The Marvelous Land of Oz - Film, TV or Theatrical Adaptations

Film, TV or Theatrical Adaptations

One early reviewer of The Marvelous Land of Oz noted that some details in the book clearly appeared to be designed for stage production—in particular, "General Jinjur and her soldiers are only shapely chorus girls." Since the stage adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had been a huge hit, with two companies still touring the country as the second book was published, the reviewer's suspicion was both natural and accurate: Baum wrote a stage adaptation called The Woggle-Bug that was produced in Chicago the summer of 1905. (The detail of Tip/Ozma's sex change, which can raise a range of psychological speculations in modern readers, made perfect sense in terms of early twentieth-century stage practice, since the juvenile male role of Tip would have been played by an actress as a matter of course.) The musical score was composed by Frederic Chapin, and Fred Mace played the Woggle-Bug. (Baum had wanted Fred Stone and David Montgomery to reprise their roles as the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman for the second show, but the two refused, fearing typecasting, and the characters were omitted completely form the play.) The play, unfortunately, was a flop.

In addition to being part of the basis for Baum's The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, Land of Oz was the final 1910 Selig Polyscope Oz film, and has been brought to the screen several additional times. The Land of Oz, a Sequel to the Wizard of Oz was a two-reel production by the Meglin Kiddies made in 1931 and released in 1932. The film was recently recovered, but the soundtrack of the second reel is missing. The Wonderful Land of Oz (1969) was a studio-bound production from independent filmmaker Barry Mahon, which starred his son, Channy, as Tip. Mahon had previously produced nudie films; however, those films were made in New York, while Oz was made in Florida, and neither Caroline Berner (as Jinjur) nor the rest of her army were drawn from his former casts. Filmation's Journey Back to Oz (1971), recast the army of revolt with green elephants and Tip with Dorothy, but was essentially an unaccredited adaptation of this book. Elements from this novel and the following one, Ozma of Oz, were incorporated into the 1985 film Return to Oz featuring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy. It is also adapted in Ozu no Mahōtsukai and the Russian animated film, Adventures of the Emerald City: Princess Ozma (2000).

The story was dramatized on the TV series "The Shirley Temple Show" in a one-hour program broadcast on September 18, 1960, with a notable cast including Shirley Temple as Tip and Ozma, Agnes Moorehead as Mombi the witch, Sterling Holloway as Jack Pumpkinhead, and Mel Blanc as the voice of the Saw-Horse and others.

The Wizard of Oz screenwriter Noel Langley registered an unproduced script with the U.S. Copyright Office which framed the story as the dream of an orphaned girl named "Tippie".

A new stage production of The Marvelous Land of Oz was mounted in Minneapolis in 1981, with music composed by Richard Dworsky, a book by Thomas W. Olson, and lyrics by Gary Briggle, who originated the role of the Scarecrow. This play stayed close to the novel, eliminating some stage-difficult moments and expanding the role of Jellia Jamb. The play was premiered by The Children's Theatre Company and School of Minneapolis, and a recording of the production was made available by MCA Video. The professional and community theatre rights to the play are currently available.

The 1905 Woggle-Bug script has not been published, though it has been preserved on microfilm. Its songs were published, and a collected volume was published by Hungry Tiger Press in 2001. The book was out of print for a while, but is now available again.

In 1985, the Windham Classics text adventure of the Wizard of Oz adapted much of the plot of this book, however it did not include the bespelled Ozma. At the story's conclusion Tip is crowned King of Oz.

Elements of the 2007 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Tin Man also borrow from this book as much as it did the Wizard of Oz. The protagonist, like Tip/Ozma, was a lost princess sent away from The O.Z. and magically altered to forget much of her previous existence.