Kirpianuscus ...because as each film from the early age of cinema, it is a trip in past. the mixture of admiration and fun remains the same. in same measure, the delicate line between theater and the new art of film, the solutions for adaptation, the interesting performances, the lovely "special effects", the rhytm of story. short, a splendid short film, an admirable work.

Paularoc What a treat it was to see this early film of the Wizard of Oz story. I did not know that there was a 1903 musical play and that this film was based in part on that and not entirely on the book. It does explain the cow – something that had me scratching my head, figuratively. I am most appreciative to those reviewers that provided this background information. While I wish the print I saw had been a little sharper (I could not read some of the documents), I nonetheless enjoyed it, particularly the cyclone scene and the dancing. While of course technically primitive, I still found it enchanting and how it must have even more enchanted the audiences of 1910. As some reviewers have pointed out, comparisons with the 1939 film are pointless but it is interesting what an endlessly fascinating subject the story of Oz is. Fortunately this bit of film history has not been lost.

RDenial This film is included in the "More Treasures of the American Film Archive" DVD. The running time is listed at 13 minutes. It kind of looks like a junior high school production of "the Wizard of Oz" with people dressed up in costumes to portray Toto, the Cowardly Lion, Imogene the Cow and what appears to be a donkey. The latter two accompany Dorthy to the Emerald City with the all the rest. The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodsman are not too bad, and not that far removed from the 1939 Classic. The Wizard himself looks like the 19th century Medicine Show man that the Wizard was supposed to be. It is interesting that they basically told the whole story in such a short time frame. This film is actually interesting to watch in a historical sense. For that reason I gave it a 9.

chucwill Though primitive by today's film-making standards (the animals are portrayed by humans crawling around on all fours in animal costumes, the storm-filled sky is little more than a revolving painted sheet), this early version of the L. Frank Baum classic is an interesting bit of film and Oz history. Though only ten minutes in length, it manages to capture the main points of the story in encapsulated form. Certain well-choreographed (albeit naive) dance numbers indicate that it may have been conceived as a musical long before the 1939 version, and 9-year-old Bebe Daniels (later the hard-boiled Broadway star in "42nd Street") is a competent actress.