...

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Man I was really looking forward to seeing this. What would the original film be like? Well, it bares NO RESEMBLANCE to the book or the 1939 classic, and in this case, this is not a good thing at all. The plot, well, there is not plot that makes any sense at all. The Kingdom of Oz is still in Kansas, or right next to it apparently, Missouri? Then there are the characters, and barring some passable slapstick by the director and actor, Larry Semon, the characters are lame. I think this attempt ended his once bright career. Oliver Hardy of Laurel and Hardy is also in the film, playing the TIn Man for about five seconds, but he goes from neutral to nondescript instantly. Repetitive scenes of Hardy smashing wooden crates chasing after the Scarecrow is 1920s funny for the first couple of wacks, then gets mighty old quickly And as for the story itself, as I said, it bears no resemblance. Strange but awful. This one is a big disappointment and an ouch for the ages.

There are well over 20 different adaptions on the big screen and small of L. Frank Baum's Wizard Of Oz, only one of which is the well known and immortal one that every child starts seeing on television around the age of 2. Before films were a going concern, The Wizard Of Oz had a stage version that ran a couple of years in the first decade of the last century that starred the famous vaudeville team of David Montgomery&Fred Stone.This silent version of Larry Semon's creation will never replace the MGM classic of 1939. For one thing there simply isn't any fantasy involved. Oz is not on some other plane of existence, it's a real place where Dorothy actually belongs, she's the exiled princess much like Luke Skywalker was exiled to whatever planet in the galaxy he was at. She discovers this on her 18th birthday when her heritage is revealed.Another thing is that indeed the Wizard is as much a humbug as Frank Morgan was in 1939, but here he's supposed to change the farmhands who along with Uncle Henry and Auntie Em have come with Dorothy to Oz in that massive tornado. They're in most unconvincing disguises and you always know it was a disguise. In the more famous film, never do you doubt that Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, and Bert Lahr are who they are supposed to be.In fact some rather crude racial humor is used for the Cowardly Lion as it is played by a black actor named Spencer Bell. Part of the film calls for Bell and Semon who is the Scarecrow to be in a den of real lions. What happens just isn't funny and worse you know that Lahr and Bolger would have carried off the comedy.I think most people watch this version of The Wizard Of Oz to see Oliver Hardy as the Tin Man. At this time before he teamed with Stan Laurel, Ollie was doing a lot of work as a second banana comedian with Semon. He's only very briefly the Tin Man and just doesn't cut it.This version Of The Wizard Of Oz was a huge flop and deservedly so from what I've seen. It remains a curiosity, nothing more.

. . . of all time, it's not hard to understand how this repetitious, soulless, racist waste of film bankrupted its studio and its writer\director\star, Larry Semon. (Some film critics contend that Semon once was mentioned in the same breath with Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd, but these pundits are most likely bluffing and playing "Gotcha!" in an attempt to over-inflate their own stature.) Eggs eggs eggs bees bees bees mud mud mud boxes boxes boxes lions lions lions: that pretty much sums up the "plot" of Semon's lame 1925 silent version of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Since when does a hen lay eight eggs at a time? Since when do Black farm hands shirk work to chomp pilfered watermelons? Since when do people routinely survive 50- and 75-foot-falls none the worse for wear? GONE WITH THE WIND's excess essentially killed off its source material (Margaret Mitchell's novel). Unlike, say, JANE EYRE or GREAT EXPECTATIONS, there's not a new film version to enjoy of GWTW each generation. Larry Semon tried to pull the same GWTW trick on OZ. Fortunately, he failed to do so.

I have to say that this is an interesting adaptation of L. Frank Baum's famous story "The Wizard Of Oz" - the most interesting thing about it being that it seems to have little to do with either L. Frank Baum or The Wizard Of Oz. The story, as it's told here, is really about the attempt of a wicked tyrant named "Kruel" to continue to oppress the inhabitants of a land called "Oz." In this version of the story, there is no wicked witch - nor is there a good witch for that matter. In fact, for the most part, Oz isn't really much different from - well - anywhere else. But the people of Oz are looking for their long lost princess. Into the picture bursts Dorothy (played by a actress named Dorothy Dwan) who gets blown into Oz by a Kansas tornado (OK, something familiar from Baum's story) and discovers her true identity.The story doesn't really revolve around Dorothy, though. Nor does "The Wizard" (played by Charles Murray) have a particularly important role. He's a charlatan of no great significance. The movie revolves around the characters played by Larry Semon, a successful veteran of silent films, who also directed and produced this, along with helping to adapt the book. He's the "scarecrow" character - although not a real scarecrow, just dressed up as a scarecrow, and most of the movie is about his unrequited love for Dorothy.I found this really quite bizarre. The most interesting thing about it might be that it features Oliver Hardy (of Laurel & Hardy fame) as the Woodsman, among other characters. It's not bad technically and has some decent enough effects for the day. The story is quite disjointed, although it does have some humorous moments. I'd have to believe that the reason a lot of people think it's so bad is because it just isn't "The Wizard Of Oz." It was a very expensive movie for its day, and basically was responsible for bankrupting Chadwick Pictures. Semon's career also seemed to go downhill pretty quickly afterward. Still, one shouldn't dismiss it so quickly. It may not be a very good movie and the story may not make a lot of sense, but you can't deny that it's a true historical curiosity. (6/10)