Wizard of Oz

Compares book by L. Frank Baum & 1939 film, critical views, plot, characters, popularity.

L. Frank Baum created a magical place in his book The Wizard of Oz and in the many subsequent books he wrote about this fantastic land to which the Kansas farm girl, Dorothy, was transported by a tornado, and the film version of the book, made in 1939, offered a visualization of the creations of Baum in a colorful and appealing form. The film is different from the book in a number of ways, not only in terms of changes in the plot, but in terms of the accent placed on various ideas and in the way elements are dramatized. For one thing, of course, the movie is part musical, something never considered by Baum. Baum would likely have been favorably disposed to the movie given that he himself had written, produced, and directed several Oz films during the silent era. Baum wrote 13 Oz books, and the books were carried on after his death by others so that another 19…