Wizard of Oz

A fucking tragedy. Dumb slapstick, awful jokes, racism, and a rather tarty Dorothy. This movie has absolutely fuck-all to do with "The Wizard of Oz". Semon piles all the attention on himself as he tries to position himself as another Buster Keaton, effectively SUCKING ALL THE MAGIC out of the story. It's all just so very, very wrong. I will begrudgingly admit that some of the stunt work is impressive, but that's the only thing this version has going for it. Tedious and offensive and stupid.

Perhaps slightly underrated based on expectations, as people probably go into it expecting something that at least slightly resembles The Wizard of Oz, but the similarities are superficial at best. It's somewhat inexplicable how this happened. The story told is far less interesting than the traditional tale and needless to say isn't done as well either. That said, on its own, separated from the property, it's not a TERRIBLE fantasy effort, but it's not a good one either. Truly a curiosity.

Interesting more as an historical artefact than a narrative piece (or indeed as an OZ adaptation, which this follows only very loosely). Don’t come looking for a Wicked Witch (or even a Toto), and it’s odd to see the Kansas twister treated as a semi-climax to the film rather than an instigating incident, leaving most of the film to strange love triangle shenanigans back on the farm between Dwan, Semon and the arguable comic highlight Hardy. Such an oddity that it’s sort of worth seeing.